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art communication book frontispiece engraving leviathan esposito communitas freud father son murder violence death sacrifice

✖ Via Wikimedia Commons: book frontispiece by Abraham Bosse for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651). It was created with input from Hobbes. [click for hi-res]

Learn more about the frontispiece on wikipedia.

Here’s another way to interpret this illustration:

The incorporation of the father on the part of the sons corresponds to the incorporation of the sons of the part of which, upon the death of the father, substitutes for him. What else does the celebrated image of the Leviathan represent, composed as it is of many small human forms wedged in together one against the other in the shape of a scale of impenetrable armor, if not the inclusion again of the murderous sons on the part of the “second” father in one’s own body? (Communitas. The Origin and Destiny of Community by Roberto Esposito, trans. by Thimothy Campbell, Standford: Stanford University Press, [1998]2010, p. 40)

• Jul 09, 2010 link notes tagged: art communication book frontispiece engraving Leviathan Esposito communitas Freud father son murder violence death sacrifice

One day the expelled brothers joined forces, slew and ate the father, and thus put an end to the father horde. Together they dared and accomplished what would have remained impossible for them singly. Perhaps some advance in culture, like the use of a new weapon, had given them the feeling of superiority. Of course these cannibalistic savages ate their victim. This violent primal father had surely been the envied and feared model for each of the brothers. Now they accomplished their identification with him by devouring him and each acquired a part of his strength. The totem feast, which is perhaps mankind’s first celebration, would be the repetition and commemoration of this memorable, criminal act with which so many things began, social organization, moral restrictions and religion.

✖ Via Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud, tr. Abraham Arden Brill, New York, Moffat, Yard and company, [1913]1919.

Previously on Skandalon: Freud

• Jul 09, 2010 link notes tagged: communication community hord father son parricide murder sacrifice death destruction life sacred violence society Freud psychoanalysis book author moral religion art totem taboo

In March 2003, Rumsfeld engaged in a little bit of amateur philosophizing about the relationship between the known and the unknown: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” What he forgot to add was the crucial fourth term: the “unknown knowns,” the things we don’t know that we know-which is precisely, the Freudian unconscious, the “knowledge which doesn’t know itself,” as Lacan used to say. If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the “unknown unknowns,” that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the “unknown knowns” - the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values. Thus, Bush was wrong. What we get when we see the photos of humiliated Iraqi prisoners is precisely a direct insight into “American values,” into the core of an obscene enjoyment that sustains the American way of life.

✖ Via “What Rumsfeld Doesn’t Know That He Knows About Abu Ghraib” by Slavoj Zizek, May 21st, 2004

First heard of this text via Errol Morris Twitter account. Errol Morris is still thinking about the Dunning-Kruger effect.

• May 08, 2010 link notes tagged: Agamben America Freud Iraq United-States communication homo sacer ignorance knowledge life philosophy science self torture unconscious value zombie cognitive bias Dunning-Kruger

art book author freud psychoanalysis reblog

✖ Via Dark Roasted Blend: “The Extraordinary Work of Ex-Libris Art” Nov. 20th, 2009

The “nude figure” is Oedipus. But the Greek inscription is much more relevant here ―on the ex-libris of the father of psychoanalysis― than the fact that a Oedipus is naked. The Greek inscription reads: “oV ta klein ainigmata hdei, kai kratistoV hn anhr”. It’s taken from Sophocles’ Oedipus King (vv. 1525) and it means:

The one who understood that celebrated riddle. He was the most powerful of men.

• Apr 17, 2010 link notes reblogged from libraryland [via] tagged: art book author Freud psychoanalysis

art junk food freud psychoanalysis recycling hack

✖ Via Vik Muniz: “Sigmund” from the Pictures of Chocolate series, 1997.

“Vik Muniz (born 1961) is a Brazilian born, New York based artist who experiments with media. […] In his picture of Sigmund Freud, he uses chocolate to render the image. For his Sugar Children series, Muniz went to a sugar plantation in St. Kitts to photograph children of laborers who work there. After he returned to New York, he bought some black paper and several kinds of sugar, and copied the snapshots of the children by layering the different types of sugar on the paper and photographing it. He made the images from the sugar at the plantation.” (Wikipedia)

Watch a TEDTalk video by Vik Muniz

• Feb 07, 2010 link notes tagged: art junk food Freud psychoanalysis recycling hack

art freud illustration illustrator sex girls woman humor cigar psychoanalysis

✖ Via

Nick Dewar: Freud (painted pictures)

“Born in Scotland, grew up in a small fishing town on the East Coast and attended Art School in Glasgow, lived in Prague, London, New York and on a sheep farm in Cumbria. After living in New York for nearly ten years I have recently moved to Southern California. I no longer have to bathe in my kitchen.” (more)

• Jan 31, 2010 link notes tagged: art Freud illustration illustrator sex girls woman humor cigar psychoanalysis