An Aesthetics Of Aging
Recall, reader if ever in the mountains a mist has
caught you, through which you could not see except
as moles do through skin …
Dante, Comedy1
ARGUMENT: THE RELEASE FROM THE BODILY EGO
Many recent studies on visual culture highlight the representation of the body in
photography as a signifier of social constructions. Photography however has always played an
important part in the construction of the subject, a perspective that I suggest in what follows,
one that combines analytical concepts with aspects of the phenomenology of perception,
indispensable for the understanding of art works and of our relation to them.
By contrast with the overexposure of the body in commercial photography,
photographers in the art field today represent the body as a visual metaphor for configurations
of interiority engaged in subject construction. Their insistence on formal aspects (of
composition and technique) displaces the focus from the physical to the psychic body so as to
“capture” unstable phenomena of change, of conflict in the subject’s relation to time. In Joyce
Tenneson’s photographs ordinary referents are obliterated to liberate space for other dimensions
* This paper is an abridged and adapted version of a chapter in an unpublished manuscript
devoted to photography, aging, and subject construction, entitled Touching Surfaces:
Photography and the Fabric of the Subject, in Time
1 This Dante fragment coming from Charles Singleton’s prose version of the Comedy
seems to me evocative of the « misty » visual effect in Tenneson’s photographs, and also of her
placing the lens of the camera much like a mole through the skin, to look at the human body
from an interstice, as it were, between the inside...
... middle of paper ...
... Collector’s Photography Magazine. June, 1987.
FREUD, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. The Standard Edition London: Hogarth Press & The
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GOLDBERG, Vicki. “Unwritten Myths.” Preface to Transformations.
MERRILL, James. “Divine Poem,” in Recitative. Prose by James Merrill. San Francisco:
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WINNICOTT, D.W. “Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self,” (1960). The
Maturational Process and Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional
Development. London: Hogarth Press & The Insititute of Psychoanalysis, 1965.
WOLLHEIM, Richard. “The Bodily Ego,” The Mind and Its Depths. Cambridge, Mass.:
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ADLER, Mortimer J. Editor in Chief. Great Books of the Western World. The Major Works of Sigmund Freud. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1996.
Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 to Jewish Galician parents in the Moravian town of Pribor in the Austrian Empire (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his education in the medical field, Freud decided to mix the career fields of medicine and philosophy to become a psychologist (“Sigmund Freud” n. pag). During his research as a psychologist, he conceived the Structural Model Theory, which he discussed in his essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The theory states that the human psyche is divided into three main parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. pag). He concluded that the id was the desire for destruction, violence and sex; the ego was responsible for intellect and dealing with reality; and the super-ego was a person’s sense of right and wrong and moral standards (Hamilton, n. pag). Freud argued that a healthy individual will have developed the strongest ego to keep the id and super-ego in check (“Id, Ego, and Super-ego” n. p...
Sigmund Freud’s theories on the construction of the mind are simple, but fundamentally changed the field of psychology. He proposed, among other things, that the human mind is composed of three parts: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The preconscious consists of information, such as a telephone number, that is “accessible to consciousness without emotional resistance” (Schellenberg 21). In Freud’s estimation, the unconscious is the most important area of the mind. The information stored within it has “very strong resistances” to becoming conscious (Freud 32). Residing in the unconscious is the id, which “contains everything…that is present at birth… – above all, therefore, the instincts which originate from somatic organization” (14). From birth, all action is instinctual, from the id. The id recognizes and entertains no desires but its own and is impatient to have its needs met. This phase lasts until a part of the id changes “under the influence of the real external world” (14). This changed portion b...
Contemporary Psychology, 36, 575-577. Freud, S. (1961). The Species of the World. The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud. London: The Hogarths.
In addition to Freud’s stages of development his best-known concepts are those of the id, ego, and superego (Crain, p. 268). The id personality called ‘the unconscious” is the personality that focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain through reflexes and drives such as hunger or bladder tensions (Crain, pp. 268-269). The id concept is impulsive, chaotic and unrealistic.
The Tenth edition. Edited by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman Publishers, pp. 113-117. 371-377.
Freud, S., & Strachey, J. (19621960). The Ego and the Super-ego. The ego and the id (pp. 19-20). New York: Norton.
Sigmund Freud, The Ego and Id, trans Joan Riviere (London and New York: W.W. Norton, 1960), 5-6; 8-9.
56, No. 3 (1989), pp. 543-569. The Johns Hopkins University Press. JSTOR. Web. 24 April 2014.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
Shorter 8th ed. of the book. New York: Norton, 2013. Print. The.
His research on children was lacking, as was his use of empirical studies, his research was male-dominated and also lacked universality. The theory of the id, ego and superego develops from birth into childhood; therefore, the use of case studies on adults and the lack of empirical study does not seem feasible enough to have developed this theory. First of all there is no guarantee that the memories of these adults in their childhood would be accurate, there was not any factual, re-testable data so it lacked reliability and validity, secondly each case and person’s experience is different and therefore cannot be used to determine the development of an entire population. Freud’s theory was further biased due to him overlooking social and environmental aspects, which prevent universality; he was a European man who researched other upper middle class Europeans whose everyday living and circumstances differed greatly from others in society.
“Psychological - or more strictly speaking, psychoanalytic -investigation shows that the deepest essence of human nature, which are similar in all men and which aim at the satisfaction of certain needs... [are] self-preservation, aggression, need for love, and the impulse to attain pleasure and avoid pain...” At its simplest form, this quote perfectly explains Sigmund Freud’s theory on human nature. Human beings, according to Freud, are in a constant state of conflict within themselves; trying to satisfy their animalistic instincts, while also maintaining a socially appropriate life. Freud termed these animalistic tendencies that we have, the Id. The Id is essentially our unconscious mind, it is the part of us that has been there since the day we were born and is what drives our life’s needs and desires. The Id simply aims to satisfy our sexual or aggressive urges immediately, without taking into account any further implications. On the other hand, Freud used the term, the Superego, to describe man’s conscience and sense of morality. It is the Superego’s job to keep the Id in check by combatting the desire to satisfy urges with the feeling of guilt or anxiety. Finally, the Ego, is the conscious representation of the constant battle between the Superego and the Id. It must work to satisfy human’s instinctual tendencies while taking into account their conscience and doing what is rational and acceptable. Freud argues that these internal process that are constantly at work in our mind are what shape humans to do the things that they do. Thus, he believes, the goal of human nature is to satisfy our basic aggressive and sexual desires while adhering to cultural and social standards.
Sigmund Freud is best known for his development and use of psychoanalysis. The theory of psychoanalysis focuses on the concept of how our unconscious thoughts, feelings, and emotions play an active role in our daily lives. The id, ego, and superego are the three mental zones that encompass our psyche. Each zone has a specific function: The id functions on the pleasure principle; the ego on the protection of the individual; and the superego on protection of society. The degree of which each zone has been developed can be broken down and then analyzed. These three zones can be visualized by imagining a pie cut into three slices.
Sigmund Freud was one of the original pioneers in the field of Psychology. The work that he accomplished throughout his lifetime laid a foundation for many theorists after him. The theorists that worked in Psychology, after Freud, were able to form their own thoughts, ideas, and hypotheses about the human mind after learning from his work. Sigmund Freud’s major contribution in the field of Psychology was his theory about the human psyche; which he called the Id, the Ego, and the Super-Ego. This theory was based on the human personality and its formation. Many of Freud’s analysis strategies became common practice in the field of Psychology and are still used today. Sigmund Freud will always be one of the most influential figures in the