The lacuna is what is missing (originally referring to a holein a manuscript). Those who churn out texts on our site create the possibility for a lacuna, but it is the silent hole in the midst of the babbling texts which is the lacuna. It takes both to make the lacuna, the text and the absence. To withhold words is to be in the lacuna, and perhaps closer to the heart of the mystery. There’s a work ethic implied here, I think; in fact, I’ve seen it at work in many instances of creative collaboration. Presence and absence are both necessary to create the mystery of collaboration: one person may define the possibility of a hole by revealing a boundarywhile another personis actually part of the substance of the gap (if a gap has a substance–maybe you can “take up residence in the gap”).Holding eitherposition implies astrategy and an approach, as does the possibility of moving from presence to absence and back.
Writing and reading (and acting and speaking) are ways of responding to the lacuna in ourselves as we find a new lacuna in our midst…grasshopper.
The title was meant to be somewhat ironic, not feel-good. I didn’t make explicit the thought that anyone who stumbles upon our site, reads a bit, and them moves on, adding comments or not, is also part of the lacuna. Even those who never go to the site and have never heard of it are, we can safely assume, also part of the lacuna.
So vhat does he vant, louder or softer?
So, Lacuna is an unspoken bond?
I couldn’t say.
To me, as an armchair Lacanian, “Lacuna” signifies the lack in the Other.
Or wouldn’t say. Bill’s intervention gnaws and compels me to say more. Yes, a bond. Yes, the longing for a bond in the midst of my insecurity. Trying to turn the silence into a potency (and potential). Bond as a silent link. A defense and a wish at once: connection, but on my terms. Though I invite others to offer their terms (and terms as words, too). Bond (this term chosen by a saavy analyst, I feel) also brings to mind a promise of payment. And my conditions? Hmm. My pound of flesh? Pounding flesh. Just mine? Can I save myself from masturbatory solipcism by invoking the lacuna? At a certain level, performance for me is all about flesh pounding and a certain polymorphous perversity–an activity which exacts a pound of flesh from everyone in the execution.
Unspoken bond, though, implies an understanding. Maybe not. Maybe just a guarantee of security. I don’t promise understanding because I would spend too much time pretending to understand.
And…I have to…does the bond leave us shaken or stirred? Neither?
I’m going for lack of the Other. The lacuna is in me, in my character. The audience attends because they have a lack in themselves, almost assuredly unperceived, that they will reshape by watching me. (No, Marc, I do not say fill.)
To attempt to fill the lack in the other is certainly an audacious choice for an artist to make. There’s an article in my “lab manual” in which I liken it to trying to fill the hole in the donut. There are some cute turns and friendly provocations in that article. Do we blog it Dale? Can the server handle the donut schematics?