Semblances of the Real

The Real is an elusive concept in Lacanian psychoanalysis that resists direct representation. In the workshop Semblances of the Real, artists, writers, and philosophers will explore how the Real can nonetheless appear in contemporary art. The workshop with Alenka Zupančič argues that semblance must be both affirmed and interrupted, creating a space where desire and expression are reconfigured. Traditionally, semblance was tied to beauty, later aesthetics introduced the sublime as its counterpoint. The workshop examines how art, by suspending and altering semblance, might reveal a different encounter with the Real – going beyond the dichotomy of the beautiful and the sublime.

Alenka Zupančič will discuss these questions of arts, aesthetics, and ethics in dialogue with artist Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta, curator Nicolas Brulhart, art historian and philosopher Toni Hildebrandt, artist and philosopher Eleanor Ivory Weber, and artist Sarah Rosengarten.