In Lacan’s Mirror Stage, he describes humans and their understanding of the mirror stage as the relationship between a human and their reality (p. 97). When a baby is about eighteen months, they have reached an age in which they can understand that the image they see in a mirror is simply a reflection of themselves. They will see it as an image that copies what they do, but they understand that is not their true selves in the mirror (p. 95). This is different from animals as they do not have the same capacity to understand that their mirrored image is simply a reflection, they see it as another organism of their kind or they can simply not notice it at all. Understanding the mirror stage for humans leads to our dependence on it and thus our reflection actually becoming the reality as what we see ourselves. Our image is what we see most, and because of this dependence, it switches the roles and our true selves become the imaginary version, and our reflection becomes the real version (p. 98). Additionally, the outside world directly influences what and how we see our own mirror images (ourselves as people). Lacan also described the mirror stage in speaking about existentialism and psychology. The mirror stage allows us to see our ego in a state of false reality; this is the root of the problem people face with understanding our existence and being. Psychologists can try to help this by making light of our false ego we see in the mirror stage. While they can’t make us see the truth, they can explain the mirror image and its effects on our reality and hope that we come to understand the truth about what is reality and what is not.
What stuck with me most in this reading (from what little I could comprehend from it) was the idea of a false reality. It’s intriguing thinking about that what we see in a mirror becomes the true version of ourselves, only since that’s the only way we can see ourselves. It’s scary, knowing that we will never see ourselves how other’s really do. It makes more sense to me why so many people question themselves, how can anybody be sure of themselves in this case? I’m not sure visually what my next assignment will be, but I know it must question this idea of a false sense of one’s reality and the unsureness/sureness of themselves. I want to express that feeling of confusion, blindness, misunderstanding, and perhaps contrast it with a confident, clear visual of understanding. Either through a diptych or a combination of feelings into one, I want to show the blurry lines of this idea, and the attempt to find grounded lines within it. Perhaps I can find a way to do this through painting, to really make clear those lines but also blur them as well.
