AD603 Critical Theory

While there seemed to be a more clear connection with Freud’s ideas in regards to fine art — both in the motivation to create and the ways that fine art may be interpreted, the connection to industrial design seems a bit less direct

In industrial design, the process is very often a team effort and the clients needs may actually drive the process more than the needs or desires of the ultimate user the product, for example, a manufacturing cost target may supersede added design features. But I did find relevance in the discussion of the importance of the unconscious in the workings of our mind, in that this provides an explanation for behavior I’ve observed in the process of developing new products.

Freud’s ideas stress the power and importance of what may be subconscious and/or unconscious, which is particularly interesting when considering the typical design process in which the process and factors that drive the design process are highly conscious while many reasons to select or purchase a product are not.  Likewise, a significant portion of the satisfaction a user receives from a product may be subconscious or unconscious.  I’ve witnessed the demonstration of these principles participating in user research related to new product development and design validation.  Despite the popular concentration on designing for users emotions and/or experience that is currently in vogue, most research aimed at discovering “emotional data” rely on the users articulation of these emotions – more often than not, users have trouble putting their feelings into words possibly because the underlying basis for these feelings may not be tenable through conscious thought.  I’ve seen researchers attempt to deal with the perceived problem of articulation by asking questions in several slightly different ways and then trying to correlate the results, or even ask users to respond by matching imagery rather than using words.  While both of these approaches may address the difficulty users may have in dealing with the problems of language, they may not be exposing the more powerful underlying reasons for a reaction- the subconscious underlying basis for emotions.  Perhaps free association - borrowing from dream analysis may be a more fruitful exercise. 

Psychologists are in fact involved in marketing efforts to make products more desirable to consumers. The concepts of the Pleasure Principle are certainly used in generating product propaganda to increase sales, promising a range of pleasures that ownership and use of a product may bring, usually by associating product ownership or use with increased sexual atttractiveness – but perhaps a better understanding of unconscious issues could be used for non capitalist motives.  For example, if the rapport between a product and its user could be enhanced, or, changed to the point that the user would be moved to repair a product rather than to replace it, this may  And, certainly subconscious connections are partially responsible for product semantics, and the power of symbolic archetypes that play an important role in the response a user has upon first encounter with a product.

I’ve never had the opportunity to read Freud too much in depth. In fact, I plead guilty to having associated the word “subconscious” to Freud. I felt called out on it in The Freud Reader on page 576, footnote 1: “{Freud virtually never uses “subconscious” or “subconsciousness.” But the term has retained its popularity. When it is employed to say something “Freudian,” it is proof that the writer has not read his Freud.”

The unconscious use of the term “subconscious” is extremely ironic! But I digress… My point is that I now know that my knowledge about Freud was crumb-sized. I have grasped the basic concepts of the Conscious and Unconscious (is anyone else having a lot of trouble spelling those correctly?) and the elements which revolve around the two: ego, id, superego.

Of course I don’t believe everything the man says (especially given our recent understanding that society is highly manipulated by itself) but Freud’s ideas do provoke me very much. Out of all the new and fascinating ideas my mind absorbed, I found that the notion of “superego” was most fascinating. I am really intrigued by the connection between superego and father figures. I also really enjoyed learning more about the Oedipus complex. I had to go back to the old files in my brain from sophomore year Lit. Trad. and Greek mythology. Overall, Freud’s emphasis on the idea of parenting, “father,” control, surveillance, supervision (and all matters superego) sparked an interest in the idea of creation and parenting.

Visual Art and Design involves the manufacturing of products– a creative act. We make things. Our products are realizations of our dreams, in many ways. In the same way that conscious thoughts are unearthed, topographically, through the links made between the unconscious and the preconcious, our products also progressively evolve into actualizations. In the same ways that the ego constantly moderates the id (whether consciously or unconsciously), we moderate our products. Our products, because they are created, have parents. But who is the parent?

If the ego is supposed to be the mental agency that supervises its own constituent process and the superego supervises that, then the superego chimes in like a parent (or father figure to keep it consistent with Freud). I understand that the way I execute my ideas both conceptually and formally are closely related to my unconscious desires. But now, I am questioning my incessant need for creating things. I know I have to create on a daily basis, but why? Is it because I enjoy what happens physically when I force the media (usually phallic-like) to invade the surface of the paper, a container?

Is it because I have, somewhere along the lines lost something and am melancholically trying to replace it? Are my products replacements for things I am missing? Do I feel an unconscious urge to control things that are much larger than I am?

Also, where is the superego in all of this? I feel sometimes that Purdue, as an institution, and, namely, this MFA program, along with all the “authority” figures can physically embody the superego that Freud refers to. 

Then I ask myself: am I staying true to my ID? If my work is supposed to be an extrapolation of my soul, shouldn’t it (the work) be uninhibited? The ego (me) and the id (exterior controlling factors) get in the way. In my work, I intentionally incorporate elements that seem uninhibited and natural. But in doing so intentionally, am I not defying the purpose? Am I, in attempting to control my passions, my my own superego, then? Am I my father? If not, who is?

I found this website a long time ago of found lists and I check it regularly and am consistently amused. It is interesting to post written documents that were not created for the purpose of observation. These notes and lists are records of an individual’s conversation with him/herself. We don’t know who they are and that is not even important. The important part, to me, is the illogical connections that people make in list-form. They are illogical, uninhibited, unafraid, and yet, they make perfect sense to the individual who created them. 

Here is one that I personally love:

Here is the website, itself.

Till now there exists a huge argument towards Freud’s theories. Some suspect what he talked about is not science thus can not be widely accepted while other believes he can not justify himself in certain areas. Two groups of concepts frequently mentioned are: ID, Ego, Super-Ego and Conscious, Unconscious, Preconscious as well as the complicated relationships involved in them.

 I think ID means the original aspects of the human personality which includes desire, impulse and energy to survive. ID can lead us find the happiness and avoid pains thus is not restrict by social moral and regulation. Its aim is to pursue happiness and convenience, survival and reproduction. It is unconscious and can not be aware of.

 Ego is unconscious and can help us realize our thinking, perceiving judgment and memory. Its function is help ID and satisfy while at the same time provide protection. If ID pursues happiness, then Ego provides method to achieve this aim.

 Super-Ego is the ideal part of the human personality and come into being in the process of one’s growing up. It pursues perfection and is unconscious and not realistic as ID.

 Obviously there are several dynamic features and structural roles working in human personality. We always say those come from our mind and Freud divides the mind into two parts: the preconscious which contains all the ideas and memories capable of becoming conscious and the unconscious made up of desires, impulses or wishes of a mostly sexual and sometimes destructive nature. As a designer, I have ideas, memories, desires, impulses, wishes and with the help of the pleasure principle and the reality principle, I will have inspiration and this process is preconscious and unconscious. It is interesting that the real word has an impact on our mind and we design something for this world through a preconscious and unconscious process. Then the objects we designed become a part of the real world and have impacts on people’s mind. This circle becomes endless that we are influenced by the results of the preconscious and unconscious system in our mind. This may also explain how people create the illusion of this world and the spectacle of society.

 Then the existence of unconscious is necessary as I explained above. Talking about Ego and ID, they are both unconscious, Ego is influenced by perception while ID is influenced by instinct. The two characters are understood by the commercial society who takes its advantage in the society of consumption. We pursue our happiness and pick up the goods we want by instinct. However, the way we pursue our happiness relies on the perception. Anxiety is the proper human signal of weakness in the ego because the ID pursuing the happiness. Then Ego produces the repression to defense against this defect. Look at the customers in the department stores, ‘I want to buy something’ and ‘I am going to buy something’ are two different kinds of things. Without the Ego, we can not imagine the world full of people’s ID.

 This picture shows the spectacle of shopping at the weekend in the city of Cheng Du, China in the year 1999. What standing there, are not the shells of people, instead, are their ID and Ego.

Most likely everyone has heard about Freud, he is referred to in so many things.  I had somewhat of an understanding of who he was and what he did.  In reading the texts I got a better understanding of what he was trying to accomplish, as well as his views on how we operate as people, or did I?

The Freud for Beginners was straight forward and of course easy to understand, you get an understanding as to how the ego, id and super ego function according to Freud.  I feel like this reading was going to be a good introduction to the next two readings by Peter Gay.  As I the reading about the unconscious, I stop and get the dictionary, then continue on with the reading, then looking up something, then stopping and trying understand what I just read, this continues through out the entire reading I feel the need to understand the text before going on to the next.  The sad thing is that I am truly interested in understanding all of this, critical theory, how we work as beings.  In going through the entire text again trying to remember my previous understanding about this and that as well as what that word meant, I find that I need to go back and read The Freud for Beginners once more.  This just took me back to square one, ok a basic understanding as to what Freud accomplished in his research, and that’s about it.  So, screw it, I just can’t follow how the conscious, the unconscious, and the preconscious, or the Cs, Ucs, Pcs, USB all work.  I feel like an old man at a nursing home complaining about everything, CAN SOMEONE MAKE ME A DAMN CHART?!?!?!

Continuing on to the Ego and Id reading, yes I am going to say it, lost me on this one as well, though not as much as the reading on the unconscious.  So what I can say is that the Id is basically any innate behavior (?) the ego is what we use to present ourselves with, or as (?) and the unconscious has so many layers and ways of working that no one will ever truly understand, maybe?  I need to find more beginner, and introduction style books that are more comprehensive on what Freud, Lacan, Adorno, etc….  I guess that I am admitting that my brain is too small to comprehend any of this, or maybe my ego is just getting in the way.  My ego is most likely jealous of the fact that it cannot sound as intelligent as Freud, Marx or anyone else that we have read about so far.

On to something I can bring to the table for show and tell, I give myself; I mean Guy Ritchie (damn ego) credit for the 2005 movie Revolver.  It your typical Ritchie film complete with gangsters, and so on with somewhat of a twist, the movie plays with the ego trying to make the standard gangster film have a little depth to it.  This might not be the best guide to understanding the ego, but based on the fact that most of us need some sort of entertainment to understand anything, you might take a look at it.

Freud id a trip. Oh wait; what I meant to say is Freud is a trip. Hehe… Ok, so that’s not very funny. And, although I thought these readings were very funny; in fact every time I read Freud I get the giggles. Perhaps it has something to do with identifying an Oedipus complex in little boys…who knows. In any case, even though I continue to find Freud just a little funny, I do have some questions about the Id, the Ego, and the Superego, in regards to the conscious and the unconscious.

I Understand that some of these aspects to the consciousness sometimes breach and/or are part of both the conscious and unconscious; however, I am curious about when in a child’s development do these aspect become prevalent. When does a child become aware of rationality or passionate feelings? The Freud Reader identifies the id as the part that is passionate and the ego as rationale and reason. So, when a young child is consumed by his unconscious, when does he start to be conscious of reason to undermine his passion?

When does he stop being hateful and fearing his mother, and use reason to determine that she might be all right after all?

For that matter, The Freud Reader discusses that the only way we can be aware of the unconscious is to be aware that it exists (or at least that’s what I thought he said). Well, thank you Freud, I can now identify something because I can identity it? It sounds awfully cyclical to me. However, it does make sense. The only way that we can be aware of unconscious thoughts, feelings, or impulses is to be aware that they can occur. Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of Freud to explain to us what those impulses are, how they occur, and what they mean.

This idea makes me a little squeamish. We are so worried about corporations having monopolies on commodities in small communities, but we will sit back and let Freud tell us that are feelings of angst are because we are trying to find a replacement for a penis. Freud has a monopoly on our unconscious’s. Yikes.

Furthermore, there is the idea of the Freudian Slip. Like, the topography of our unconscious somehow rise above the topography of our conscious during conversation and, Whoops! We said something we didn’t mean… except we really did mean it.

Here’s a funny clip…George Bush is fantastic…

 you tube!

So, at least in this reading the Freudian slip wasn’t addressed…was it really Freud who thought of that any way? Who knows…Whoever thought of it, I think its pretty funny…

I found myself relating to Sigmund Freud’s theories on a very personal level; analyzing my own dreams, desires and impulses through the cathexis of my unconscious mind.  I thoroughly enjoyed the thought-provoking ideas encouraged by this week’s reading, until it was time to find a persuasive link between psychoanalysis and my field of expertise: Interior Design.

I spent the entire weekend in the studio, working on the development of a space that respects the preservation of the buildings history and revitalizes the urban community.  It was during the conceptual phase of the project that it occurred to me just how much time was being invested in the analysis of human interaction and behavior in order to determine an appropriate use for the selected tenant space.  I’ve divided the properties of a design process into three distinct facets: the Interior Designer, the space that is created and the user of that space.

There is a direct correlation between the facets mentioned above and Freud’s dynamic model of the mind, which consists of the ID, EGO and SUPER-EGO.  It can be argued that as a designer, I am past the psyche of a newborn child, but in the grand scheme of a design process, the product I plan to develop will not be in contact with the external world until it has been fully cultivated.  This part of the process is by no means uncoordinated (like a new born child), but simply exists as unconscious desires that can be modified by the ego, or rather the space that is created.  The constructed space is no longer a design process, but a reality that developed from the ID.  The EGO or the constructed space acts as an object that will eventually allow behavior to occur, when the time is right. The time is right when the space is constructed and ready to be used and observed by someone other than the Interior designer. The SUPER-EGO, which represents the user and/or observer of the interior space, is the moral part of the equation, in which the individual uses personal and social influences to determine the value and impact that the space has on them. The SUPER-EGO is directly linked to our conscious as it helps us decide (based on our past experience and external influences) whether something is good or bad, pretty or ugly.

Below is a visual example from the project that I have been working on all weekend.  The boards represent the first two properties of a design process: the first of the ID – the analysis and research set forth for the development of a desired space and the second of the EGO – the manifestation of the space in the form of reality, derived from the primitive psyche of the ID.

The Marketplace - Board 1 & 2

Seeing as this project is a competition, I’m hoping that in the future I can share with you images of the SUPER-EGO, the space being used by people who consciously decide on its value and success.  I should also mention that this was a group project - I don’t want to take credit for all the work.

Perhaps it was my multiple trips to the vet this week, but as I read our Freud selections, I kept coming back to the question of whether or not these Freudian theories apply to animals.

In the first packet reading, Peter Gay (directly translating Freud?) flatly states that applying the theory of unconscious to animals is not widely accepted (575).  I could not decipher if he meant that Freud would not accept this theory, or if the general science community would not.  In any case, I hope this isn’t a case of human beings believing all other beings to be below them – we should at least give them enough credit to have the mental capacity for both a conscious and unconscious.  As Gay goes on to explain, one can only assume, when dealing with the mental workings of our fellow men, that other humans have a consciousness, and this assumption is only possible by observing their utterances and actions (575).  This same theory seems applicable to our non-human counterparts, as the only way we have to learn about them is through observation and assumption.   In fact, a few of the “proof” examples of human conscious and unconscious given in this week’s readings can be directly applied to our observations of animals thus far.

Animals use problem-solving.  Freud for Beginners states that because humans are able to manage the urges of the Pleasure Principal (the primal, uncontrollable mind) with the Reality Principal (practical, systematic mind), we demonstrate a proof of the existence of both the unconscious and conscious sectors of our mental processes (69).  The ability to get food (primal need) by building a trap (practical thought) is cited.  That non-captive animals solve this problem every day should be evidence enough to say they, too, operate with at least the same base processes as humans.  Yes, they somehow have the “instinct” to do so, and capturing prey might be completely innate, but there are many instances where animals have adapted their techniques to fit a situation.  I cite, for example, Israeli crows using bread to fish.  It is fairly safe to say that bread is not a product of crow evolution, but rather an introduced “tool” the birds have utilized fulfill the need to feed themselves with fish.  The bird even pulls the bait bread gradually closer and closer to trick the fish into a catch-zone.  Amazing.

Animals dream.  Freud for Beginners also mentions dreams as another measure of human unconsciousness.  The packet says that “dreams represent the fulfillment of [unconscious] wishes (60).”  As mentioned earlier, primal needs (food, shelter, sexual drives, etc.) are expressed via the unconscious, and conscious actions are then taken as a result.  Essentially, dreams, if present, are essentially windows into the unconscious mind.

No doubt pet owners in our class have observed their furry, four-legged companion running, making noises, and otherwise appearing to be dreaming while sleeping.  Amusing as it seems, there is now evidence in lab rats that animals truly are dreaming, and those dreams are based on daily experiences.  It should come as no surprise, then, that most often the maze rats dreamed of getting food at the end of the race.  Fulfillment of that primal need for food is expressed through the unconscious in the form of a dream, just as Freud says happens in humans.  Granted, these rate dreams aren’t complex enough to need Freud’s interpretation methods, but these rats don’t lead very complex lives, either.  I guess it’d be about the same as testing a newborn baby’s dreams.

Animals have memory.   Okay, this is getting lengthy, so I’ll try to wrap up quickly.  In the first packet, Peter Gay states that, “…latent memories are taken into consideration, it becomes totally incomprehensible how the unconsciousness can be denied (574).”  If we did not have an unconscious, Gay suggests that all our memories would constantly be in our conscious mind, thus proving the existence of a non-conscious area.  The unconscious acts as file storage area for info until we need it.

 Well, why wouldn’t animals be able to have memories?  One touching example of an animal recalling a latent memory is in the tale of Christian the Lion, who recognized his original owners after a year of life in the wild.  Whitney Houston tear-jerkers aside, this lion obviously responded to his sensory cues, which recalled his memories and told him he loves these guys, they are safe, and, damn, wasn’t it awesome driving around hipster London in a posh Bentley?  Christian, after a year fending for himself, no longer needed to depend on his owners for food; his memory, though, was a positive association, so he also didn’t need to depend on the owners as food when encountering them after such a long absence.  His memory prevented carnage.  This isn’t to say that instinct would never take over (see: When Animals Attack 4), but it was a least a brief bit of proof of memory in an animal.

            This post isn’t meant to be scientific proof.  It was just interesting applying Freud’s theories to something other than Oedipal complexes and sexual repression.

This was by far the most difficult reading to date. I am glad I am not the only one left feeling this way. Or at least that is what my conscious is feeling; subconsciously, I associate Freud with negative latent memories from childhood. I don’t mean that. I really don’t know what I mean at this point. In fact, I don’t think I have ever been so confused in academia in my whole life. That is, except for one other time. Ironically enough, this one other time also had a lot to with latent sexual content and the unconscious. It also had to do with art. I of course could only be referring to my intro to sculpture class many years ago back at UIC. I had one of those teachers who felt that art could not be censored, and proceeded to constantly show us disturbing, macabre, pseudo-sexual video installation art. (This was his genre) Reading Freud, desperately trying to figure out where the ego, superego and id fit into any kind of design or art, I remembered this film we watched in class. We were actually forced to sit through 3 parts of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle. For those of you unfamiliar with Matthew Barney

1. You are so lucky and untainted
2. He is the stereotypical definition of pretentious installation artist
3. He is married to Bjork
4. His films are pretty much long, horrific dream sequences. I can just see him and Freud knocking back a sixer, disucussing the ego, superego and id, thinking up the horrors of the unconscious and how to represent them in video and sound in 5 two hour installments.

So because I am unable to grasp Freud well enough to write any kind of comprehensible response, here is my best attempt at interpreting what he is trying to say through an existing artists work.

A clip from Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle part 3

SO……if i had to put a visual on Freud’s psychoanalysis of the subconscious…….there it is…

So somewhere in between the chorus line of sheep girls, the punk battle between agnostic front and murphy’s law (while artist Richard Serra throws ladles of Vaseline against the corner), the pink half-naked cheetah pouncing around the Guggenheim, and Matthew Barney himself with a giant feathered cap and a bloody rag coming out of his mouth, we get the psychoanalysis.  The best part is that this insanity (the conscious) actually has a latent meaning (over all, the reproductive cycle, more specifically to this part, the initiation rights of the Masons……) If this doesn’t scream Freudian theory, i dont know what does.  And i really mean that, what does?  I really, really dont get this.  At all.

****P.S.  If you think this film was weird, you have no idea, i showed you the safe for classroom part, it gets ten times weirder and more graphic.  And maybe on a subconcious level, thats why i switched from studio arts to industrial design.  Thanks Freud.

For the previous year or so I have been sifting (at time trudging) through some Post-Freudian psychoanalyst texts by theorists such as D.W. Winnicott, Melanie Klien and a bit of Jacques Lacan. I am strongly interested in their work due to my attempt to develop a content about the psychology behind (and perhaps within) play and toys in my own work. Having not focused directly on the basics of Freudian theory in a long while, revisiting the concepts that the Post-Freudians has used as a jumping point for their own research (be it in agreement with and expanding of or at times contrasting those theories, such as is found with Lacan) was probably a very good idea.

In this revisit and expansion of Freudian concepts, I found myself often considering the similarities to and differences between his work and that of the next generation of psychoanalysts that followed him (well, at least house that I am so far aware of). One obvious aspect of difference between them was that Freud felt that children couldn’t be psychoanalyzed, because their ego has yet to be fully developed. Klein (who worked nearly exclusively with children) felt there was much that could be learned from children which often paralleled that of which could be learned form adults and/or at times that which is inaccessible in psychoanalysis of adults. For instance she often saw similarities in the coping strategies found in children’s play (as a defense against paranoid and defensive anxiety) to that seen in psychotic symptoms that can develop as coping strategies in adulthood. She not only thought child psychoanalysis was as fruitful as adult psychoanalysis, she believed there where aspects of the human psyche that could be glimpsed into with children that could no longer been seen after the repressive defense of the Ego fully sets in.

“One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults.” (Klien, The Psychoanalytic Play Technique: Its History and Significance, 1955)

Winnicott also worked with children, having first been a pediatrician and applying that experience toward building his theories. He developed further theories in regards to the relationship of a child specifically to his/her mother both in pre-oedipal and post-oedipal stages and her impact on the child’s development (idea of the “good enough mother”: there is no such thing as a good mother, only good enough) and the objects she allows him/her to replace her with (Melanie Klien championed a similar theory called “Object Relations” that Winnicott borrowed from). But, I am perhaps getting way too carried away here with talking about those who worked after Freud than Freud himself.

For me these readings are of interest because without his breakthroughs of the concepts of conscious, preconscious, unconscious and ego, superego, and id, etc. Post-Freudian theory wouldn’t exist as it does. Insight into the development of child to adult play and imagination, which directly affect the content of my work, needed the Freudian jumping point of which to expand upon and at times perhaps defy. That being said, the readings really just caused me to want to dive that much deeper into the Klien and Winnicott books (and perhaps a bit of Lacan, though he does cause my head to explode multiple times while reading) that are sitting ever so close to me across my desk right now (sort of like watching a prequel film, that may in itself be fairly good, but you know you love the next movie so you sorta just want to watch that instead).

I suppose since I have basically just talked about Klein and Winnicott I will post a short little video that very basically goes over some of Winnicott’s work with the Transitional Object theory and how he related that to art (realizing now that I didn’t talk about art at all, which is very important to Winnicott, but as it is, I seem to never be able to keep these posts sort, so here we go):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jxPiGr0h4E

   I have been liked the idea of Freud’s theory since when I studied psychology in undergraduate, however, I could not expected to think about theory between Freud and art.  After reading this week, I found the logic of artists’ thinking and their concept of works. Actually I realized that Freud had been enormously influence on Surrealism (also Dadaism), especially most outstanding Surrealism artists like Joan Moro, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dail, who concerned about their artistic contents were dream, madness, abnormal, and bad dream, which are an unconscious matters. In Freud’s view, the id is unconscious which is not contact with reality.

   Actually I agree with his theory the Ego and id, I think most surrealism subjects related to id and unconscious I am pretty sure is not Ego or Super-ego, because they always deal with personality, unconscious experience and illusion, they tried to avoid the reality rather than fantasies, which means they wanted to say some dreams or fulfillment in their paintings than conscious mind and real life as well.  

   In addition, Freud was talked about childhood conflicts with parents and sexual desire. “At a very early age the little boy develops an objects-cathexis for his mother, which original related to the mother’s breast and is the prototype of an object-choice on the anaclitic model; the boy deals with his father by identifying himself with him. For a time these two relationships proceed side by side, until the Boy’s sexual wishes in regard to his mother become more intense and his father is perceived as an obstacle to them” (p.640) I believe that most artists’ works influenced by their life of childhood and personal experience, it is not limited on Surrealism artists.  I would like to introduce my favorite Photographer Jan Saudek. He was born in 1935 and resides in Prague, Czech Republic, also His father and family was a Jew. Since he was 5 years old in 1938, many of his family members persecuted and died by Germans during the World War II.  He survived the war and became a serious art photographer. His works based on themes of personal erotic freedom, nudes, dream imagery and innocent. Some people can say that some his works like pornography. However In my view, Jan Saudek is a great artist not even photographer. Atually I don’t know what happened his childhood, however I can imagine from works how difficult of his childhood and unusual, which involved the unconscious thinking. Many of Saudek’s models include his wives, girlfriends, cousin, children, and himself. I’d like to say that the concept of his work is human and family but is abnormal; it would be involved sense of sexuality. I think sometimes his works are represent Oedipus situation or feminism; also gives me the feeling of macabre and grotesque, because the subjects are not concern about the ego or super-ego. “What I really do is portraits of the soul”. Jan Saudek said.

Photography by Jan Saudek 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OewcX2UzMqo&feature=related

Jan Saudek documentary Film preview.