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FREUD/LYNCH: BEHIND THE CURTAIN

A 2-day conference exploring the cinema of David Lynch through a psychoanalytic lens

Early bird booking until 2 April

The films of David Lynch are sometimes said to be unintelligible. They confront us with strange dreamscapes populated with bizarre characters, obscure symbols and an infuriating lack of narrative consistency. Yet despite their opacity, they hold us transfixed.

Lynch, who once told an interviewer “I love dream logic,” would surely agree with Sigmund Freud’s famous claim that “before the problem of the creative artist, psychoanalysis must lay down its arms.” But what else do the two agree on?

Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain takes as its point of departure that Lynch’s work is not so much unintelligible as ‘uncanny,’ revealing what Todd McGowan has termed “the bizarre nature of normality” – and the everydayness of what we take to be strange.

This conference invites psychoanalysts, scholars and cinephiles to reflect on these Lynchian enigmas. What do we mean by ‘Lynchian’? Beyond the apparent incoherence of his films, are there hidden logics at play? Are Lynch and Freud in alignment? And what light can psychoanalysis shed on the Lynchian uncanny?

Carol Owens
What’s so Lynchian About That? Defining a Cultural Moment with some Notes from the Couch

Olga Cox Cameron
Dream Logic in Mulholland Drive

Todd McGowan
Waiting for Agent Cooper: The Ends of Fantasy in Twin Peaks: The Return

Catherine Spooner
Wrapped in Plastic: Lynch and Costume

Jaice Sara Titus
Laughing it off? David Lynch and the Limits of Humour

(Chair TBC)
Panel discussion on Blue Velvet

Mary Wild
Lynch's Blurred Identity Trilogy

Richard Martin
The Architecture of David Lynch

Chris Rodley
Title TBC

Jamie Ruers
Art and Hysteria in David Lynch

Allister MacTaggart
“It is an Illusion”: The Artful Life of David Lynch

(Chair TBC)
Panel Discussion on Twin Peaks: The Return

Dream Logic in Mulholland Drive
Why not puncture bafflement with playful speculation? Mulholland Drive proves surprisingly amenable to the dream logic explored by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, so let’s see where it takes us.

Allister MacTaggart
“It is an Illusion”: The Artful Life of David Lynch
David Lynch is primarily known as a filmmaker whose singular cinematic/televisual creations have held audiences both spellbound and perplexed over several decades. Yet he initially trained as a fine artist and has continued to work as such throughout his life, using a wide variety of media to express his unique artistic vision across various fields. In this paper I will suggest that Lynch’s work, in whatever medium, is best understood as that of a visual (and sonic) artist. As such, the perceived lacunae or unintelligibility in it may be understood or “experienced” in other ways and, further, that psychoanalysis may help to bring to light various aspects of his work which have hitherto been less explored than others.

Richard Martin
The Architecture of David Lynch
Abstract TBC

Todd McGowan
Waiting for Agent Cooper: The Ends of Fantasy in Twin Peaks: The Return
This talk argues that the series Twin Peaks: The Return creates the expectation of Dale Cooper’s return as a fantasy figure capable of healing the wound of subjectivity itself only to show how he actually plays a crucial role in its perpetuation.

Carol Owens
What’s so Lynchian about that? Defining a cultural moment with some notes from “the couch”, or “Full of Freaks and Sad as Fucks”: On and off the couch with David Lynch
In the tenth episode of GirlBoss – the TV show “loosely based” on the online vintage shop Nasty Gal, aka the rags to riches story of Sophia Amoruso, there is a scene which quite simply could not have been written were it not for the constitutiveness of a certain moment which we can recognise as, properly speaking, “Lynchian”. Nasty Gal is accused of stealing business from other online vintage shops and there is some bad feeling about this, mostly via some hilarious threads on the online forum, mise en scene for us on the TV show as a “real” forum with the members seated around a table in a blacked-out space. Nasty Gal joins the forum and posts (says):
“this message board should be called David Lynch’s Elephant Man because it’s full of freaks and sad as fuck”
Then she leaves the chat room.
One forum member gasps:
“she called us freaks..”
And another adds:
“Even worse, she completely missed the point of The Elephant Man.”
This little scene captures very well a number of things I want to talk about in this paper. First, the time has arrived in mainstream culture where a moment which we can call Lynchian is resonant. Second, the “Lynchian” thus constituted is a matrix of freaks and sad fucks. Third, it’s possible to miss the point of David Lynch. Drawing on some dreams and other unconscious formations and Lynchian assertions, I will try to sketch something of this cultural moment in order to answer the question: what’s so Lynchian about that.

Chris Rodley
Title & abstract TBC

Jamie Ruers
Art and Hysteria in David Lynch
The hysterical subject is an essential figure in Lynchian cinema. With an art historical lens, this paper will explore how hysteria has returned time and time again throughout Lynch's oeuvre by looking at a few important characters, from The Alphabet (1968), to Blue Velvet (1986), to Twin Peaks (1990-2017).

Catherine Spooner
Wrapped in Plastic: Lynch and Costume
Costume plays an important but under-recognised part in Lynch’s aesthetic. This talk will explore the distinctive contribution costume makes to Lynch’s oeuvre with a particular focus on Twin Peaks, showing how for Lynch, costume is more than just character and relates to his ongoing fascination with the curtain or veil. It will also playfully examine the influence Lynch’s work has had on fashion.

Jaice Sara Titus
Laughing it off? David Lynch and the Limits of Humour
Throughout Wild at Heart, David Lynch finds ways to repeat and expose feminine trauma, often bookedended with jokes and throwaway gags. The paper will trace how humour plays an important role in the recollection of trauma and what it means to be stuck in a joke-fantasy while trying to claim one’s place in the world.

Mary Wild
Lynch's Blurred Identity Trilogy
David Lynch is known for creating luxurious cinematic dreamscapes - infuriatingly beautiful mind puzzles in his signature surrealistic style. Three films in particular (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire) form his unofficial 'blurred identity trilogy', featuring characters who embark on bizarre inward journeys in search of lost selves. The central premise of this talk is that in each instalment of the trilogy, a psychogenic fugue follows the unconscious trauma of unrequited love. Psychoanalytic theory will be shown to illuminate Lynch's iconic dream-logic, which is disturbing and beguiling in equal measure.