FORMATIVE FUNCTION OF THE MIRROR STAGE:

VISUAL IMAGES IN THEIR HISTORY

Abstract

In this paper we have attempted to link at least three concepts. Firstly, the idea of J. Lacan about the function of the mirror stage in the formation of the subject. A detailed distinction is made between the  Eye and the Glance for new technical means that did not fall within Lacan’s view – photographs, videos and movies. The Eye is geometric: it allows one to build a plan of the place, a distance to objects in lines, squares, etc. The Glance masters the anthropological dependence on Eye, it immerses the viewer in the content of the visible: the I never see the Other from the place where the Other looks at me, which determines fragmentation of the subject in the very visional. The second concept that we have used is that the ideal I uses a set of figures created by numerous forms of culture – masks, puppets, photos, videos and film sequences, fragmenting a mirror image of an individual. The visional fragments of a partitioned body-image often connect with the I only externally like I-consciousness-in outside. The third concept is associated with the answer to the question of how the real, the  imaginary, the symbolic are “packaged” as in the case of relying on quite traditional forms of culture such as mask, doll, hand puppet, marionette, and using new means of “technical reproducibility” – photographs, video, movie. Image-statics - from mask to  photo, allows the subject to somehow piece together one’s self inner image, which forms the sustainability of the man’s mental world, while movement images (video, body and movie eyes), due to their high image-dynamics, form the subject of scattering, existing as external image of oneself.