Desire as a driving force
March 31st, 2025 (Monday), 6:30pm
Following on from our conversation about the act of creation and desire, in the next lesson we will talk about the surrealist notion of objets trouvé, based on Hal Foster’s book Compulsive Beauty (1933).
For the surrealist search, there is always a void that is filled by the realization of a fantasy, projected and materialized in a found object, which makes possible the miraculous completion of a work in progress, a fantasy that, at the moment of its consummation, opens up space for a new search, which appears to have new contours, but is based on the same desires and traumas. It’s an endless cycle of searching for what is yet to be found, or even to exist.
We suggest reading the second chapter of the book, available here, from pages 19 to 54. For more context on the terms used by Hal Foster, we also suggest reading the first chapter of the book, on pages 1 to 17.
