Public Space and the Body

Abstract

“Public Space and the Body” is the transcription of a public talk that took place at the London School of Economics (LSE) on the 16 October 2007. The talk was comprised of a conversation between the artist Antony Gormley and the authors Darian Leader, Susie Orbach and Renata Salecl, and was hosted by psychoanalysis@lse, an LSE research group that seeks to explore psychoanalytic perspectives on a variety of pressing societal and political issues. Taking place shortly after Antony Gormley's Blind Light show at the Hayward Gallery, the talk focused largely on experiences of and ideas relating to the exhibition and, in particular, its titular piece, the “cloud in a box”. As with much of Antony's recent work, the discussion concerned issues of the inter-relation of the self and the other, and related notions of anxiety, identity, lack and the body. The transcription was edited for publication by Calum Neill.