6. one. ”BE A FORCE”…
False.: The demand to "be a force" positions the subject as a master of jouissance, insisting on the fantasy of unmediated agency. But what is this "force" other than a desperate attempt to fill the void of the barred subject? Perhaps it is not a force you need but a confrontation with your own lack.
7. two. ”Don't shoot blanks”
False.: A fixation on potency, the fear of failure manifesting as the phallic imperative to not shoot blanks. Yet, the blank itself—a trace of absence—may hold the truth of desire. What if the blank shot is the real masterpiece, the objet petit a that escapes the tyranny of completion?
8. three. ”Black and Brown: that shit is the future"
False.: Here, the imaginary appropriates the symbolic, as if merely naming “Black and Brown” could reconcile their absence from historical narratives. The "future" is a misdirection: the unconscious knows this "shit" was always part of the Real, disavowed by a system desperate to sustain its illusion of mastery.
9. four. ”Triangles are your friend"
False.: A peculiar fixation on the triangle, the primal geometry of the Symbolic order: the triadic structure of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. But beware, for the triangle also hints at the trap of triangulation, a static fantasy of alignment that disavows the instability of the gaze.
10. five. ”Don't pretend you don't work hard"
False.: This line situates the subject in a neurotic relationship to the Master’s discourse: the fantasy of labor as the source of meaning. But hard work is a lure, a way of refusing the truth of enjoyment, which operates beyond effort. The question is not how hard you work, but what you are working for.
11. six. ”When in doubt, spray paint it gold"
False.: Gold here functions as the Imaginary’s mirror—surface and spectacle masking the Real of inadequacy. Spray paint is an attempt to render the void dazzling, but like all phallic ornamentation, it merely displaces lack into fetishistic shimmer.
12. seven. ”Perverse formalism is your god"
False.: The god of “perverse formalism” is an Other constructed to evade the lack in the symbolic order. Perverse here signifies a misalignment with desire: a fetishistic devotion to form as a way to disavow the anxiety of formlessness. Yet, no god can fully anchor the subject; every god is a placeholder for the void.
13. eight. ”You are greased lightening"
False.: The Imaginary ideal of speed and frictionless movement. To be "greased lightning" is to aspire to jouissance without resistance—a fantasy doomed to encounter the inertia of the Real. Perhaps it is better to stumble than to glide.
14. nine. ”Bring your camera everywhere"
False.: The camera functions as an extension of the gaze, a prosthetic that promises mastery over the field of vision. But this is a false promise: the camera captures only the Imaginary, leaving the subject alienated from the truth of the Real. Better to leave the camera behind and embrace the lack it seeks to cover.
15. ten. ”Never stop looking at macramé, ceramics, supergraphics, and Suprematism"
False.: This list of objects is a chain of signifiers whose connection is arbitrary, sustained only by the fantasy of their coherence. To "never stop looking" is to demand an endless traversal of the Imaginary, a refusal to confront the void that underpins these objects.
16. eleven. ”Make work that is so secret, so fantastic, so dramatically old school/new school that it looks like it was found in a shed, locked up since the 1940s"
False.: A fantasy of authenticity, the desire for work to embody the enigmatic objet petit a. The shed, the lock, the 1940s—these are Imaginary props staging a drama of lost origins. Yet the truth of the work lies not in its secret but in the desire it mobilizes.
17. twelve. ”Wake up early, fear death"
False.: To wake up early is to submit to the superegoic demand for productivity; to fear death is to submit to the Real’s ultimate limit. Both imperatives reflect an alienation from jouissance, as if time could be mastered and death deferred through sheer vigilance.
18. thirteen. ”Whip out the masterpieces"
False.: Masterpieces are the phallic signifiers of artistic potency, yet the injunction to "whip them out" reveals their fragility. What is a masterpiece but a fetish object, a substitute for the lack that structures desire? Perhaps it is better to resist whipping anything out.
19. fourteen. ”Be out for blood"
False.: Blood signifies jouissance at its most raw, the violent eruption of the Real. But to "be out for blood" is a fantasy of mastery over this jouissance, as if the subject could harness it without being undone. True bloodlust is always beyond control.
20. fifteen. ”You are the master of your own universe"
False.: The fantasy of mastery over one’s universe is the Imaginary’s ultimate lie, masking the subject’s dependence on the Other. There is no mastery, only a perpetual negotiation with the lack that defines the self.
21. sixteen "Abstraction never left, motherfuckers"
False.: Abstraction here speaks as the barred Other, insisting on its presence to mask its absence. The aggressive tone betrays its own insecurity: if abstraction "never left," why must it assert itself so loudly? Its jouissance is fragile, always on the verge of collapse.
22. seventeen. ”If you can't stop, don't stop"
False.: The superegoic command to continue, a trap that locks the subject in an endless cycle of demand and failure. Stopping is not defeat—it is a confrontation with the void that stopping reveals. To stop is to glimpse the Real.
23. eighteen. ”Strive for deeper structure"
False.: Depth is a fantasy of the Imaginary, a way to disavow the surface as sufficient. The search for "deeper structure" is a way to avoid the Real of structure’s absence, the truth that every structure is a fragile construct masking chaos.
24. nineteen. ”Fight monomania"
False.: Monomania is a symptom of the subject’s fixation on the objet petit a, the fantasy of total satisfaction. To fight it is to risk falling into the trap of the Master’s discourse, a new fixation on fighting fixation. Perhaps it is better to acknowledge the pull of monomania and let it speak.
25. twenty. ”Campaign against the literal"
False.: The literal is the Real in its most bare, unbearable form, yet to campaign against it is to create a false dichotomy. The literal and the abstract are not enemies but intertwined, each haunted by the other’s absence.
26. twenty one. ”ABSTRACTION FOREVER!"
False.: The cry of "forever" is a defense against the Real’s temporality, the inevitability of change and decay. Abstraction, like all artistic modes, exists only within the Symbolic and is always subject to the erosion of time. Forever is a fantasy, a desperate grasp at immortality.