''The Matrixial Gaze'' is a 1995 book by

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious processes and their influence on conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on dream interpretation, psychoanalysis is also a talk th ...

clinical psychologist Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

and

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Bracha L. Ettinger Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger (; born 23 March 1948) is an Israeli-French artist, writer, psychoanalyst and philosopher based in France. Born in Mandatory Palestine, she lives and works in Paris. She is a feminist theorist and artist in contempora ...

.Ettinger Bracha L. (1995). ''The Matrixial Gaze.'' Feminist Arts & Histories Network, It is a work of

feminist film theory Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by second-wave feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. With the advancements in film throughout the years ...

that examines the

gaze In critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French: ''le regard''), in the figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. Since the 20th ...

as described by

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Sigmund Freud, Freud", Lacan gave The Seminars of Jacques Lacan, year ...

, criticises it, and offers an original theory concerning feminine and

female gaze The female gaze is a feminist theory term referring to the gaze of the female spectator, character or director of an artistic work, but more than the gender it is an issue of representing women as subjects having agency. As such, people of any gend ...

. Beginning in 1985, Ettinger's artistic practice and her theoretical invention of a matrixial space (matricial space) articulated around her proposal of a feminine-maternal sphere of encounter that begins in the most archaic (pre-maternal-prenatal) humanised encounter-event, led her to publish a long series of academic articles starting 1992, articulating and developing for some decades what she has called the matrixial (matricial, matrixiel) theory of trans-subjectivity. The matrixial (matricial, matriciel, matrixiel) theory formulates Aesthetics and artistic creativity in terms of withnessing, compassion, wondering and 'fascinance', as well as Ethics of witnessing, responsibility, respect, compassion and care, and the passage from co-response-ability to responsibility and from com-passion to compassion. Bracha L. Ettinger invented a field of concepts that have influenced debates in

contemporary art Contemporary art is a term used to describe the art of today, generally referring to art produced from the 1970s onwards. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...

film studies Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various film theory, theoretical, history of film, historical, and film criticism, critical approaches to film, cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media stud ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...

and

cultural studies Cultural studies is an academic field that explores the dynamics of contemporary culture (including the politics of popular culture) and its social and historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers investigate how cultural practices rel ...

Publication and response

Ettinger's work follows the

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...

and

Lacanian Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, ; ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris, from 1953 to 1981, and ...

traditions of psychoanalysis and challenges their

phallocentric Phallocentrism is the ideology that the phallus, or male sexual organ, is the central element in the organization of the social world. Phallocentrism has been analyzed in literary criticism, psychoanalysis and psychology, linguistics, medicine and ...

conceptualizations. Her book also examines

Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas (born Emanuelis Levinas ; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the rel ...

, "Object-relations" theory and

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes o ...

Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( ; ; 30 March 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and created ecosophy ...

and also critiques them, reformulating matrixial subjectivity, aesthetics and ethics in light of a feminine difference. Ettinger's book is considered the initiator of the Matrixial Trans-subjectivity theory, or simply "The Matrixial". Her book ''The Matrixial Borderspace'' that contains collected papers from the 1990s and includes a reprint of ''The Matrixial Gaze'' influenced discussions of

subjectivity The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is a basic idea of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Various understandings of this distinction have evolved through the work of countless philosophers over centuries. One b ...

reviewed as an encounter-event, the matrixial gaze (matricial gaze), matrixial time, matrixial space (matricial space), co-poiesis, borderlinking, borderspacing, co-emergence in differentiating and differentiating, transsubjectivity, transconnectivity, matrixial com-passion, primary compassion, compassionate hospitality, wit(h)nessing, co-fading, severality, matrixial transformational potentiality, matrixial/matricial transference, archaic m/Other, fascinance, encounter-event, besideness, primal Mother-phantasies of Not-enoughness, devouring and abandonment, empathy within compassion, empathy without compassion, the passage from withnessing to witnessing, the passage from response-ability to responsibility, feminine-maternal seduction into life, and metramorphosis. Her conversation with

in 1991, where she proposes that the feminine-matrixial is the source of ethics has become a cornerstone in

feminist ethics Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethi ...

study. Scholar

Griselda Pollock Griselda Frances Sinclair Pollock (born 11 March 1949) is a British art historian, whose work focuses on analyzing visual arts and visual culture through global feminist and postcolonial feminist lenses. Since 1977, Pollock has been an influen ...

writes, "The matrixial gaze emerges by a simultaneous reversal of with-in and with-out (and does not represent the eternal inside), by a transgression of borderlinks manifested in the contact with-in/-out and art work by a transcendence of the subject–object interval which is not a fusion, since it is based on a-priori shareability in difference."Pollock, Griselda (1996). ''Generations & geographies in the visual arts: feminist readings.'' Psychology Press, Scholar Lone Bertelsen has analyzed the claims Ettinger's work makes on behalf of the "feminine", especially the "

existential Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value ...

ethic Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

in the feminine".Bertelsen, Lone (2004). Theory, Culture & Society February 2004 vol. 21 no. 1 121-147 Pat Paxson writes that it approximates the Lacanian gaze, "but from a different angle", adding that it is "pushed by a desire for linking and relationships".Paxson, Pat (2011). ''Art and Intuition: Borderlines and Boundaries: Reflections and Refractions of the Gaze in Painting Today.'' Xlibris, Ettinger continued to explore this concept in her published work,Ettinger Bracha L. (2004). Weaving a woman artist with-in the matrixial encounter-event. ''Theory, culture & society'', vol. 21 no. 1 69-94 including her 2006 book (essays from 1994 to 1999), ''The Matrixial Borderspace'',Ettinger Bracha L. (2006). ''The Matrixial Borderspace.'' University of Minnesota Press, ''Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics, Ethics. Vol I: 1990-2000'' (2020) and ''Proto-ética matricial''. Film specialist Julian Gutierrez-Albilla systematically analyses

Pedro Almodovar Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter. The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...

's films through different concepts invented by Ettinger in her presentation of the Matrixial gaze and time-space in relation to Ettingerian understanding of trauma, witnessing and healing.

The matrix and the phallus

The matrixial gaze uses the matrix as a symbol to counter Lacan's

phallic A phallus (: phalli or phalluses) is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history, a figure with an erect penis is described as ''ithyphallic''. Any object that symbo ...

gaze. Similar to Lacan's formulation, which is a metaphorical reference to anatomy to discuss symbolic masculine power, the matrix is a metaphorical reference to the uterus (matrix - womb) in order to discuss the origins of human ethics and relationality. This shift was "not just to exchange an organ (penis) and its image for another (womb), but to conceive of an alternative to the phallus in terms of structure, mechanism, functions, logic". According to Pollock, Ettinger's matrixial sphere allows us to escape the "notion of the discrete and singular subject formed by the establishment of the boundaries that distinguish it from an oceanic or undifferentiated otherness of the world or the maternal body". Pollock notes that thinking in terms of the phallus and

castration anxiety Castration anxiety is an overwhelming fear of damage to, or loss of, the penis—a derivative of Sigmund Freud's theory of the castration complex, one of his earliest psychoanalytic theories. The term can refer to the fear of emasculation in ...

casts subjects in terms of "separations, splits, cuts, and cleavages". Venn adds that the matrix allows the concept of the gaze to extend beyond the visual realm to touch, sound, and movement.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Matrixial Gaze Feminist theory