Extent: 1 audio cassette (90min), 4 digital files (779 MB )
Comprises audio recording of a lecture given by Mark Cousins on the 18th May 2001 (title unknown). The recordings consist of a TDK 90 audio cassette tape, 2 digital preservation files (635 MB, .WAV format) and 2 digital access files (144 MB, .mp3 format). Duration of access version: 59min 46sec.
Copyright: Architectural Association
Creator: Mark Cousins
Admin History: The recording is of the 16th lecture in the series entitled 'Psyche and Space', given by Mark Cousins as part of the AA General Studies programme, 2000-2001. In this lecture, Mark Cousins begins by questioning the commonalities between Freud's 'pleasure principle' and 'death drive' and whether there is such a time as 'the present'. Cousins argues that the present is conceived both as a temporal and as a spatial marker, and the fate of the subject is to be always out of time and out of place. He points out that from the perspective of psychoanalysis there will always be a mismatch between the object of desire and the object that lies behind the object of desire. Our wishes are always doubled and that a representation of one's desire is always shadowed by a wish to stop wishing. Cousins argues that constructive thought (albeit perhaps melancholic) lies between the object of one's longing and the object of reality.
Custodial History: Audio cassette recording was made by the AA Audio Visual Department and retained by the AA Photo Library until 2019, when it was transferred to the AA Archives.
Aquisition: Audio cassette was transferred from the AA Photo Library to the AA Archives in 2019. Digital preservation and access copies were created by the AA Archives in 2021.
Archive Note: Catalogue description by Ke Bo Tsai
Publication Note: AA Events List, Summer Term, Week 4, 14th - 18th May, 2001