''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 an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

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

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

and

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

Bracha L. Ettinger Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger (born March 23, 1948) is an Israeli artist, painter and writer, visual analyst, psychoanalyst and philosopher, living and working in Paris and Tel Aviv. She is regarded as a major French feminist theorist and pr ...

.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, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French ''le regard''), in the philosophical and figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. The concept ...

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 Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

, criticises it, and offers an original theory concerning feminine and female gaze. 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-reponse-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 the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

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

film studies Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies. ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

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 ...

and

cultural studies Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...

Publication and response

Ettinger's work follows the

Freud 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 explained as originating in conflicts in ...

ian 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 pu ...

traditions of psychoanalysis and challenges their phallocentric conceptualizations. Her book also examines

Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel 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 relationship of ethics to me ...

, "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 volu ...

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

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 Subjectivity in a philosophical context has to do with a lack of objective reality. Subjectivity has been given various and ambiguous definitions by differing sources as it is not often the focal point of philosophical discourse.Bykova, Marina F ...

reviewed as an encounter-event, the matrixial gaze (matricial gaze), matrixial time, matrixial space (matricial space), co-poiesis, borderlinking, borderspacing, co-emergence in differenciating and differentiating, 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''The International Who's Who of Women''; 3rd ed.; ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, 2002, p. 453 (born 11 March 1949) is an art historian and cultural analyst of international, postcolonial feminist stud ...

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 form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

ethic Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

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 1994-1999), ''The Matrixial Borderspace''Ettinger Bracha L. (2006). ''The Matrixial Borderspace.'' University of Minnesota Press, and ''Matrixial Subjectivity, Aesthetics, Ethics. Vol I: 1990-2000'' (2020). Film specialist Julian Gutierrez-Albilla systematically analyses

Pedro Almodovar Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance langua ...

'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 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 symbolically—or, more precisely ...

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 the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Castration anxiety is an overwhelming fear of damage to, or loss of, the penis—one of Sigmund Freud's earliest psychoanalytic theories. Although Freud ...

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