ABSTRACT

This essay explores sexuality as a point of ontological and epistemological impossibility through an analysis of Brutalist architecture, particularly as it appears in David Cronenberg’s 1969 film Stereo. Set against the dramatic, concrete backdrop of the University of Toronto Scarborough, the film follows a series of experiments on telepathy that also promise to liberate the true sexuality of those participating. This essay argues, however, that while Stereo’s plot depicts an attempt to discover sexual truth, the film's Brutalist setting gestures towards the absence of sexuality as such. Placing the work of Michel Foucault in dialogue with the critical writing that accompanied Brutalism’s emergence in the mid-twentieth century, the essay suggests that Brutalism and modern sexuality share a similar understanding of truth as that which is obscured or concealed by discursive forces. It goes on to argue, however, that Brutalism’s attempt to access a ‘true’ architecture failed, resulting in the exposure of an architectural void rather than an architectural essence. Connecting this failure to psychoanalytic theories of sexuality’s ontological negativity, the essay concludes that Stereo’s link between Brutalism and sexual truth signals the nonexistence of this truth, the failure that greets all attempts to reveal sexuality’s true form.

摘要

本文通过对野兽派建筑的分析，特别是大卫·柯南伯格 1969 年的电影《立体声》中出现的性，将性作为本体论和认识论上的不可能点进行探讨。这部电影以多伦多斯卡伯勒大学的戏剧性具体背景为背景，遵循一系列心灵感应实验，这些实验也有望解放参与者的真实性欲。然而，这篇文章认为，虽然Stereo 的情节描绘了一种发现性真相的尝试，这部电影的野兽派背景暗示了性行为本身的缺失。这篇文章将米歇尔·福柯的作品与伴随粗野主义在 20 世纪中叶出现的批判性著作进行对话，表明粗野主义和现代性行为对真理的理解与话语力量所掩盖或隐藏的真理相似。然而，它继续争辩说，粗野主义试图获得“真实”建筑的尝试失败了，导致暴露了建筑空洞而不是建筑本质。将这种失败与性的本体否定性的精神分析理论联系起来，这篇文章得出结论，Stereo 的粗野主义和性真相之间的联系表明了这个真相的不存在，迎接所有揭示性真实形式的尝试的失败。