55

1he automatic image

2 The automatic image
1he real is beyond the automaton
Jacques Lacan
I
In surrealism, automatic vriting is the means to attempt
a notation ot psychic expression vithout control by
conscious thought or reason. 1hus the automatic image
is that vhich is conjured up as the psychical thought,
the mental image. Automatism appears in the trst
Manifesto of Surrealism in +,: and is tundamental to
early intuitive surrealism. Psychic automatism is the
detnition ot all surrealism:
surrr:iisx, n. psychic automatism in its pure state,
by vhich one proposes to express verbally, by means
ot the vritten vord, or in any other manner the
actual tunctioning ot thought. Dictated by thought, in
the absence ot any control exercised by reason, exempt
trom any aesthetic or moral concern.
2
1his notion ot psychic automatism detned vhat the
surrealists had already been doing. 1heir earlier products
ot automatic vriting had trst been published tve years
earlier in Littrature (no. ;, trst series, in +,+,. 1hese vere
parts ot vhat is nov knovn as Les Champs Magntiques
(The Magnetic Fields, co-authored by Andre Breton and
Philippe Soupault, vritten during intense periods, eight
to ten hours at a time. 1he sessions vere their attempts
to capture and tx spoken thought ot the kind that
analysts encourage their clients to produce, in the torm
ot rapid, spontaneous, unselt-critical monologues.
3
1he
title ot the book, The Magnetic Fields, also invoked the
values ot the old magnetizers, lranz Mesmer (+;+:+,
and his tollovers, vho had reputedly cured illnesses vith
the use ot magnets and their magnetic telds.
4
Hovever,
vith Breton and Soupault there vas no therapeutic
claim tor their technique. It vas intended to shov the
capacity ot the human mind to produce literary texts
beyond conscious control and tree trom the values ot
existing literature or poetry, taking inspiration trom
Iautreamonts Chants de Maldoror, reputedly vritten
+ acques Iacan, The Four
Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-
Analysis, trans. Alan Sheridan
(Harmondsvorth: Penguin, +,;,,,
p. .
:

Andre Breton, Manitesto ot
Surrealism (+,:, in Pichard
Seaver and Helen P. Iane (eds,,
Manifestos of Surrealism (Ann
Arbor: Lniversity ot Michigan
Press, +,,;,, p. :o.
David Gascoyne, Introduc-
tion, in The Magnetic Fields
(Iondon: Atlas, +,:,, pp. +o++.
See Henri l. Lllenberger,
The Discovery of the Unconscious
(Nev York: Basic Books, +,;o,,
p. ;.