Repetition Re petition Repeate tion (Lacan Instructions 2)

"Repetition demands the new," Lacan declares (61). Seemingly, this sentence is a paradox, since repetition is inherently the Not New. But this sentence also speaks of a desire, a lack for something new. What then, keeps us in a process of repetition? What is holding us back from that shift to something new?

How does this all relate to Electracy?

I think that, with the advent of Electracy, the idea of repetition is something that is both less thought about and also more, for lack of a better word, repeated. Let's think about the keyboard, for instance, where we have a few repeated keystrokes that allow us to "copy/paste" the same text over and over again. There is a complication here because there are two things that are repeating: The action of pressing ctrl+c/ctrl+v and the act of whatever it is that's being copy/pasted being repeated. There is a double repetition here that I find interesting because it complicates the idea of repetition. Even more interesting is the concept of a mistake, something that often happens in the copy/paste function. "Whatever, in repetition, is varied, modulated, is merely alienation of its meaning," Lacan states (61). This need, this demand, for the new is also interesting because Lacan also states that repetition is related to memory, so even as we demand the new, we also need the memory to be there.

But repetition does something else, a consequence, a side effect, that we might not be aware of when we first start to repeat. It imposes newness on its own. Even if there are no alterations to that which we are repeating, the meaning of that repeated practice, word, image, starts to get lost, starts to change.

In an episode of Grey's Anatomy there was a woman who had lost her ability to speak: Her speaking went into her blog where other people who were diagnosed with silence were. But the interesting thing is what her husband said. In order to communicate with him, she made post-its with the most commonly used phrases (thank you, yes, no, I love you, etc...). Her husband, when asked about this process, asked to relate how awesome it was, says that when things like "I love you" are flashed at you they start to lose their meaning. I think here is the crux of repetition: It always washes itself of  meaning and starts imposing its own self on us. A meaninglessness, perhaps.

Try it: Say a phrase over and over and over again. You'll start to hear it become different if you say it out loud.

Instruction: Go online and keep doing the same thing over and over again. Whether that's always clicking the same numbered link or watching a video over and over again (I would recommend that one, especially a video that's short and perhaps funny). As soon as it loses its meaning stop watching it. How long did it take? Was it a gradual loss? Did you become annoyed, relaxed, etc...? Using a funny video helps because when you stop being amused, or when you've had enough, is usually a great indicator.