An audio-visual presentation that explores our relationship to works of art in terms of the tensions between love and loss, satisfaction and frustration, absorption and distraction, presence and absence.

Partly motivated by Adam Phillips's essay "On Not Getting It" this presentation explores the positive value in not always "getting it" – in not always being gratified either psychologically/emotionally or intellectually. We need to accept and appreciate that we are not all-knowing and all-powerful. Sometimes we simply don’t get it. The approach taken might be described as decentred insofar as the presenter does not take centre stage throughout the presentation, but intersperses 'live' speech with recorded speech, music, video and still imagery. Rather than organising this material into a conventional linear argument and attempt has been made to dramatize and orchestrate it into a series of scenes or episodes that interconnect, overlap and echo. The intention is to produce an experiential effect (the push-pull of seduction and repulsion), rather than to persuade by means of a conventionally structured logical argument. Key theoretical references include Lacan's theory of the Mirror Stage, Freud's concept of Fort/Da, and Michael Fried's analyses of theatricality and absorption. The presentation also includes a "re-purposing" of some of my earlier writings, especially those dealing with the work of Shelly Nadashi.