Tbilisi Collective

Jacques Lacan asserted that human desire is never truly directed at the material object itself. We do not actually want the specific dress, the telephone, or even the specific person. What we desire is the mysterious lack, the “empty space” that this object embodies within our fantasy. The main driving force of desire is precisely its unattainability. Once we possess the object, it loses its enigma, strips itself of fantasy, and settles onto its bare, mundane material foundation. Thus, the fulfillment of desire is, in its essence, the death of desire. When desire dies, we are left with nothing but a cold item in our hands and a strange existential discomfort.

This brings us to a crucial dilemma. If desire thrives only within distance, what is its true engine? Possession or absence? Eros, in its deeper sense, is always a state of standing on the threshold. It demands space, a pause, a delay. When a loved one leaves, or when an object remains far beyond our reach, the strange, bittersweet aesthetics of waiting is born – a state that engages our entire emotional resource. Waiting is a somatic tension, a tight stillness in the body as you wait for a phone screen to light up; a delay that fills you far more deeply than the answer itself. Yet modernity with its instant messaging and relentless digital accessibility executes this very pause. When a reply takes mere seconds and no room is left for longing, desire cannot even manage to germinate its strangled mid-air by instant gratification.

We observe this paradox most clearly in our daily digital routine. Consider the online shopping carts filled with dozens of items left unpurchased. We spend hours browsing, selecting, and adding, yet we rarely hit the “checkout” button. Why? Because subconsciously we know that an item left in the cart remains a pristine part of our fantasy. It holds the potential to make us better, happier, or more complete. But the moment the courier knocks on the door, the box is unsealed, and the item sits in the middle of the room, the fantasy collapses. We do not want what we think we wanted; we want the sensation that something is missing and that this “something” is tantalizingly close. When a fantasy is realized, it almost always transforms into an emptiness or a nightmare, because reality can never compete with the flawless image created by the mind.

This mechanism applies equally to objects and human connections. In today’s hyper-consumerist landscape, “the Other” has been stripped of its most alluring quality which is secrecy. On modern dating platforms, where dozens of candidates can be dismissed with the swipe of a finger, a person is reduced to a commodity displayed in a shop window. Everything is accessible, exposed, and predictable. Where there is no secret, there is no distance and without distance, Eros dies in agony. In its place remains pornographic immediacy, emotional apathy, and an endless sexual exhaustion.

We live in an era where everything can be acquired instantly, yet that is precisely why everything has lost its weight. Then where does the sanctuary lie? Do we renounce the realization of our desires and indulge in perpetual longing, or do we consume everything only to toss it onto the heap of forgotten things moments later? Perhaps the only salvation lies in recognizing that true art is not found in possessing the object, but in respecting the distance that exists between ourselves and what we desire.

After all, isn’t an exhibit behind museum glass so captivating precisely because we know our hands will never touch it?