Interactive 3D Models: Lacan’s Topology

In his last twenty years Lacan thought his theory more and more with surfaces, knots and drawings, which he made of string and showed to his listeners. The models on this page let you take those objects in hand, turn them, cut them and tie them again.

The Borromean Knot: Cut One RingThree rings hold together, yet none passes through another. Cut one: the other two fall apart. In the 1970s Lacan thought the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary were tied together in this way.
The Möbius Strip: A One-Sided SubjectGive a strip of paper a half twist and join its ends: you are holding a surface with one side and one edge. Lacan thought the subject with this surface.
The Torus of Demand and DesireOn the surface of a ring there are two kinds of circle: those that go round the tube and those that go round the hole. Lacan thought demand with the first and desire with the second.
The Cross-Cap: Cutting Out the Objet aA closed, one-sided surface that passes through itself: the projective plane. Cut a disc from it; what remains is a Möbius strip.
The Perspective Room of Las MeninasA perspective picture is constructed for an eye standing before it. Move this eye, the subject point in Lacan’s terms, and see how the picture itself changes.

The models run in the browser and require JavaScript and WebGL. Rotate with the mouse or a finger, zoom with two fingers or the wheel; the arrow keys and the plus and minus keys also work.