Creating a Void or Sublimation in Lacan

We propose to study the Lacanian theory of sublimation whose principal formula is given in the Seminar on The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: sublimation “raises an object to the dignity of the Thing”. We shall seek to demonstrate the logic of this definition, which goes from the desired imaginary object to the enshrouded void of the Other, and to look in depth at the paradoxes it implies insofar as it is related to the three registers of human reality: the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real.This path allows us to draw lessons from architecture, the paradigmatic art of sublimation inasmuch as it creates a void. Like sublimation, the art of building manages to bring us into a relation with our own emptiness as subjects of desire. Both organize the void by creating emptiness. Thus, they pale at the horror of the Thing without closing off the possibility of moving closer to it.