Gonçalo Leite-Velho (Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Portugal)

One of the fundamental Lacanian lessons is the understanding of the
role of objects right at the heart of psychoanalytical understanding. Any
Lacanian reader knows that this is not any objectification or claim for a more
objectified science. One of the interesting points in Lacan's ideas is exactly
the shift that is produced regarding objects, which emphasis the void (a
negativity) that never is coped by the subject due to the work of the symbolic
order. This gap is clear in the definition of "objet petit a".

In this paper we which to explore exactly how ruins are elements of this
constitutive void and how they relate to what we here call an "archaeological
drive". One of the first things we which to sustain is that archaeology as been
maintained through this drive (dough many times it has been misunderstood with a desire – the desire for understanding the past).
Assuming the point of "objet petit a" ruins are obviously an element of gaze.
This gaze not only relates to a scopic drive as it works to best explain the
attraction that feeds the archaeological action.

The ruin's gaze also allows us to understand better the relationship between
the Symbolic and the Real. To better explain this relation we will opt to
immerse ourselves through the archaeological drive in an exploration of the
relationship of the gaze and monumental architectures of the III-II millennium
b.C. This immersion will serve to explore the question of point of view,
screen and transference. It starts by an unleashing of the psychotic element
of the monumental gaze, which is also a challenge to the Focaultian sense of
"surveillance". Through this different understanding of the gaze direction we
will then explore the role of the screen. Finally this will work to open the
question of transference as it operates in archaeologists as "the subject
supposed to now". This "will to know" will close then the circle bringing us
back to the symptom identified in the beginning of this paper.