Vertical Time and the Bliss at Pleasure's End

About this episode

The episode explores the concepts of pleasure and bliss through the lens of Roland Barthes' work, discussing themes of time, agency, and narrative fantasies.

In this episode we discuss (eventually) Roland Barthes’ 1973“The Pleasure of the Text”. We dive into the cut between pleasure and bliss, administration and abolition, comprehension and noise. We travel vertically through time, trying to escape the horizontality of property, debt and prisons. How can we find the vertical when we are forced to wait? How can we reclaim agency from the narrative fantasies we are told to desire? Can we find a nihilistic truth at fantasy’s ultimate end point (hint, a special guest returns that no one asked for). Oh and Melletios somehow makes Tim paint again. Elia Suleiman, The Time That Remains , 2009 (Full Movie) Faith Wilding, Waiting, 1972 Sabrina Carpenter, House Tour, 2025

People in this episode

Hosts: Melletios Kyriakidis, Tim Gregory

Topics covered

• pleasure
• bliss
• narrative agency
• nihilism
• time
• fantasy

Keywords

• Roland Barthes
• pleasure
• bliss
• narrative
• nihilism
• time
• fantasy

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Pleasure of the Text, The Time That Remains, Waiting, House Tour

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