La Mécanique du Manque is a miniature machine of desire.
A silicone mouth, encased within a clear resin surface, appears suspended in a state of perpetual anticipation. Above the gently extended tongue hovers a lollipop, held in place by a delicate tension spring that keeps it just out of reach. The candy never fully touches the tongue; it remains almost, forever on the verge of satisfaction.
This subtle mechanism materialises a central notion in Lacanian psychoanalysis: desire is not driven by fulfilment, but by the lack that sustains it. It is the oscillation between nearness and denial that keeps desire alive. The spring operates as the structural force that technically anchors this manque—the constitutive lack at the core of subjectivity.
The work transforms the body into a system, an apparatus in which the object of desire is not meant to be consumed, but to produce desire. The viewer is confronted with a mechanism that is as erotic as it is conceptual: a machine not built to gratify, but to never stop wanting.