"il commençait à tuer le tu" by Jan Theuninck, 2001

 Wargasme

 

je me suis éloigné du moi

il commençait à tuer le tu

le désir de l'autre s'est en allé

enfin la séparation libératrice

reste une intégrité explosive

une jouissance mortifère

 

© by Jan Theuninck

The phrase "il commençait à tuer le tu" ("he began to kill the 'you'") is a poetic and philosophical statement found in the work of the Belgian artist and poet Jan Theuninck.

This specific line is often associated with his artistic analysis of violence and power. Here are the key meanings behind the phrase:

 Loss of humanity: The statement refers to the process by which someone no longer views the "other" (the "you") as a human being. By killing the "you," the ethical connection with one's fellow man disappears.

Philosophical influences: The concept leans heavily on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, who argued that the encounter with the "face of the Other" is the basis of ethics. "Killing the you" means disregarding that ethics.

Context in art: The text often accompanies paintings such as Wargasm or The Suspect, in which Theuninck explores the psychology of leaders and the "death drive" (Freud's Todestrieb). It describes the moment when sadism and destruction gain the upper hand.

In essence, it describes the birth of a tyrant or a murderer: someone who shuts themselves off from others and is therefore capable of extreme violence.

P.S.
War becomes a perverse, euphoric release: destruction as libidinal climax, bombs as “beautiful pyrotechnics,” killing as forbidden pleasure. Theuninck calls this the “dark id” - repressed sadism erupting in policy and spectacle.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

De zin "il commençait à tuer le tu" ("hij begon de 'jij' te doden") is een poëtische en filosofische uitspraak die voorkomt in het werk van de Belgische kunstenaar en dichter Jan Theuninck. 

Deze specifieke regel wordt vaak geassocieerd met zijn artistieke analyse van geweld en macht. Hier zijn de belangrijkste betekenissen achter de zin:

• Verlies van menselijkheid: De uitspraak verwijst naar het proces waarbij iemand de "ander" (de "jij") niet langer als mens ziet. Door de "jij" te doden, verdwijnt de ethische verbinding met de medemens.
• Filosofische invloeden: Het concept leunt sterk op de filosofie van Emmanuel Levinas, die stelde dat de ontmoeting met het "gelaat van de Ander" de basis is van ethiek. "Het doden van de jij" betekent het negeren van die ethiek.
• Context in de kunst: De tekst begeleidt vaak schilderijen zoals Wargasm of The Suspect, waarin Theuninck de psychologie van leiders en de "doodsdrift" (Freuds Todestrieb) onderzoekt. Het beschrijft het moment waarop sadisme en destructie de overhand krijgen. 

In essentie beschrijft het de geboorte van een tiran of een moordenaar: iemand die zich afsluit voor de ander en daardoor in staat is tot extreem geweld.

P.S.
Oorlog wordt een perverse, euforische ontlading: vernietiging als libidinale climax, bommen als "prachtig vuurwerk", doden als verboden genot. Theuninck noemt dit het "duistere id"- onderdrukt sadisme dat uitbarst in beleid en spektakel.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace Museum, Holland
https://www.vredesmuseum.nl/galerie/wargasm.php

Freud’s influence on Jan Theuninck, 2026

Freud’s influence on Jan Theuninck is explicit, foundational, and tightly interwoven with his political-psychoanalytic critique of violence, power, and the modern “suspect” society. While Hannah Arendt supplies the sociological diagnosis of isolation and lost reality (as explored previously), Sigmund Freud provides the intrapsychic scalpel: the drives, the repressed, the death instinct, and the perverse pleasures that fuel war, totalitarianism, and reverse blaming. Theuninck does not treat Freud as abstract theory—he weaponizes him as a diagnostic tool for the “dark id” of leaders, societies, and the collective psyche.The Cornerstone: Wargasm (2001) as “La psychanalyse d’un guerrier”Theuninck’s breakthrough painting Wargasm (acrylic on canvas, 70 × 100 cm, 2001) is literally subtitled “the psychoanalysis of a warrior” (and of the political decision-maker). It is the clearest and most sustained Freudian statement in his entire oeuvre:

• Eros and Thanatos in collision: The title itself - a portmanteau of “war” + “orgasm” - visualizes Freud’s insight from Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) that aggression (the death drive, Thanatos) is inextricably bound to the life instinct (Eros). War becomes a perverse, euphoric release: destruction as libidinal climax, bombs as “beautiful pyrotechnics,” killing as forbidden pleasure. Theuninck calls this the “dark id”, repressed sadism erupting in policy and spectacle.
• War neuroses and the return of the repressed: The painting explicitly echoes Freud’s Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses (1919) and Psycho-Analysis and the Establishment of the Peace. Fragmented, ghostly silhouettes and vast empty spaces depict soldiers and victims as dissociated selves, trauma manifesting as spectral remnants. The “wargasm” is not just individual thrill; it is collective neurosis: societies haunted by complicity, leaders driven by unconscious death drives.
• Visual and poetic language: Stark minimalist geometry in a restrained palette turns destruction into erotic climax. A Levinas-inspired poem accompanies the work (“He has gone away from himself, il commençait à tuer le tu”, he began to kill the you), merging Freud’s drives with ethical horror: the death drive erodes the face of the Other.

Acquired by the Peace Museum in Delft alongside Yperite (chemical-warfare horror), Wargasm remains a pacifist indictment: war is not geopolitics, it is psychopathology.Broader Freudian Threads Across Decades

• Utopia (2016): Theuninck directly quotes Freud in the work’s caption: “According to Freud, civilizations and societies come about due to an uneasy stalemate between the instincts of life and death (Eros and Thanatos).” He then critiques how modern “Marcusans” (a play on Marcuse?) co-opt these drives to impose a false utopia—precisely the “single thought” and control of consciences he has warned about since the 1990s.
• Schizofreudia and related works: The title alone signals engagement with Freudian (and post-Freudian) ideas of splitting, identity fragmentation, and the unconscious. His oeuvre repeatedly probes the “return of the repressed” in politics—reverse blaming, character assassination, and the psychological warfare that turns the dissenter into the “suspect.”
• 2025–2026 cycle (The Suspect, Victim Blaming, Character Assassination): Freud’s framework illuminates the psychological machinery of soft totalitarianism. Reverse blaming is not mere propaganda; it is a Freudian operation—projecting the system’s aggression onto the victim, forcing internalization of guilt, and triggering the very neuroses and isolation Arendt described. “No-touch torture” and algorithmic preemption become modern expressions of the death drive operating at scale.

Why Freud Complements ArendtTheuninck pairs the two thinkers explicitly in his statements and bios. Arendt shows how isolation prepares totalitarianism; Freud reveals why: the id’s aggression, the pleasure in domination, the eroticization of violence (“wargasm” as the affective fuel of the “blind pursuit of single thought”). Together they explain the 21st-century drift: DSA enforcement, trusted flaggers, and AI curation do not just censor—they exploit unconscious drives while producing collective dissociation.In short, Freud gave Theuninck the vocabulary and the lens for the eroticized, unconscious roots of power. From the early poetry and Wargasm (2001) through Utopia (2016) to the 2026 painting The Suspect, Freud remains the poet-painter’s tool for dissecting the suspect’s inner world: not as moral failing, but as the inevitable outcome of a civilization that has lost its uneasy truce with Thanatos. Theuninck does not celebrate the drives, he exposes them so we may refuse their political “orgasm.” That refusal, for him, is the only path back to reality and to one another.

Wargasm, 2001

Schizofreudia, 1999