Live at 7.30pm, Monday 12 October 2026 · The Salon
Married philosophers Jela Krečič and Slavoj Žižek join psychoanalyst Darian Leader in The Salon to ask what the fakery of art and Hollywood can tell us about the truth.
12 Oct
Monday, 7.30pm to 8.45pm
The Salon
Town Hall by Bottaccio
Sold out
Waiting list open
Image: How To Academy
Art and cinema exist to make things up. In this live How To Academy conversation, Jela and Slavoj turn that around: can a fabrication still carry the truth, and can a Hollywood film, fakery and all, say something real about our private and political lives?
“Truth has the structure of a fiction.”
Jacques Lacan
Their route runs from the nineteenth century to the present, through Hollywood’s long fascination with appearances, mediation and deception, and on to what the noise of the present moment might be telling us about the future. Darian Leader, a psychoanalyst who writes often about contemporary art, hosts.
Jela Krečič
Philosopher and author
A researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, where she lectures on popular culture, media, new media art and the psychoanalysis of culture. Her latest book is Deception in Modern Art and Hollywood.
Slavoj Žižek
Philosopher
Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian theorist and one of the most provocative thinkers of our time, writing across philosophy, psychoanalysis, film criticism and cultural theory. His books include Quantum History, Against Progress and Signs from the Future.
Darian Leader
Host · Psychoanalyst
A psychoanalyst in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and The College of Psychoanalysts-UK. His books include Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us From Seeing and Why Can’t We Sleep?
Tickets are sold by How To Academy at £36.95, with £15 off for How To + members. This event is now sold out, but How To Academy sometimes releases more tickets, so join the waiting list to hear if seats come up.
Pre-ordered copies of Deception in Modern Art and Hollywood and Signs from the Future can be collected on the night. To book a wheelchair-accessible seat, contact How To Academy.
How To Academy runs public talks, debates and conferences in London with some of the world’s most influential writers, scientists and thinkers, from Yuval Noah Harari to Natalie Portman. In November 2025 it brought Slavoj Žižek to Town Hall by Bottaccio twice in one weekend, first with philosopher of physics Emily Adlam and then in conversation with Alex O’Connor. This autumn it returns with a run of evening talks in The Salon, opening with this conversation and continuing with Dr Kevin Fong on 19 October, and Timothy Garton Ash and Paul Mason in November.
The Light Eaters opens at Town Hall on 17 October, and its exhibition in the Salon runs until 20 December 2026. Co-curated by Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, Co-Founder of DoubleMoon, and Virginia Damtsa, Director of Arts at Town Hall by Bottaccio, the exhibition traces a lineage of artists who, since the 1960s, have used light to alter the mind, from Brion Gysin, Liliane Lijn, Amanda Feilding and James Turrell to Loie Hollowell, Leo Villareal, Tomás Saraceno and Trevor Paglen.
The Light Eaters is presented by DoubleMoon in collaboration with Town Hall by Bottaccio.
