This was the first COP seminar we have had this year, and the theme that underpinned our discussion for the duration was the idea of 'Authorship'. We were reminded about the idea of an auteur which I was personally quite familiar with and am also interested in, which is shown in my choice of essay during last year which was based on auteur theory and the avant garde. It was touched on towards the beginning of the seminar and the example that was given to us was in terms of film, so directors can have recurring themes, genres and visual choices that recur throughout their work, which in turn allocates them a dedicated style that is often seen in films they direct. The way this is achieved means that they become an artist in their own right, due to the control they have over the direction the film takes and essentially dictate the artistic choices for the final cut or have the final say. During the seminar we also watched an interesting 'Daffy Duck' episode which the title 'Duck Amuck' which sort of parodied Hollywood during the 50's when this piece was originally created, so there was some interesting representation of ideas featured within it. Finally, we looked closely at 'The Death of the Author' by Roland Barthes, which was very interesting and was a type of lecture I've never had before, overall we looked at the text, tried to deconstruct it and discussed various themes before relating it to animation and how it could apply here.
In short, I believe that the general premise of the text by Roland Barthes is that the reader is free to interpret, and understand a piece of writing by removing the author from the picture and examining that piece of writing for what it is when trying to pursue what they believe to be the meaning of a particular piece of writing, and thus come to conclusions and draw ideas from it. 'The meaning of the word ‘author’ has shifted significantly through history and has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last 40 years.' (Rock, M., 1996) The Death of the Author begins by Barthes discussing an extract from Sarrasine Balzac's work where he is describing a castrato, disguised as a woman. Barthes then questions who it is that is describing or narrating the story, whether or not it's the character within the story, or the author himself, "Who is speaking thus? Is it the hero of the story bent on remaining ignorant of the castrato hidden beneath the woman? Is it Balzac the individual, furnished by his personal experience with a philosophy of woman?..." (Barthes, 1968) He goes on listing a few other possibilities and comes to the conclusion that we will never know, due to the way that writing is simply the recycling of ideas and that there is no originality as all writers do is draw upon pre-exisiting ideas. From this he starts to mention how he believes the author or authors are given too much credit for the language used in their writing, and in reality it's the writing that shapes the authors piece and how they write a specific style or cover various themes and genres.
It's in the second section of the extract that Barthes touches on this again but from a different angle, "The sense of phenomenon, however, has varied: in ethno-graphic societies the responsibility for a narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator, shaman or relator whose 'performance' the mastery of the narrative code may possibly be admired but never his 'genius'. The author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as, emerging from the middle ages with English empiricism..." (Barthes, 1968) This particular quote has an interesting social implication in relation to the point that Barthes is trying to make. The way he speaks about the author being a 'product of society' implies that like any other person, he is influenced by society through political movements, social and cultural changes along with trends the things that society is doing and investing in affects an individual within a society whether they are aware of it or not. An example of this lies within genre, so if a book is released with the horror label attributed to it then consumers will already have a kind of pre-existing view or feeling towards the book based on their feelings of the horror genre itself, this kind of example is especially relevant in a capitalist society where consumers are constantly being bombarded with material and products based on trends and preferences. According to Barthes in this section, I believe he once again refers back to the idea that the author is often manipulated in a sense by their surroundings and utilises common knowledge and common methods in order to produce writing, and not always in a conscious way. However, it's important to realise that as individuals with our own set of preferences and ideologies each person will interpret something like a piece of writing differently.
"Van Gogh's his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the function, the voice of a single person, the author 'confiding' in us." (Barthes, 1968) This section is Barthes saying how people relate an artists 'madness' to their work even when it can be completely unrelated, as if people or critics for example try to look for meanings when more often than not there's no real reasoning behind something. Or, at least the artist or creators intention was not as complicated as someone is trying to make out. Ultimately what's being said here with Van Gogh as an example is that despite the artists intentions the viewer of the work will always be free to relate certain aspects of work to something about them, so again, various aspects of Van Gogh's work are are said to be the result of some of the actions that throughout his life, such as dismembering his ear - which could be interpreted as an act of madness.
Barthes, R. (1977[1968]) 'Image, Music, Text', London, Fontana Press.
Rock, M. (1996) 'The Designer as Author', Eye no. 20 vol. 5 1996.
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