Theory and Methods Week Eight Discussion
This Week in Art Theory and Methods, we read two separate readings: “The Death of an Author”
by Roland Barthes, and “Statement” by Sherrie Levine. Within the first reading the author discusses
the idea or phenomenon that within any writings creation, the author is not as connected to it as we
may think. Rather, in order for a work of writing to do its primary function, the author has to die, has
to be completely severed from the work they have created in order for the works purpose to be executed.
While the author creates a body of text and creates their works, that doesnt make the creations the
author. The words an author writes are not about them, they are completely separated from them.
It is through the readers understanding of the language, the understanding of the words and what
letters mean what together and what definitions give meaning to the words on the page that gives
the creation life. Within the article, Barthes states, “The reader is the space on which all the quotations
that make up a writing are
inscribed without any of them being lost..”(1). Rather than the author, it is through the reader that the
meaning is born. The author isn’t needed in this process. The author is not needed for a work to be
impactful or the do its job. When we try to use the author as the answer to the meaning of their creations,
we often ruin its primary function. Our society is obsessed with finding out everything about the author,
even things that in the end serve to just give us useless information as opposed to insight on the text.
In the end none of it is necessary. A work can exist outside of an author because the process of the work
being created happens outside of the author. Another point that the author makes is that nothing can truly
be original, every author expands on what they know and understand about the human language. Every
author uses words that have already been defined and those definitions have their own definitions and it
goes on forever. Every body of text is just a mashup of words that we know the definitions to, and
because of this the way an author can define their ideas is in itself, unoriginal. “We know now that
a text is not
a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author• God) but
a multi -dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.
The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.“(1) The author
didn’t come up with the words they use to create a work. The author only acts as a bridge between
the words and the reader who reads them. People interpret art differently and writing differently
because the author or artist can only make the piece that the viewer reflects and projects on, the
creator cannot have the experience of interpreting something for the viewer, the viewer has to do
it themselves.
A lot of Van Goghs artworks are copies of his favorite pieces when he was alive.
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| https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/van-gogh-copy/ |
On the left, is Gogh’s recreation of the one on the right, Prisoners Exercising by Gustave Dore.
When thinking about what Barthes had said about how nothing is original anymore, would this be
considered wrong or counted as plagiarism? Or would it be a completely valid body of work?
Within the second reading, the author completely rips off parts of the first reading for a thesis. Levine
uses almost all the exact wording of Barthes and only changes a few words throughout the entire text.
In a way, it is completely ironic as Barthes detailed how nothing can be original.
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