1.Roland Barthes The Death of the Author Camera Lucida (Punctum/Studium) The 3rd Meaning Dr Craig Hammond - UCBC

2. Roland Barthes The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes (1977), and the personal relevance of Bye Bye Badman Barthes, informs us that the Author of a work is a relatively recent and modern notion Assumption: the Author of a work has the ability to inscribe a universal meaning on to the text; as though the work produced, expresses: the voice of a single person, the author confiding in us. (143) 3. Roland Barthes For Barthes, the initial author unleashes a text, that cannot contain an over-arching or primary meaning. It cannot be that a piece of writing contains only one meaning. On the contrary, it is language which speaks, not the author (143) My bespoke re-action to Badman, was that of, what Barthes would term a Scriptor, where: the modern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text *where+ there is no other time than that of the enunciation and every text is eternally written here and now. (145) 4. Roland Barthes Released from the closed-down delimiting shackles of Author-itarian control, the text, then becomes free for each scriptor to inhabit. This serves to remove so-called experts from cultural analysis, and opens-up a creative space for all people to begin to start to explore, their own histories, memories and associations. 5. Roland Barthes: The Death of the Author 6. Camera Lucida Punctum & Studium 7. Barthes on photography (studium/punctum) Barthes, as he informs us, experienced different types of moments when he viewed photographs, ranging from tiny jubilations, as if they referred to a stilled centre, an erotic or lacerating value buried in myself and that others, on the contrary, were so indifferent to me As part of his analysis, Barthes incorporates two Latin terms: those of Studium & Punctum ibid: 16 8. A photographic image that falls into the studium, is one that prompts a kind of general interest, an appreciation of things that we can glean a knowledge of, (a kind of cultural training) (25) To recognise the studium is to encounter the photographers intentions, to approve or disapprove of them, but essentially to understand them. It is most photographs, (and our appreciation of them) that can be seen as being part of this category: It is rather as if I had to read the photographers myths in the photograph, fraternising with them but not quite believing in them And I, the spectator, I recognise them with more or less pleasure: I invest them with my studium (which is never my delight or my pain). ibid: 28 9. Barthess second element that of punctum, is an inner experience that breaks beyond, or ventures deeper than the studium. The punctum is not studied, or sought-out; instead, it arises from the scene of the image, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces for punctum is also: sting, speck, cut, little hole and also a cast of the dice. A photographs punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is also poignant to me). ibid: 27 10. It is not possible to establish any kind of empirical measurement or rule of connection between the studium and the punctum (when it happens to be there). It is simply a co-presence the punctum happens, quite simply, when it happens. Hence, to give examples of punctum is, in a certain fashion, to give myself up. sometimes, despite its clarity, the punctum should be revealed only after the fact, when the photograph is no longer in front of me and I think back on it the punctum could accommodate a certain latency Ultimately or at the limit in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes. ibid: 42 11. Image, Music, Text The 3rd Meaning 12. The 3rd Meaning The Third Meaning: Research notes on some Eisenstein stills Barthes identifies two clear or "obvious" meanings associated with the film Informational & Symbolic 13. The 3rd Meaning The first meaning operates, generally, on the informational level incorporating, for example, "the costumes, the characters, their relations" (Barthes, 1977, p. 51) The second meaning is associated with the symbolisms that, again generally, can be associated with the film, "[t]here is the referential symbolism: the imperial ritual of baptism by gold the theme of gold, of wealth" (Barthes, 1977, p. 51). 14. The 3rd Meaning However, the third meaning for Barthes is an obtuse meaning, and "it seems to open the field of meaning totally, that is infinitely." (Barthes, 1977, p. 55) For Barthes then, the third meaning, "is that in the film which cannot be described, the representation which cannot be represented" by traditional theoretical strategies or semantic categories His own, personal connections