Image Music Text- The Death of the Author - Roland Barthes (french philosophy - poststructuralist from the 60's)- Harvard reference = (Barthes.R. (1968) The Death of the Author in Image Music Text, Hammersmith London, Fontana Press, p142-148.)
Ideas at the core are relevant to design students and society in general. Theoretical lense on the world to inspire design.
(May 1968) Written in a social context of a revolutionary time in Europe, strikes in Paris, students supporting striking workers against the governments was never a revolution but still an uprising. You can find posters on this. Sexual and psychological revolution happening at this time around the world.
(Mischelle Fuko)
Auteur theory - Aims to if you can understand the signature style and personal opinions of the director you can understand the central meaning. Example - Van Gogh's painting is a reflection of his inner turmoil, angst towards the world.
Analysis of ‘death of the author’
Barthes uses ‘death of the author’ as an extensive metaphor for the social oppositions taking place in Paris at the time it was written. Protests and revolutionary thinking were taking place all over Europe changing the ways general culture were thinking about society. In the context of 1968, Barthes uses quotes such as “the birth of the reader is the death of the author” to highlight the corrupt hierarchy people are born into and taught from their first contact with the educational system that is still relevant today. When he describes the author he says “The author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it” and the modern scriptor “born simultaneously with the text, is not way equipped with being preceding or exceeding the writing”. He’s making a statement about how others interpretation and emotional attachment to information shouldn’t be what affects us, instead we should have our own opinion on things without ‘authority figures’ telling us the appropriate and right way to feel and think.
You can make a direct relevance to bathes’ thinking to the context in which its written but also to contemporary society. General media tells us to listen to our teachers, lecturers and the genius’ from a young age creating a society split into two sides, the dominant and the submissive. The place of the author (genius) in society creates an idea they have complete originality of ideas, something that only they are intelligent enough to come up with. When infact even them are just re-writing the knowledge collected over a series of events personal to them making collectively un-origional content we are expected to consider as genius. As our school syllabuses stay the same year on year not developing with the ever changing digital age nothing ever develops until someone argues against it and initiates change. The media tells us that popular culture is mindless and in-genius as a way of ensuring the hierarchy cannot be flipped and the general population do not become a threat to the genius’ opinion. As we are taught this is the normal way of thinking we believe the media (newspapers and news) but in reality were being told a one sided opinion of events rather than a general opinion.
But things are changing, the internet revolution now means you can easily access the news articles you’ve always been taught to trust but comment sections on these web pages allow for opposition of opinion “the removal of the author” (Barthes, 1977). People are beginning to stand up to the structure of society and say they disagree and its something widely available for everyone and anyone from around the world to access. Its a whole new way of thinking, it just takes a comment from one person who opposes the opinion of a large corporation to spark something in others encouraging a more independent way of thinking; in turn this is beginning the change the hierarchical structure of our society.
“a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history” (Barthes, 1977): his philosophy questions who is the real author of text, image and anything creative. In terms of graphic design it means the work is an untraceable product derived from multiple metaphorical tissues of information and quotations we have read throughout life. Barthes is saying there is no fixed meaning within the world, literature, art and so on, just a more common knowledge and meaning that we are told to believe. He believes the author should be irrelevant when creating your own interpretation of text and art, instead we should look to interpret our own meaning derived from personal experience, knowledge and cultural reference in turn this would create a more free thinking society where we are less reliant on the dominant figures and become equal.
This philosophy effects graphic design massively, designers have the power to influence opinion visually rather than through explanation which in a digital age where peoples attentions span to around 3 seconds is a much more effective way of starting revolution and creating change. An example of this idea in graphic design is modernism; texts and designs created by the authors of the style (Vignelli, Josef muller Brockmann etc.) Creates a series of rules thought to be the most effective way of designing according to popular belief. But the emerging postmodernist style goes against this controlled environment and encourages people to be more individual and free thinking with their design. The things created are still unoriginal as they are pieced together using already created programmes, colors, typefaces and ideas collected together but they are still more free from higher authority regulation and free to be interpreted according to personal views rather than anylised according to a set of rules.
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