recreation myth

Robots!

writing = creation
voice = concept
language = style
reader = viewer
text = artwork
point of origin = personal background

When Roland Barthe’s claims that “writing is the destruction of of every voice, of every point of origin,” he is saying that the author, when writing, is not writing as himself through his own experiences but almost as a detached entity. The author takes on a role different from himself when someone reads his writing. The reader attaches his or her own ideas to the writing. The author is stepping back and detaching his personal uncontrollable biases, in a way. For art, this would mean that an artist’s work should not be viewed as a product of that specific artist. It should be viewed in a bigger way, without prejudice or preconceived ideas in any way.

The text is a “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers of culture” in the sense that the text is simply words put together but they’re interpreted by many different things based on the reader’s personal experiences. The “centers of culture” in different people is what creates meaning in the text, not the words as spoken by the specific author. The author draws his words from “innumerable centers of culture” as well, but everyone views them in a different way. I think that maybe it’s important, as an artist, to let go of trying to get a specific idea across to potential viewers. The viewer will never interpret the art in the exact way that the artist intends it to be, because everyone draws different parts of the innumerable centers of culture.

I think that what Barthes is saying with the paragraph that starts with “Once the Author is removed…” is that once the author is removed from the interpretation of a text, the reader can then be truly inspired. Few other things can inspire a person to think completely from their own experiences. The meaning of one text or piece of art can hold endless possibilities within the viewer. A single piece of artwork, for example, can evoke an endless amount of inspiration or interpretation within others. I guess this is what makes art such an important thing.

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