Representation in Self Portraiture This is a blog to keep track of my dissertation research and to help develop ideas in an organised manner.

1967 essay by Roland Barthes 'The Death of the Author'
   included in: Image-Music-Text (1977)

"Barthes's essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated." - wikipedia summary

If this is applied to photographic work, then the photographer's intent AND context of the author in interpreting a photograph may be false, that it and the photographer are unrelated.
 Hmmm, perhaps I may need to introduce my idea of context sooner than expected to be able to suggest intent and context is irrelevant..
Perhaps I have already done this, the context of the photographer was covered in our solution to the subverted identity [ √ ] so now the dissertation importance swaps from the photographer to the seer...
Of course this will then open us up to the same problems that afflicts the photographer, the conscious / unconsious dilemma. Finally, our get out of jail clause may return to the context of the photographer, perhaps it is a neccessary attribute - one which cannot be avoided... and continue on to suggest the wisdom of the crowd... supported by Facebook and ohter online media?
 IS THIS ARGUMENT COHERENT??? NEED TO WORK OUT THE FLAWS

 problem: "To give a text an Author" and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it "is to impose a limit on that text."
----opens up MANY interpretations again...
---wisdom of the crowd will save this

  notes that the traditional critical approach to literature raises a thorny problem: how can we detect precisely what the writer intended? His answer is that we cannot.
----my point exactly

 We can never know." Writing, "the destruction of every voice," defies adherence to a single interpretation or perspective

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......Michel Foucault also addressed the question of the author in critical interpretation. In his 1969 essay "What is an Author?", he developed the idea of "author function" to explain the author as a classifying principle within a particular discursive formation. Foucault did not mention Barthes in his essay but its analysis has been seen as a challenge to Barthes' depiction of a historical progression that will liberate the reader from domination by the author.
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intentional fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_fallacy#Reader_Response

W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art."^[1] The author, they argue, cannot be reconstructed from a writing - the text is the only source of meaning, and any details of the author's desires or life are purely extraneous.



The author's biography and unconscious state were seen as part of the text, and therefore the author's intent could be revived from a literary text—although the intent might be an unconscious one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_criticism



Simon Johnson www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk