Rhetoric of the Image by Roland Barthes
A Photograph by Umberto Echo
Look at Photographs by Victor Burgin
In addition, please bring and be prepared to discuss three to five images that illustrate aspects of the reading selections.
As always, if you have any questions please contact me.
Rhetoric of the Image
ReplyDeleteBarthes goes into great depth dissecting an advertising image of Panzani’s pasta. He concludes that there are three messages: a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and a non-coded iconic image. “The linguistic message can be readily separated from the other two.” He is explaining the literal text on/in/about the image. The other two are a bit more complex. Both messages need “decoding.” However, the decoding differs from culture to culture. Some messages are symbolic, extremely dense, or cut and dry. But without certain culture learning’s, we may misunderstand the meaning/symbolisms.
Roland Barths: 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, anthropology and post-structuralism.
A Photograph
ReplyDeleteIt begins with the fact that a journalist reported an event by referencing a movie scene. Which leads into the idea that we are a visual culture. I didn’t much understand the rest until he says “a civilization now accustomed to thinking in images” near the end of the essay. Which, once again, references back to his opening paragraph. I completely agree that we are a visual culture, heavily dependent on images. But I don’t understand much else that Eco is trying to get at.
Umberto Eco: (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1980 novel Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose), an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory.
Looking At Photographs
ReplyDeleteBurgins essay seems to be about the idea of photography as a way to spread an idea or a meaning through a photo. “The daily instrumentality of photography is clear enough, to sell, inform, record, or delight.” He gives examples such as news photographs, which you don’t have to be literate to understand. A “product” that is easily sellable. Even images that we don’t understand right away, “Once we have discovered what the depicted object is…it now shoes a “thing” which we invest with a full identity, a being.” Overall, I feel that these three essays were tough to decipher, yet seemed to have reputable bits of information that I find interesting.
Victor Burgin: (born 1941) is an artist and a writer. Burgin first came to attention as a conceptual artist in the late 1960s and at that time was most noted for being a political photographer of the left, who would fuse photographs and words in the same picture. He has worked with photography and film, calling painting "the anachronistic daubing of woven fabrics with coloured mud. His work is influenced by theorists and philosophers such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes.
Rhetoric of the Image
ReplyDeleteRoland Barthes
In his essay entitled Rhetoric of the Image, Roland Barthes explains his theory of the correlation between an image and its message and how much they contribute to transmitting an ideological view or message to society.
In order to show how ideas and concepts are reflected in visual images, he used a commercial that almost everyone can identify with – a (Panzani) pasta commercial. For anyone, an image of pasta is self-explanatory. However, if Barthes had only utilized an obvious image to support his theory, it would be hard to say if his ideologies were correct. Wisely, in order to support his theory, Barthes used a much more practical example in his research. Barthes did not just use a pasta commercial, he used a pasta commercial with Italian dialect that was viewed by French target audience. With this, Barthes proved that despite the fact that an Italian commercial was aimed at French customers, who could not understand the language, it did not alter the value of the quality pasta. The visual message was as profound as the verbal message.
His example of the Panzani pasta commercial also helped support his frequent use of the terms “denotation” and “connotation” and how it relates to an image and its message. Having learned these terms many years ago, I understand that “denotation” is the literal meaning of a word and “connotation” is the idea or feeling that a word provokes in relation to its literal meaning. Although the French customers did not understand what the commercial was saying, they understand what the commercial was selling. The image alone was able to aid them in deciphering what the product was and what its purpose to the consumer would be. This indicates to me that Barthes believes connotation has a greater level of interpretation than a denotation of a visual. Also, I can assume Barthes is convinced that culture definitely influences society into relating easily identifiable signs with accurately interpreted definitions.
Bio…
Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes explored a wide range of fields, including being a significant figure in establishing structuralism as one of the leading intellectual movement of the 20th century. He also analyzed mass culture and contributed to semiotics with his radical analysis S/Z.
A Photograph
ReplyDeleteUmberto Eco
In “A Photograph” Umberto Eco discusses a powerful instrument – a photograph. A photograph has the ability to convey ideas and a sense of knowingness to an onlooker, so easily that they can completely surpass the actual experience of being present in a depicted image. As a visual society, most often a photograph can be more effective than text. Someone can look at a single photo and understand it’s message in probably less than 3 seconds, so it is understandable that the simplicity and accessibility of a photograph would be way more appealing than taking the time to read something.
Another interesting idea that Eco brought to light was that photography is a “communicative career” and does not discriminate against skill or lack of – “It is of no interest to know if it was posed (and therefore fake), whether it was the testimony of an act of conscious bravado, if it was the work of a professional photographer who gauged the moment, the light, the frame, or whether it virtually took itself, was snapped accidentally by unskilled and lucky hands.
Bio…
Umberto Eco (January 5, 1932) is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He became internationally known for his Novel "The Name of the Rose” an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studios, and literary theory.
Looking at Photographs
ReplyDeleteVictor Burgin
In “Looking at Photographs” Victor Burgin discusses the truth in regards to the significant accessibility to photography. Photographs are ALWAYS present, or Burgin says “photographs permeate the environment”. It is very rare when anyone can go a whole day without seeing any photo. Photographs do a great job at informing, recording and delighting.” What is also great about for photography, that for the most part, it is are free. Unlike paintings, photographs “are not seen by deliberate choice”. We are allowed free of charge to look at a billboard or a flyer stuck on a wall, but we do have to pay to see a painting in a museum.
Further in the text, Burgin talks about the semiotic codes of photographs and their importance in the ability to establish a message. Photographs are not always seen with a caption, title, or text, so photographic discourse can only be triggered strictly by imagery. An onlooker can only make sense of a photograph if they recognize familiar semeiotic codes.
An interesting statement Burgin makes on the second to last page: To look at a photograph beyond a certain period of time is to court a frustration, the image which on first looking gave pleasure has by degrees becoming a veil deployed so that we do not look at them for long; we use them in arbitrary a manner that we may. If as a viewer, we gaze too long at an image, it is possible to risk losing our subconscious authority of establishing a meaning.
Bio…
Victor Burgin (1941) is an artist and writer. He was a conceptual artist and called attention to himself by being a political photographer for the left during the late '60s. He is currently a Professor of Media Philosophy and History of Consciousness at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. Burgin’s influences include Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteRHETORIC OF THE IMAGE – Roland Barthes
In this reading, Barthes breaks down the image into three components:
1.) The Linguistic Message,
2.) The Denoted Image (or the non-coded iconic message),
3.) The Rhetoric of the Image (or the connoted image/coded iconic message).
With the way the world communicates today, the linguistic message is present in every image; it includes titles, captions and film dialogues, and after you take away the linguistic message, you are left with the non-coded iconic message (the literal visual message) and then the coded iconic message (symbolism).
Barthes ends by comparing photographs to drawings; the photograph is a message without a code, and drawings are coded.
Another part of the reading that I wanted to talk about quickly was the Panzani Pasta commercial. It was an Italian commercial that was viewed by the French and although they French couldn’t understand what was being said, they still understood what the commercial was selling. He did this to support his theory.
Roland Barthes Biography:
He was born in Cherbough, Manche on Novemeber 12, 1915. His father died young forcing his family to move to Bayonne then Paris. He suffered from tuberculosis, spending time in sanatoriums in the years 1934-1935 and 1942-1946, during the occupation. He was a philosopher, critic, French literary theorist, a structuralist and semiotician. He explored a wide range of fields, establishing structuralism as one of the leading intellectual movement of the 20th century. Barthes died in a street accident in Paris on March 23, 1980.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteA PHOTOGRAPH – Umberto Eco
There was a lot to this reading but from what I got out of it or from what I remembered, Eco begins by comparing a person’s traumatic experience as if they were in a movie. He believes that if you are middle-aged, you learn experiences that are filtered through images that have ‘already been seen’. He also believes that if viewers do not understand symbolism in photographs, it can lead to mistaken politics… Eco ends by saying that nowadays (especially with news photography) we do not know if photographs are taken by professional photographers. Instead, the photograph could be the work of an unskilled person with lucky hands that just so happened to snap a photograph at the right time. This reading also made me think of the difference between generations. My grandparents don’t see the need for computers or cell phones whereas our generation can’t seem to live with out them…
Umberto Eco Biography:
He was born on January 5, 1932. Umberto Eco’s initial studies and researches were in aesthetics and semiotics, and many of his writings in criticism, history and communication have been translated into various foreign languages. When his novel The Name of the Rose appeared in 1980, Eco became an international literary star, and he has explored the connections between fantasy and reality in other best-selling novels since.
Merrisa Brierly
ReplyDeleteLOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS – Victor Burgin
In this essay Burgin discusses that photography is in between painting and film; because of this, we encounter the medium of photography differently. He breaks down the four basic types of “look” in the photograph:
1.) The look of the camera as it photographs the pro photographic event.
2.) The look of the viewer as they look at the photograph.
3.) The look exchanged between people depicted in the photograph.
4.) The look the actor may direct the camera.
Burgin talks about how it is unusual to pass a day without seeing a photograph. I agree with this because we are exposed to many of images on daily basis because of all of the advertisements we have in our world. He also talks about how we encounter photography in a different way than we do paintings. We see photographs everywhere vs. seeing paintings and when we do see paintings, we pay to go see them in either a gallery/museum. He also talks about how photography has codes and the different types of looks that a photograph has. Basically, the viewer of an image can only make sense of it by the semiotic codes he/she is familiar with to base it on. If the viewer looks too long at it, he/she risks losing their subconscious "authority" of creating its meaning, the "imaginary look.”
Victor Burgin Biography:
Born in England in 1941. He is a Professor of Media Philosophy and History of Consciousness at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. He was a conceptual artist and called attention to himself by being a political photographer for the left during the late '60s.