"The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them." - The Death of the Author, 146.
I suppose we all really are coming from places where everything that has been written (like specific writing styles or themes or subjects) has already been covered in some sort of fashion or another, and this quote from Barthes' piece really made me think about the nature of the collage and just how mash-ups, cut-ups, remixes, etc. can change the meaning of the original authorial intent. I understand the purpose of removing the Author from his or her work in order to leave the writing and interpretation open to the reader, but I don't think the removal signifies the Author's death. The Author still has some great significance to the original work, no matter how much we might want to take him or her away from it. Even though the ideas presented aren't necessarily original, in the truest sense (since it's all been done before,) the words that said Author chooses and the way he or she decides to present them to the reader is still the Author's purpose. As for works like collages, it makes perfect sense to separate the Author from the work in order for a new artist to create a whole new piece based on the foundation that they've started with. I don't think it means that the original author isn't still present in the work, but once it is changed and made into a completely different work by a new artist, it takes on a different meaning for readers. Barthes says that "a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination," and it struck me as a very interesting way to look at collages. Plenty of new authors have taken the same subject matters, characters, and themes that countless others have shaped before them and made them into new works of art to, I think, both pay homage to the original while adding their own influence to make the work a completely different experience for the reader. Readers are always going to have their own interpretations of how the Author constructed his or her works, and collages, remixes, mash-ups, etc. are unique homages to that original construction.
I suppose we all really are coming from places where everything that has been written (like specific writing styles or themes or subjects) has already been covered in some sort of fashion or another, and this quote from Barthes' piece really made me think about the nature of the collage and just how mash-ups, cut-ups, remixes, etc. can change the meaning of the original authorial intent. I understand the purpose of removing the Author from his or her work in order to leave the writing and interpretation open to the reader, but I don't think the removal signifies the Author's death. The Author still has some great significance to the original work, no matter how much we might want to take him or her away from it. Even though the ideas presented aren't necessarily original, in the truest sense (since it's all been done before,) the words that said Author chooses and the way he or she decides to present them to the reader is still the Author's purpose. As for works like collages, it makes perfect sense to separate the Author from the work in order for a new artist to create a whole new piece based on the foundation that they've started with. I don't think it means that the original author isn't still present in the work, but once it is changed and made into a completely different work by a new artist, it takes on a different meaning for readers. Barthes says that "a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination," and it struck me as a very interesting way to look at collages. Plenty of new authors have taken the same subject matters, characters, and themes that countless others have shaped before them and made them into new works of art to, I think, both pay homage to the original while adding their own influence to make the work a completely different experience for the reader. Readers are always going to have their own interpretations of how the Author constructed his or her works, and collages, remixes, mash-ups, etc. are unique homages to that original construction.
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| From Matt Kish's Illustrations for Moby Dick by Herman Melville |
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