Barthes: "Camera Lucida"

hmm...I would partly agree with the comment that the talk about the ontology of art is somewhat BS but I would never quote Harry Frankfurt (who, IMO, writes quite a lot of BS himself) and surely not Carnap.


Anyways, since we're talking about Peirce's semiotics and icons we need to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, and I think mhv hinted at that, there is the problem that the notion of resemblance is highly influeced by (or even dependent on) one's socio-cultural background. Secondly, one could argue that the signification of icons is not derived from resemblence but rather that it's the other way around. After all, one identical twin is not a sign for the other twin even though there's a high degree of resemblence. Also, a copy of a picture is not a sign for that picture.
 
"What I'm saying is simply that Barthes does not think further than "photography is the real thing, not a representation" and that I distrust profundly his image semiotics theory."

I don't think Camera Lucida can be reduced to this simple statement, however, you reminded me of an essay I wrote as a keen young photography student about an earlier piece by Barthes in which he asserts that a photograph is a "message without a code" (can't recall which one now, it's been a long time, but I think it's in in "Image, Music, Text").

At the time (and now) I really couldn't understand how such a thing could be possible, given that the photograph is not the thing it represents, it must be a message of some sort and encoded in some way to allow us to understand it (and I also think "message" and "code" in the context of that essay are too vague to be useful concepts, as is my assertion that photographs can be "understood", sorry!).

I did find the work of Christian Metz ("The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema" - the long chapter on metaphor) and the work of Lacan really interesting although not at all conclusive in thinking about this question.

I do think Barthes stumbles on this issue, especially for someone who grew up in a world containing Cubism, Marcel Duchamp, Surrealism and Rene Magritte.

The best (partly because it's short) consideration I've read is Michel Foucaults "This is Not a Pipe".
 
Marc-A. said:
Obviously, you don’t care. Baumgarten, old crap. But Currie, Davies or Wolstertoff (whose work I appreciate btw) are not in the same ballpark as Kant. Where do you study ?
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You know, I don't get your point of view. What would be so wrong about disagreeing with Kant or Baumgarten, about considering that their model of aesthetics may be flawed? Yeah, I know the "it's not because it's old that it's crap" rengaine, there's good stuff in Aristotle, no mistakes. But to consider that Kant is the ultimate authority in aesthetics is like considering Plato the ultimate authority on ethics.

I study at McGill.

Marc-A. said:
Thanks for the lecture. So you mean the trivial fact that we blabla about a topic which is art, and you hold that that blabla is knowlegde about this topic. Interesting. The problem is that you’re mixing the issues and you think that all which relates in one way or another to art has someting to do with aesthetics. That's very weak. For instance, the moral role of the artist in a society, is not an aethetic issue, but a sociological one.
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Give me a break! Aesthetics is pretty much an umbrella term nowadays, it's not specifically Baumgarten's "sensory cognition". Right, the role in society is not aesthetics, boo-hoo I made a mistake.


Marc-A. said:
Btw I’m so impressed by big words : ontology wow ! Let me put it straight : ontology of artworks is bullsh*t (in H. Frankfurt’s sense). I know it’s trendy to reawaken ontology when contemporary theories have nothing serious to say about art, politics, society, ethics …etc. But it's useless. Well, like Rawls, I try to understand politics without ontology ; like Carnap, I try to understand logics without ontology or metaphysics … etc.
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You always postulate an ontology of one kind or another in a discussion about art. Obviously you don't care. Type vs. Token? Reactionary crap. Performance vs. Artifact? Pedant merde bovine by stuffy old farts. Yes, yes, absolutely useless, I must agree with you.

Oh, and maybe you should not use big words like metaphysics and combine them with other big words like logic. Maybe someone like you would scold you for using them while failing to impress him.

Marc-A. said:
Yep, that’s exactly what I understood … again common sense. That’s why I said : « meaning is accessible to rational human being through language ». And that’s why language is, and will remain, the primary paradigm of signification, as Leibniz put it (again I put aside theories of perceptual meaning which don’t concern aesthetics).
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So perception is irrelevant to aesthetics? Recognition of shapes is irrelevant? That's interesting, to say the least... Smoke doesn't have a meaning?

Marc-A. said:
Yep, that’s Pierce’s definition of an iconic sign. So what ? Icons are only one way to produce meaning, or to represente signification, or to derive significance. There are also indices and symbols, which don't "depict" objects by resemblance ; go and read again Pierce. There is no reason to think that photography is only about icon and not symbol. Btw Pierce's theory, as great as it is, is only one semiotic theory. Do you want to discuss iconography vs ideography?
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That's the point: images are taken to be fundamentally iconic signs by most semiotics theories. I don't care if Peirce considers rubber ducks to be symbols or the index of his grandmother, but pictures are not icons.

Marc-A. said:
Thanks, I really need a Companion for students.
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Maybe you do.
 
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mhv said:
You know, I don't get your point of view. What would be so wrong about disagreeing with Kant or Baumgarten, about considering that their model of aesthetics may be flawed? Yeah, I know the "it's not because it's old that it's crap" rengaine, there's good stuff in Aristotle, no mistakes. But to consider that Kant is the ultimate authority in aesthetics is like considering Plato the ultimate authority on ethics.
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Did I say something like that? Humm I don't think so. But you can't make philosophy if you don't bear in mind the kantian distinction between theoretical, practical and teleological judgments (judgment about "taste", aesthetic judgments belong to this kind). You can contest this distinction, but you have to be cautious.
BTW, I don't see why you can't consider Plato as the ultimate authority in ethics. This year, I gave 5 lectures of 3 hours on Plato and especially on Er, in the last book of Republic, His realism is not obsolete, though I don't agree with his method of ethics (I'm more humian on the subject).

mhv said:
I study at McGill.
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Good university; have good colleagues there and in Montreal Uni.

mhv said:
Give me a break!
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I will, don't worry. If you hadn't been that pedant "uh Barthes is laughable" I wouldn't have noticed your comment. There are a lot of interesting comments around here.


mhv said:
You always postulate an ontology of one kind or another in a discussion about art. Obviously you don't care.
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No you don't always postulate an ontology (apply Ockham's razon here) . I won't make a lecture, but if you don't know please stop being categoric and start to be modest. Apply Socrates' motto.


mhv said:
So perception is irrelevant to aesthetics? Recognition of shapes is irrelevant? That's interesting, to say the least... Smoke doesn't have a meaning?
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Did I say that? I don't see your argument, but anyway ...

Thanks for the conversation.

Marc
 
He, and most of this thread are just over my head. And I ain;t ashamed to admit it! I just tried reading it again a few months ago- still nothing.

Sontag will grace my reading table again next, see how I fare this time around. I also read this in school, but don't recall any of it.
 
Man, these Europeans take their philosophy seriously. Over here on the other side of the pond we mostly read the sports section and look at the photos. Duh.
 
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