Research- Roland Barthes

Having a spare hour before my usual Tuesday contextual studies lecture, I've shoved myself in the library. During a previous chat with Steve (my Fine Art tutor), he suggested some reading/ research that could be potentially beneficial.

One of the pieces of reading was Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes. I have previously studied this author during A Level Media Studies, so am fairly familiar with his work and ideologies.

I tried searching the book it in the College library, but surprise surprise we don't have it. So instead I searched online, and due to it being a full book, I couldn't access it. However I came across a Guardian article (so, probably more reliable than a 'back alley' review) and whilst some of it I couldn't understand, there were a few key phrases that stood out, especially in relation to my work and intentions.

"...photographs are always photographs of something. The book's more penetrating influence has certainly to do with photography and mortality: both the memorial uses to which photographs have long been put – one thinks of Victorian mourning portraits, or the profusion of post-9/11 mementos – and the vertigo we can feel in the face of even the most vivid and living subject."

"Barthes, however, is a temperamentally discreet narrator, so never shows us the photograph: 'It exists only for me. For you, it would be nothing but an indifferent picture.' "

This last quote was notably distinctive for me, as this is how I tend to feel about my own work. I prefer to work with memorabilia that is personal to me- for example the childhood photographs of myself- people can say "oh that's a lovely picture", but it's only me who knows the meaning and context of the image, and my personal feelings connected with it. I'm not saying that I want to share the feelings of those moments, because I don't. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my work is as much an insight into myself, as it is that I don't want my audience to have any connection to it whatsoever. Juxtapositions, I guess?

In that inference I guess I can say that my exterior portrayal of work to my audience is similar to that of Christian Boltanski- he doesn't work with personal imagery, however our outcomes of a "non- connection" and the impersonal within exhibiting the work is the same.