Shooting the Messenger: Barhtes, Foucault and the Death of the Author (10/10/2013)

This session we had a presentation that went further into our discussion on 'The Death of the Author'.
Below are a few of my notes. 

• Grand Narratives (Or Meta-narratives) are culturally constructed narratives which explain 'the way things are', or in other words, the bigger picture for understanding the world. For example religion, science and/or philosophy.
• The church was incredibly powerful in the past, but then of course science started to show evidence on creation and meaning through facts. As a result, the church disagreed with the scientific explanation and the gap between science and religion became bigger.
• When analysing a person's work, people tend to ask - Who made it? Whose the author? And why did they make it?
• When a painting was discovered to be possibly drawn by Von Gogh nobody particularly cared as its authenticity wasn't certain. However, when it was everyone cared about it and the painting's value rose, despite it not being as good as his other work. Thus the response to the painting changed and influenced others opinions about it. 
• Just because something is created in the past, doesn't mean it can't share similarities with modern works. Plus, this doesn't necessarily mean that the modern artist copied the past work, it just shows its relevance. For example, art arising from the Vietnam war and perhaps the Holy war could share similarities to our modern day Iraq wars. 
• Creating a collage of images can also change the meaning of each separate one in it, as they are being compared to one another and not just viewed on their own.
• Talked about the games 'Darksouls' and 'Journey' as, even though the creators may have come up with a story for them, the players will often invent their own as they are games in which the experience is the focal point. Yes, you can find out the story in 'Darksouls' through finding pages, and 'Journey' shows the player a tapestry of the history of the world. But often players enjoy creating their own narrative and thus finding their own meaning for playing.
• "The modern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text... there is no other time than that of the enunciation and every text is eternally written here and now" (Barthes, 1968). In short, the meaning of things change depending on who reads it. Thus what we have been talking about already.  
• Words, music and genres from the past are used yearly in order to inspire modern works as they adopt and expand from what they know. For example, the game 'Red Dead Redemption' reminds most players of original Spaghetti Western films including the music that, although consists of original scores, sounds similar to the music in those movies.
• Likewise, language is also reinterpreted as children will quote the characters and things they see on TV. Even the movie director Quentin Tarantino has taken quotes from other films and used them for his own movies as this is his style of film making.
• "The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author" Barthes said in 1968, though I still disagree with this statement as explained in my last blog post 'Analysing 'The Death of the Author'.' In fact, my example of the blue curtain was brought up in today's session as we discussed how different people will interpret what the artist meant by the smallest detail or description.

We also talked about how advertisements are viewed, such as the 'Grand Theft Auto' posters (see below), as many people will see them depicting women in a sexist or pornographic way. Whereas, the company Rockstar deliberately depict women like this as they want to show women stereotypes to parody the real world we actually live in. This relates to my last blog, since this kind of subtle meaning is lost on those who don't understand the parody. 

Overall the presentation summed up one meaning to me, that everyone interprets things in different ways no matter the content. Similarities may be agreed on, but differences will always be evidenced as well.

Harvard Referencing: 

• wallsave (2012) Samsung Star Gta Iv Lolly Pop Girl Poster Rage D Discussion Area Wallpaper with 2560x1600 Resolution [Online Image]. Available at: http://www.wallsave.com/wallpaper/2560x1600/samsung-star-gta-iv-lolly-pop-girl-poster-rage-d-discussion-area-626902.html (Accessed: 10/10/2013).