ESSAY

Q.: Explain & critique the idea of 'the birth of the reader' put forward by Roland Barthes using a range of design works of your choice as examples, making use of other writers work to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the concept.


A.: The Death of the Author is a linguistic and philosophic theory written by Roland Barthes. It questions who is the real author of a piece of Art; this could be a text, a book, a painting, and music, could be everything that can be read or interpreted by a reader or observer. It is obvious that the notion of an Author is very well defined nowadays: An author is the personality that produced the final piece, it is its property, in a way that it possesses all the rights upon the work. A painter, a writer, a photographer or a musician, or any type of creator and designer would proclaim that they produced their own Art. Roland Barthes in his essay The Death of the Author, theorises that the all concept of an authorship should be redefined.

As a post-structuralist text, Barthes creates a relationship between the author and the reader, emphasising what he considers to be relevant. He makes clear that everything we know provides from pre-existing elements to express our language: cultures, ideas, beliefs, theologies, philosophies... Consequently, an author should not proclaim to be the author of its piece. As an artist, all he or she did, was putting pre-existing forms of language and expression to create his or hers discourse. The meaning of the piece, relies on the reader, and not on the author, in a way that the reader gives the meaning and power to the piece, as the interpretation of the content depends on it.

To illustrate and help understand this theory, artists such as Evan Roth and Kim Asendorf are good examples of contemporary designers who did put in practice the Roland Barthes’ theory. Designer and writer Ellen Lupton helped me understand the strengths and weaknesses of the concept in the essay Deconstruction and Graphic Design. Dave Crossland under the subject of Free Type, used his personal experience as example to help students understand the reason behind working in collaboration, and what it means. The Death of The Author is a post-structuralist text, so this movement and the antecedent, Structuralism, were part of my research. In A Brief History of Collaboration, wikipedia is given as an example as it illustrates and links Barthes’ theory to practice, in a way that wikipedia is considered to be a massive collaborative online system.

Summarised and explained by the philosopher Simon Blackburn, Structuralism, a philosophical movement originated in the early 1900’s in the Structural Linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure, is written as "the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture”. Human culture might be explained by means of a structure, modeled on the language, that differs from concrete reality and from abstract ideas. This movement is applied to various areas such as philosophy, art, anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics and architecture. It later led to the origin of Post- Structuralism movement in the mid 20th century. Artists believed in structured systems in their work’s development. Designers at this time were not focused in the freedom of expression, scared that it would destroy the success of the piece. Cultural beliefs and references were more of a concern to have a successful work in those days.
Post-Structuralism, comes as a response to Structuralism. This movement relies its main studies in Human Sciences, as in the complexity of humans and its difficulty of avoiding structures in order to study them. Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, are known as pos-structuralist writers.

In a more recent work, in the exhibition Unoriginal Genius (31st October to the 22nd November 2014), situated in London, works as No Original Research, by Evan Roth and 100.000.000 Stolen Pixels, by Kim Asendorf are examples of pieces that were freely developed, visually explaining the studied theme. Visual examples help to understand the concept in a way that is the theory applied in a practical result. The ways that Roland Barthes’ theory can be exemplified are infinite.

As designers we need to understand how theories can be applied in our work development and how it can be a benefit to our work. Evan Roth, in the Unoriginal Genius, to create a visual language in his amazing series of websites made use of data remix by using animated GIFS and audio files from wikipedia (online free browser). Hundreds of copies of the same GIF load out-of-sync, depending on the speed of the network, the browser used, and the speed of the computer. Roth chose existing pieces from Wikimedia Commons (free online browser where artists post and share their work) and put them together to create his discourse, composed by graphic and auditory elements.

Kim Asendorf, created an abstract image with the use of 100.000.000 pixels stolen from one million online images. The abstract image as result, comes from the millions of pixels from other images. A final work with its power has been produced from small pieces with completely different meanings from the final piece. The meaning of the language depends on the system and context, where it is, and how it is integrated.

Both designers illustrate the Barthes' theory; they made use of existing languages, images and sounds, to create their own. The interpretation of the piece relies on the reader/ observer and not in its origin - the author. It is the final language, interpreted by the observer that speaks for itself, but not the elements of the structure and its significance as individual design works. The designers used an existing tissue to hold their basis and share their message, freeing the reader from their birth.

On the other hand Ellen Lupton, writer and designer, argues that the post- structuralism movement and its openness of meaning has been incorporated by many artists and designers turned into a “romantic theory of self-expression”, meaning that the sense is not placed in material forms. Designers and also readers should all experience and share the creation of their own meaning. Ellen Lupton states: "This approach represents a rather cheerful response to the post- structuralist theme of the “death of the author” and the assertion that the interior self is constructed by external technologies of representation”. The artist argues that Instead of looking at meaning as a private interpretation, Roland Barthes sees the "essence" of the “personal” as structured by outermost signs. The writer also believes that "Invention and revolution come from tactical aggressions against this grid of possibilities.”

Ellen Lupton believes in the idea of designers developing their own work rather than working together in collaboration. Even though she understands why this theory exists and how it can benefit the design process, the writer still thinks that designers should create their own work and manage it with their own meanings and self experience as individuals and singular personalities.

Even if Lupton has her sense, wouldn’t working in collaboration improve the development of ideas, the designing process and the final outcomes? Contemporary design is falling into a new concept of processing. Since the post- struclturalism movement, and the different manifests, works and essays produced by different artists giving their statements as responses to the ideologies of the movement, it has been clear that designing as a team, rather than as individuals, would open a new and bigger space in creativity. Not only as designers and artists, but as creators.

Good examples of design systems that illustrate this concept, in order to collaborate, are free type
- taking free fonts from google as example, and my experience in the workshop with Dave Crossland. Also free access to information, the online software wikipedia and wikimedia commons.
Dave Crossland is an example of a designer who felt stuck when it came to
creation. As he said, he always wanted to adapt and transform the information he had, to be applied to his own work as he wanted it to be applied. He believed in free modification. Specified in free fonts, he now works with free software in order to give other people the same opportunity he wished he could have - free creation. In both these situations, taxes are not being charged and creation is a priority rather than a tax. With free access to information and softwares, a whole new range of design possibilities are opened. Is working free of charges a good method of developing clear systems and languages with good quality in a way that a more embraced result would be assumed?

From the free software movement, Debian was the largest non-market collaboration to appear.
Debian served not only Lumix, but many other distributions. Debian Free Software Guidelines, in 1997, led to the creation of the basis of Open Source Definition in 1998.
Ward Cunningham, a computer programmer, in 1995, created the first wiki, the software that allowed authors to collaboratively author documents. Several Wiki softwares were developed not necessarily for collaboration. In 2001 Wikipedia had its birth; becoming one of the greatest examples of massive collaboration. Wikipedia represents a software where many authors work together to settle true and free information to the user.

The application of this system does not necessary mean that artists should work under the post-structuralism’s theory only. It might help when it comes to understand more about our identity and our visual discourse and development. Wouldn’t it be appropriated to approach design and learn more by staying in touch with contemporary movements?

Is personal self-expression and freedom of speech still available, or would one thing stop the other?
Roland Barthes separates the author from the writer and from the reader. He states that the existence of an author limits the text. The reader will get stuck in who the writer is - what he lived and what he felt is put into a text, novel or magazine. Barthes believes that the author ends the writing which must be infinite: “once the author is discovered, the text is explained”. The writer creates a tissue where the language speaks for itself, and itself only. A language is composed by existing words that together give a message. The text is the result from many different sources of cultures - “everything is to be distinguished but nothing deciphered”. The reader understands and interprets each word in its different meanings and must not be limited by the origin of the text - the author
and writer.

Applied to design, this ideology created a space where working in collaboration and sharing information is in order to improve design and its tools. Information and content are a tissue that is worked to create not only self expression (as freedom) but also the capacity of the reader to interpret freely and create his own conclusions and meanings upon the design work. A message clear of background meanings speaks for itself giving, consequently, a free interpretation. A link between creator, message / work, and reader / observer is re-created. Both now and then, design is evolving, as much as its work’s development, and the equation between the artist and the reader must be balanced. The non- existing author, but the given message is giving birth to the freedom of interpretation from the reader.


References:
Carrol Fletcher (n.d.) Unoriginal Genius, [online] Available at: http://www.carrollfletcher.com/exhibitions/33/works/artworks_two5786/ [Accessed 20th December 2014].

Ellen Lupton (n.d.) Deconstruction and Graphic Design, [online] Available at: http://elupton.com/2009/10/deconstruction-and-graphic-design/ [Accessed 20th December 2014].

Floss Manuals (n.d.) A Brief History of Collaboration, [online] Available at: http://en.flossmanuals.net/collaborative-futures/ch003_a-brief-history-of- collaboration/ [Accessed 27th September 2014].

No Original Research (n.d.) No Original Research, [online] Available at: http://no-original-research.com/ [Accessed 20th December 2014].

Understanding Fonts (n.d.) Dave Crossland, [online] Available at: http://understandingfonts.com/who/dave-crossland/ [Accessed 17th November 2014].

Wikipedia (n.d.) Post-Structuralism, [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism [Accessed 16th October 2014].

Wikipedia (n.d.) Structuralism, [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism [Accessed 16th October 2014].

Miguel Barros
W1515553
Graphic and Communication Design, University of Westminster