Test 2 Flashcards
MC
What does Roland Barthes say the double function of myth is?
According to barthes the double function of myth is economy, or spending money. The first order of signification is that of denotation: at this level there is a sign consisting of a signifier and a signified. Connotation is a second-order of signification which uses the denotative sign (signifier and signified) as its signifier and attaches to it an additional signified
MC
According to Althusser, how are we constituted as subjects?
Through interpellation, he uses the police man hailing you. When you acknowledge his hail you are accepting that he is a policeman and you are a subject in the system. In the case of art or advertising when you are pulled into a dialogue with it weather you like/dislike agree/disagree you are being brought into it. You buy into it, through the shared codes and conventions. All images have ideologies in them and are trying to hail you - they can interpellate you in different ways for example a luxury piece to a rich person represents life, to a poor person it represents something to work for but both subscribe to the same codes and conventions.
MC
Rosalind Krauss says that college achieves a metalanguage of:
What collage achieves, then, is a metalanguage of the visual.
Collage-metalanguage of the visual-talks about space without employing
it-can figure the figure through constant superimposition-can speak in
turn of light and shade-through the subterfuge of a written text-as a
system-inaugurates a play of differences-both about and sustained by
an absent origin-fullness of form is grounded-forced impoverishment-a
ground both supplemented and supplanted.
Topic Sentence: The collage element as a discreet plane is a bounded
figure; but as such it is a figure of a bounded field-a figure of the
very bounded field which it enters the ensemble only to obscure.
Collage elements-perform the occultation of one field-to introject the
figure of a new field-a surface is the image of eradicated
surface-eradication of the original surface-reconstitution of the
figure-collage as a system of signifiers-absence of a master term.
Topic Sentence: In analysing the collage elements as a system of
signs, we find not only the operation of absence but also the
systematic play of difference.
Collage-system of signs-operations of absence-and play of
difference-1913-Violin and Fruit-reads as ‘transparency’ or
‘luminosity’-patch of wood grained paper-sign for open form-as opposed
to close form-complex cubist collages-each element
diacritical-instantiating both line and colour-closure and
openness-plane and recession-system of form-not systemised in collage.
Short answer
Ideology (from Althusser)
LOUIS ALTHUSSER builds on the work of Jacques Lacan to understand the way ideology functions in society. He thus moves away from the earlier Marxist understanding of ideology. In the earlier model, ideology was believed to create what was termed “false consciousness,” a false understanding of the way the world functioned (for example, the suppression of the fact that the products we purchase on the open market are, in fact, the result of the exploitation of laborers). Althusser explains that for Marx “Ideology is […] thought as an imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the dream among writers before Freud. For those writers, the dream was the purely imaginary, i.e. null, result of the ‘day’s residues’” Althusser, by contrast, approximates ideology to Lacan’s understanding of “reality,” the world we construct around us after our entrance into the symbolic order. For Althusser, as for Lacan, it is impossible to access the “Real conditions of existence” due to our reliance on language; however, through a rigorous”scientific” approach to society, economics, and history, we can come close to perceiving if not those “Real conditions” at least the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by complex processes of recognition. Althusser posits a series of hypotheses that he explores to clarify his understanding of ideology:
“Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” According to Althusser, by contrast, ideology does not “reflect” the real world but “represents” the “imaginary relationship of individuals” to the real world; the thing ideology (mis)represents is itself already at one remove from the real. In this, Althusser follows the Lacanian understanding of the imaginary order, which is itself at one step removed from the Lacanian Real. In other words, we are always within ideology because of our reliance on language to establish our “reality”; different ideologies are but different representations of our social and imaginary “reality” not a representation of the Real itself.
“Ideology has a material existence” Althusser contends that ideology has a material existence because “an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices.” Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are “inserted into practices” for example, rituals, conventional behavior, and so on. Indeed, Althusser goes so far as to adopt Pascal’s formula for belief: “Pascal says more or less: ‘Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe’” ____It is our performance of our relation to others and to social institutions that continually instantiates us as subjects.
“All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects”_____
According to Althusser, the main purpose of ideology is in “‘constituting’ concrete individuals as subjects”. ____So pervasive is ideology in its constitution of subjects that it forms our very reality and thus appears to us as “true” or “obvious.”____ Althusser gives the example of the “hello” on a street: “the rituals of ideological recognition that guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and (naturally) irreplaceable subjects”. Through “interpellation,” individuals are turned into subjects (which are always ideological). Althusser’s example is the hail from a police officer: “‘Hey, you there!’ “Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject”. _____The very fact that we do not recognize this interaction as ideological speaks to the power of ideology: what thus seems to take place outside ideology (to be precise, in the street), in reality takes place in ideology [….] That is why those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology: one of the effects of ideology is the practical denegation of the ideological character of ideology by ideology: ideology never says, “I am ideological.”______
“Individuals are always-already subjects”. Although he presents his example of interpellation in a temporal form (I am interpellated and thus I become a subject, I enter ideology), Althusser makes it clear that the “becoming-subject” happens even before we are born. “This proposition might seem paradoxical”, Althusser admits; nevertheless, “That an individual is always-already a subject, even before he is born, is the plain reality, accessible to everyone and not a paradox at all”. Even before the child is born, “it is certain in advance that it will bear its Father’s Name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable. Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is ‘expected’ once it has been conceived”. Althusser thus once again invokes Lacan’s ideas, in this case Lacan’s understanding of the “Name-of-the-Father.”
____Most subjects accept their ideological self-constitution as “reality” or “nature”_____ and thus rarely run afoul of the repressive State apparatus, which is designed to punish anyone who rejects the dominant ideology. Hegemony is thus reliant less on such repressive State apparatuses as the police than it is on those Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) by which ideology is inculcated in all subjects.
Short Answer
Mythic speech Tori
Roland Barthes posits that myth is a system of communication and as such it can and should be studied using the principles of semiology. Outlined below are his assertions and systematic approach to the study of mythology.
Myth is a Type of Speech
Barthes states that, “Every object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to an oral state, open to appropriation by society, for there is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things”. Barthes’ notion of myth does not (and cannot) lie in the physical. Thus, “Everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse”.
Because myth is a type of speech it is a mode of signification and is therefore not defined by its substance but rather by its form. Barthes states”myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message”.
Following this reasoning, everything then can be myth and Barthes does not dispute this. Nor does he give credence to the notion that there are objects which are “inevitably a source of suggestiveness.” There are no eternal myths because it is human history that provides the foundation for myth and “it alone rules the life and the death of mythical language”.
Myth is a type of speech chosen by history. Although, as speech, it does not necessarily fall into the domain of linguistics, but rather that of semiotics.
Myth As a Semiological System
In semiology, the study of forms, Saussure laid out three terms one must keep in mind: signifier (“acoustic image”), signified (“concept”) and sign (“relation between concept and image”). These three terms comprise the system of language or language.
As a system constructed from a semiological chain, myth is a bit more complicated and is considered to be a second-order semiological system. What is represented in the linguistic realm, Barthes terms the language-object. What is represented in the mythological realm–myth–is termed metalanguage “because it is a second language, in which one speaks about the first”. A crude representation of the two systems, whereas the terms in the linguistic system are lowercase and the terms in the mythological system are uppercase, looks something like this:
signifier/signified = sign (in linguistic system) = SIGNIFIER/SIGNIFIED (in mythological system) = SIGN
What is important to keep in mind about this representation is that the final term in the linguistic system serves as the first term in the mythological system. Thus, the signifier in myth should be looked at from two vantage points: as the final term and the first term. In the mythological system, Barthes calls the signifier meaning when it is acting as the final term and form when it is serving as the first term; in both systems Barthes retains concept for the second term; lastly, in the mythological system the third term sign becomes signification. A new diagram incorporating these terms would look something like this:
signifier/concept = sign = MEANING – sign in linguistic system FORM – sign as the first term in mythological system /CONCEPT = SIGNIFICATION
MC
Simon Taylor says that the viewer is ultimately punished for looking at Cindy Sherman’s photographs because:
In his essay, “The Phobic Object: Abjection in Contemporary Art”, Simon Taylor says
that in looking at the works of abject feminist artists like Cindy Sherman, the viewer
is ultimately “punished for his/her voyeuristic desires”.
In Roland Barthes essay, “From Text to Work”, he writes that about the semiotic
conditions of the Work and the Text, saying, “The Text can be approached,
experienced, in reaction to the sign. the Work closes on the signified.”
MC
Barthes writes about the semiotic conditions of the Work and the Text, saying the Work closes on the…
Roland Barthes’ famous essay, “From Text to Work”, discusses quite extensively
“text” versus “work”. Unfortunately, despite this, it is never truly black and white.
Barthes writes that texts are generally newer pieces, typically coming from
theorists, while works are often times older, but there are plenty of exceptions. One
of the major distinctions that Barthes makes between text and work, is that text is
much more open to continuous new outcomes and interpretations, while a work
only has so many that can be found. Due to this, a text is a much rarer piece to find
than a work, which is much more of one’s typical piece of literature.
Short Answer
Text and Work (from Barthes) Drew
Roland Barthes’ famous essay, “From Text to Work”, discusses quite extensively
“text” versus “work”. Unfortunately, despite this, it is never truly black and white.
Barthes writes that texts are generally newer pieces, typically coming from
theorists, while works are often times older, but there are plenty of exceptions. One
of the major distinctions that Barthes makes between text and work, is that text is
much more open to continuous new outcomes and interpretations, while a work
only has so many that can be found. Due to this, a text is a much rarer piece to find
than a work, which is much more of one’s typical piece of literature.
Short Answer
Derive
According to Guy Debord, derives, which literally comes out to meaning, “drifting”, is
an adventure, typically through cities, usually completely random in its wanderings,
in an attempt to find new meaning from the architecture of a city. In describing this,
Debord writes, “Transient passage through varied ambiances. The derive entails
playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psycho-geographical effects; which
completely distinguishes it from the classical notions of the journey and the stroll.
In a derive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives
for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let
themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find
there… from the derive point of view cities have a psychogeographical relief, with
constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or
exit from certain zones.”
MC
Where will the Situationists International take up their position for battle, according to Guy Debord?
“It is necessary to throw new forces into the battle of leisure, and we will take up our position there.”
MC
What is the place that the abject draws one toward, according to Julia Kristeva?
“The abject has only one quality of the abject- that of being opposed to I. If the object, however, through its opposition, settles me within the frajile texture of a desire for meaning, which as a matter of fact, makes me ceaselessly and infinitely homologous to it, which is abject, on the contrary, the jettisoned object, is radically excluded and ___draws me towards the place where meaning collapses.” ____(very beginning of reading - “Neither Subject nor Object” section)
Short Answer
Abjection
People associated: Julia Kristeva, Simon Taylor, Jae Emmerling
Indirectly associated: Freud, Lacan, Saussure
Movement: Post-Structuralist
Abjection is a term explored by Julia Kristeva, notably, as well as others in literature and post-structuralism. The theory of abjection states that there is no language to explain abjection, but that it is a very influential part of us, starting in the womb and remaining throughout our lives. Abjection includes bodily waste/the corpse (a thing which is here, yet not here at the same time/the body is here, the person is not), food (Kristeva talks specifically about the separation of cream on top of milk for her personally), and the maternal figure (birth is one of the most violent/abject things in life, which makes woman herself abject). In Freudian terms, the abject is part of the superego, meaning it is a construct from society that teaches us how to interact in society and, ultimately, how to think. Kristeva questions abject constructs as related to the body, suggesting that those things which we expel were once part of us and gave us life.
Short Answer
Detournement
People associated: Guy Debord
Movement: Situationist Internationale (Art and Theory pp701-707)
Similar to appropriation. Defined as the reuse of pre existing artistic elements in a new ensemble. Two requirements are present: that the original artwork used was changed in some way and that it sends the message that innovation is lacking because there are no new ideas in society. This comes from the idea of the Situationist Internationale (similar to ideas seen in “The Mass Object” and Marxist works) that there is a division between the rich and poor and the poor are being pacified through leisure activities. Debord thinks that there has been a lack of “revolutionary political action” and that the stagnation of society is seen, in part, in art. Detournement is a tool used to awaken people to that stagnation/the realities of our present society.
