The Death of the Author

Been reading up on Roland Barthes' 'Death of the Author.' Interesting quotes;

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. Similar to Bouvard and Pecuchet, those eternal copyists, at once sublime and comic and whose profound ridiculousness indicates precisely the truth of writing, the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them. Did he wish to express himself, he ought at least to know that the inner 'thing' he thinks to 'translate' is itself only a ready-formed dictionary, its words only explainable through other words, and so on indefinitely

Really interesting stuff. So related to my project, the author of the review is not a 'voice of God,' dictating facts, according to Barthes. Instead they are merely compiling a variety of previous experiences in reading. And in turn, us as the reader is interpreting each text in relation to our previous experiences also. Barthes is questioning the need of the contemporary author, insisting that everything written these days is merely a reproduction of previous ideas. I could argue that my images do the same job, rendering both as essential (or non-essential) as the other. My original attempt at the project, in a way, was an aim to challenge language and linguistics, and the need for them. A lot of the readings I have done aren't really helping to guide me in a different direction. I think I need to look more into 'image interpration' and the legitimacy of indexical imagery. What makes Isotype, for example, as legitimate a source as it's perceived to be? Tomorrow's aim is to get Photoshop working and try to mock up a better draft of the 'gallery' incorporation.