Roland Barthes on photography
signifiance
punctumstudium
transformsrecords
cultural code“natural” noncode
ideologicaltraumatic
symbolicobvious or informationalcaptionphotograph
connotationdenotation
signified (meaning)signifer (representation)
CODEMESSAGE
Barthes: Camera Lucida Public / Private responses to the photograph Barthes and the “return” to phenomenology
To define the eidos of photography eidos = appearance, idea, constitutive nature, species What common basis unites all our otherwise different
“encounters” with photography?
The noeme or “essence” of photography What I “intentionalize” in photography is “that-has-
been.” The “intentionality of imagination,” or a purely personal
relation to the photograph
Barthes:the eidos of photography The essential nature of our subjective
experience of photography is defined by anirreducible singularity. To experience time as a singular and
unrepeatable event. “Every photograph is a certification of presence” “I want a history of looking” (12), or the
irreducibility of the emotional experience oflooking at photographs.
the Spectrum: the experience of being-photographed
the Spectator: the desire and emotion aroused by theact of looking at specific photographs
To experience time as a singular andnon-repeatable event.
“Every photograph is a certificate of presence.”
“. . . The Photograph . . . represents the verysubtle moment when . . . I am neither subjectnor object but a subject who feels he isbecoming an an object: I then experience amicro-version of death (or parenthesis): I amtruly becoming a specter” (14).
The studium and the punctum The studium refers to the range of
photographic meanings available and obviousto everyone.
The studium is: Unary. The image is a unified and self-contained
whole whose meaning can be taken in at a glance. Coded. Pictorial space is ordered in a universal
comprehensible way.
The studium is: Unary. The image is a unified and self-contained
whole whose meaning can be taken in at a glance. Coded. Pictorial space is ordered in a universal
comprehensible way.
The studium and the punctum The punctum (Latin) = trauma (Greek)
inspires an intensely private meaning “escapes” language--it is not easily
communicated through linguistic resources is “historical,” as an experience of the
irrefutable indexicality of the photograph The punctum as a “partial object” or detail
that attracts and holds my gaze. The photograph is a temporal
hallucination (115). the photographic and the filmic images
The punctum as a “partial object” ordetail that attracts and holds my gaze
The photograph then becomes a bizarre medium,a new form of hallucination: false on the level ofperception, true on the level of time: a temporalhallucination . . . .” (115).
