Eco, Barthes and Bürger

The essays by Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes, and Peter Bürger are all in some ways a continuation of the discussion of the subjective character of the archive. Although, I don’t think any of them mention the archive, they do remind me of the discussions in “The Archive” because they focus on subjective reception of works of art, literature and music.

Eco discusses open-works and the way in which one work can be performed in a variety of different ways – depending on the intention of the author, composer, or artist. I see the performer in this sense as akin to the viewer. The performer presents his or her own particular interpretation or view of the piece in the way that the viewer might talk about his or her own interpretation of a given piece. I found myself wondering whether a work has to be conceived of as open by its creator for it to be considered an open-work. Eco suggests that the dictionary is not an open-work, which I agree with, as it is not intended to be a creative interpretation in its own right. It is rather seen as what we call a reference or guide. One of the postings by Ethan and Sally describes Creative Commons in which works may not necessarily have been created with the intention of being open yet are made available in order for others to use and interpret them for their own works. Thus, it would seem that a work does not have to be intentionally open for it to be considered an open-work. Yet, it might be the case that those that are intended to be open in the manner of any of the musical compositions or Joyce’s writings that Eco refers to. The pre-thought that would have to go into what Eco calls the “calembour” (29) is mind-boggling.

I loved Barthes’ essay and his assertions that once words are narrated or written the identity of the author “slips away,” the origin is lost and the author is dead. Later Barthes goes on to say that there is no original writing (anymore). Texts are “tissue[s] of quotations.” The writer only has power in the way in which he or she mixes these quotations. And finally there is the scriptor who succeeds the author and has no emotions. Therefore the scriptor is only able to imitate “the book” in an infinite combination of signs. All of these ideas seem rather postmodern in that they seem to stress that there is no originality. The idea that the scriptor is one who endlessly puts together words in different combinations is reminiscent of Warhol’s insistence that he was a machine. And finally, Barthes returns to the stress on the death of the author when he stresses that the subsequent unity in a text is based on the reader or the viewer – the destination – an echo of Eco.

Bürger’s essay was somewhat annoying. I wanted to agree with him but couldn’t. He based his argument on the idea that there are three stages to art: sacral, courtly, and bourgeois. This is fine for argument’s sake, but the idea that “production and reception of the self-understanding as articulated in art are no longer tied to the praxis of life” is what bothers me. Even though art may be self-referential the making of it and the reception of it are still tied to the praxis of life. There is sacral praxis, courtly praxis AND bourgeois praxis. Thus the art coming from all of these praxes are a part of life praxis. Perhaps, I misunderstood what Bürger was trying to say....