Week 7 - Roland Barthe Reading, Hanu Park
Overall, the read was not bad. I found the homey style of writing interesting to read, but annoyiong to decipher, especially when he would try to explain new ideas and concepts. On the plus side, I think I understand better what type of person he is through his writing, and how that affects his relationship with photography. Besides the reading style, the content of the 10 chapters were okay. I feel like I could have read half of each chapter and all of chapter 11 and gotten the same gist with a lesser experience. His idea of two themes within photography (the set and the point), I personally feel are too broad to cover anything specifically meaningful, but then also too narrow to include all points of photgraphy.
From chapter 2, I found it interesting that he comments how the science and study behind photography took away from his experience as an enjoyer of photography. This is interesting to me because in many aspects, art connoisseurs are respected for their degree of refinement and discerning when regarding art. I imagine he would also dislike the labels put onto art as well, and it reminded me of the videos of regular people trying to choose which art piece was insanely expensive between two extremely similar pieces. If he was still alive to view them, I think he would find them funny.
To comment on the French Wall, I viewed the photos and the writing as well as read the accompanying review, but still did not feel anything in particular towards the art form or exhibition. I recognize that it is a delicate art form, but confusing for me to interpret as an audience. For some of the pieces, the link between text, photo, and presentation was interesting, and I found that they all worked well together in order to create a mood.
On story art in general, I wanted to find more related information in hopes I could better understand the French Wall, but struggled to find resources.