#once again i am posting from roland barthes by roland barthes but it is simply because it obsesses me

[hautaaja]

from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes

[natsubeatsrock]

Should Hiro Mashima die?

My answer is no. 

Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)

This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.

Again, though, my answer is still no.

Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.

Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect. 

The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern. 

The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.

Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.

The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.

The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths. 

Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.

My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.

This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made.  Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?

Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.

That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible. 

As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation. 

By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.

I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.

Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.

It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author." 

At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.

It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.

That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)

I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."

At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.

As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.

Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.

I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.

At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.

Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.

By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.

What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.

This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.

If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?

Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind. 

It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)

Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.

My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.

This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.

I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.

It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.

Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.

There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things. 

I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.

And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.

Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?

Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)

In Conclusion:

“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.

[metalshea]

Let's Talk About Alcest... and Agalloch... and Behemoth… and Racism

A couple months ago, I wrote an article about Alcest and their second single, "Sapphire", ahead of the release of their latest album, "Spiritual Instinct".  It was building off a previous post I had written about the use of space in metal music.

I never published it.

Nor did I publish my year end list because—spoiler—I list “Spiritual Instinct” on it. 

I've been struggling with how to square the circle that is my love of the Alcest's music with the thorny problem that is Niege's history performing in the racist band, Peste Noire, and the ties he appears to maintain to racist black metal and national socialist black metal (NSBM).  It didn't feel right publishing that article when I knew the history of the band but hadn't yet addressed it. 

To that same end, it doesn't feel right discussing black metal on a public platform without addressing some of the ethics of consuming the genre.

This is my attempt to do that.

For the uninitiated, Niege (née Stéphane Paut), is the musical mastermind of Alcest, one of the premier blackgaze bands in metal music today.  They are the genre's quieter, more contemplative yin to Deafheaven's cacophonous yang.  Alcest frequently use spacy and atmospheric effects, midrange tempos, and ephemeral vocals in their music, and contrast these with more typical black metal musical tropes like blast beats and shrieked vocals to create dynamic, haunting, intense, and beautiful songs.  Lyrically, Alcest is a vehicle for Niege to transcribe and memorialize visions that he had as a child of a distant, far off fairy realm.  As an act, Alcest are distinctly focused on bringing this artistic vision to fruition, and from what I've seen, I have to say they are pretty much laser focused on that task.  Niege has also been hugely influential to the development of the blackgaze genre as a whole and has participated in other successful backgaze acts, such as Les Discrets, as well as collaborated with Lantlos and Deafheaven.

However, Niege and the other members of Alcest have very troublesome histories and connections to Europe's white supremacist music scene.  Niege was previously a member of the French anarcho-racist band, Peste Noire, for 8 years before being fired.  During that time he performed on an album titled "Aryan Supremacy" and even holds writing credits on one of the band's songs off of their album, "Folkfuck Folie".  More troubling, the band members that make up Alcest's studio and live bands have similar resumes, and a number of them did time in Peste Noire.

As the black metal music scene has rightfully come under increased scrutiny for its racist associations, Niege's time in Peste Noire has similarly found itself under the microscope.  In a 2011 statement, Niege specifically addressed criticisms around his past in Peste Noire:

"I never was involved in any way with any political, racist or xenophobic ideologies. I was just a musician in Peste Noire, most of the time session musician, I never took part of the lyrics or philisophy [sic] of the band. At the "Aryan Supremacy" period I was 15 years old and I didn't think about the consequence of recording some music with that band, it always was just musical participation for me. Alcest has NOTHING to do with any hate-based philosophy like racism and as a person I am absolutely NOT into nazism, racism and such ideologies." [emphasis Niege's]

In an interview with Avantgarde Metal in 2011, Neige said about his time in Peste Noire:

"Oh, that was a long time ago now… Don’t even ask me about the concept behind it, it is very complex. It was basically the exact opposite of Alcest: love for evil, but in a real way. In any case, I was only a guest on his project as I played drums for him, but I did/do not share his views at all."

Finally, an article on stereoboard.com dated October 2019 quotes Niege as saying:

With hindsight, Neige dubs this tenure as one of his biggest regrets. Peste Noire are less well-known for their music than for their far-right views and racist imagery, which Alcest have since publicly disowned. “I was never into the ideas of the band,” Neige clarifies. “I was naive enough to think that just being a musician in a band like that didn’t mean anything. But, that really does mean something, and that was my mistake. I was a teenager when I joined, but it’s still a big regret that I have.”

Alcest is at the absolute pinnacle of their career.  They recently signed to Nuclear Blast, have a new album that has earned a number of year-end honors, and have honed a distinctive sound that is very much genre-defining; but in the face of all the accolades, Niege's explanations of his time in Peste Noire are still problematic.

Why does he still associate with other musicians from Peste Noire?

Why doesn't he specifically denounce Peste Noire or it's broader racist project?

If he was just a session or "guest" musician, how does he account for his writing credit?

If the timeline that Niege paints holds up, he was 23 when he was fired, certainly old enough to know better about Peste Noire's project and intentions.  Why did he spend 8 years in the band if he didn't ascribe to its philosophies?  Why didn't he leave Peste Noire voluntarily?  Why did he have to be fired?

Neige may indeed have very rational answers to any and all of these questions, and, to give Niege some credit, his statements are far more direct than similar statements from other artists that have found themselves in the crosshairs of concerned fans.  It's also probably worth noting that in comparing this statement to those from unabashedly racist artists, who fully make use of the opportunity to spout their atrocious beliefs on a public platform, Niege does the exact opposite by distancing himself from hate-driven ideology and publicly declaring his regrets. But even still, it's hard to simply dismiss Neige's time in Peste Noir, and his participation in spreading that band's racist philosophies will forever be a stain on Alcest.

--

After the release of The Faceless', "In Becoming A Ghost", I had a conversation with my wife around whether it would be moral to stream or buy the album.   Shorlty after the album's release, Michael Keene's drug addiction struggles came to light and were pasted all over the metal music press.  While I firmly believe that artists should receive financial benefits when others enjoy their creative output, I also believe that educated consumers should absolutely question how that material support is going to be used by the artist. I don't want to fuel Michael Keene's addictions.  I didn't buy the album.  I streamed it once.  I haven't listened to it since.  I probably won't see The Faceless perform again until I'm sure that Keene has cleaned up. Maybe he has, I haven't followed him that closely to know for sure.

I'm in similar straights with Alcest.  And Behemoth. And Agalloch.  And black metal more generally.

In the case of Behemoth, Nergal's disgusting position on an apparent sexual assault, his murky ties to the NSBM scene, and his continued defiance in the face of such disgusting behavior and views makes my decision about supporting Behemoth a no-brainer: I'm not going to spend my money on their albums anymore, I won't see them live, I won't buy their merch, and I'm not going to promote the band's output on any of my platforms.  I was wrong to do so in the past.  I know better now.  I'm not doing it any more.

But Agalloch was trickier: John Haughm stuck his foot in it when he made disgusting anti-Semitic comments in a facebook post.  However, the former members of the band quickly denounced him for it (as did his bandmates in Pilloran).  I'll certainly listen to the now defunct Khorada and whatever projects the non-racist members of the band move on to.  And, hey, Haughm apologized, so there's that.

But there are still some serious questions about Alcest that need to be wrestled with, especially because of Neige's ongoing relationships with musicians also "previously" connected to white supremacy.  Which begs the question: is it ethical to support or promote the artistic output of a band that on the face of it appears non-controversial, but when the views of the actual artists are themselves questionable?

Roland Barthes, in "The Death of the Author", once wrote:

“The modern writer (scriptor) is born simultaneously with his text; he is in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends his writing, he is in no way the subject of which his book is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the utterance, and every text is eternally written here and now.”

I have some issues with Barthes.  As I see it, a text is inherently subject to the influences and views of the author.  The creative force that is ultimately responsible for the artwork itself is inherently subject to the whims of the artist, and it is forever tied to the creator. However, artistic output can be siloed such that the created art can simultaneously stand separate from the completed whole that makes up the artist.  That is to say that while the artist as a person can be complicated or even problematic, the work that is created is an offshoot that is not necessarily subject to the full scope of experiences or biases of its creator. This siloing of the art from the artist means that a project can exist as an entity that can be examined on its own merits, when appropriate, rather than only within the framework of the creator.

Agalloch as a project was concerned with nature, death, the seasons, and nihilism. While John Haughm has been proven to have some despicable views, his collaboration with the other members of the band resulted in an output that seems fully divorced from his views on race. It feels wrong to punish the other members of Agalloch for Haughm's views, especially after they so thoroughly denounced him for it.

In the case of Alcest, I have found zero evidence that the band represents a racist project.  Its lyrics are decidedly apolitical, ephemeral, and esoteric.  They are an exercise in poetic worldbuilding and a sort of musical sleep diary for Niege's childhood dreams and visions. In contrast, Peste Noire is an unabashedly political and racist project that is a direct extension of its creator's views and philosophies.  Peste Noire's vision and project is to enable a world underpinned by racial supremacy, structural deconstruction, and personal elitism. There's a damned big difference between Alcest and Peste Noire and how their respective creators utilize the bands as thought vehicles, even though personnel have been shared between the two bands.

So, what to do about Alcest?  I'm certainly not going to be person that goes out and says: absolutely you should go out and buy their records.  The past associations of Niege and his compatriots means that Alcest will forever have an asterisk next to its name, and every consumer of their music should certainly take time to consider the ethical ramifications of supporting the band.

Niege asserts that Alcest is not rooted in hate-based ideologies.  Over the course of numerous albums, this has proven true over and over again.  At a certain point, you have to judge someone for their current actions while informed by their past.  Niege will have to continue to reckon with his time in Peste Noire and his current choice of musicians.  But Alcest as a vision has fully matched his assertion: there is no evidence that I can find that Alcest is itself a racist project.  I remain open to being swayed to the contrary, but at this point in time, the evidence simply does not exist.

I also believe we need to reward to people when they perform actions that are themselves moral and correct.  I reject that we should condemn a person in perpetuity while they still retain the ability to seek forgiveness.  I enjoy Alcest's music; I appreciate that it's apolitical; I want Niege to continue to make music that fits the vision he has laid out for Alcest; and I want to tie Niege's successes and the success of his compatriots to a benign project like Alcest. 

As a consumer, the only real way that I can have an impact on someone like Niege is through my wallet.  Capital becomes a vehicle for my opinions and my voice.  Boycott is one way to do it; providing material support is another.  Had I not known about Niege's history in Peste Noire, I would have had no idea that Alcest had this adjacency to hate.  And that's kind of the point: because that connection is so opaque and so irrelevant to Alcest's music output, it actually makes some ethical sense to materially support Alcest as a project.  It is the equivalent of rewarding my dog with a treat when he sits on command even though he used to gnaw on my socks as a puppy.

Above all else, though, we also have to have room to allow people the space to regret, feel contrition, and atone for their past actions.  Niege's statements seem clear: he regrets his time in Peste Noire, and he's worked hard to keep Alcest as distant as possible from Peste Noire's agenda.  If Alcest continues on as it is--a veritable sleep diary--and Niege and crew continue to distance themselves from their previous associations with white supremacy, then I think that it is moral to continue to buy Alcest's music, as it is to listen to Agalloch, and for similar reasons. 

There are still numerous bands in the black metal genre that have instead doubled down on their racism when confronted by fans, instead blaming PC culture and Antifa when really they are the ones that need to look in the mirror.  It is unfortunate that as consumers we need to research the bands we listen to so thoroughly.  But in our world of extreme information sharing, we do have to tools to do so, and indeed we should.  After all, it is the fans that truly hold the power to encourage and denounce such despicable bands, if through no other means than our wallets.

 \m/

[prashantrana85]

Visual Style: Expression, Aesthetics and, narration in photography

From the beginning, our eyes encounter photons either directly or indirectly. So to speak, under normal conditions, our interaction with the outer world begins with visual contact. Of course, all other senses play their role in this interaction. But, seeing and hearing stimulates the mind at first, because these can work through distances, whereas, other three require physical contact with stimuli.

So, what happens when seeing and hearing stimulates the intellect and emotions? In that instant, seeing and hearing turns into vision, and the act of listening. And, from that moment onward, these senses analyze the world. This analysis usually leads to acceptation, rejection or intrigue.

It is clearly comprehensible that within the frames of regular conditions, we begin with visual diagnosis, even before listening. As John Berger said “It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it,” within this establishment, we appreciate, admire or detest, and in certain instances we are simply curious or astonished. And, in the soil of this establishment, emerges the sapling of visual style with its fruits as expression and aesthetics.

What is visual style? As John Berger said “Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen,” this realization influences a person to try and appear as visually appreciable, or at-least acceptable. This effort to be visually appreciable and, acceptable is visual style at the grass-root level. Is this phenomenon of visual style only limited to people? Of courses not; it is applicable to every visible entity.

As spectator, one applies this understanding of visual style on people, places and things one sees and, classifies them as pleasing, disgusting or intriguing. As the spectated, we use this understanding of visual style to decorate ourselves, our places and things that we create. For example, person X going to a party would try to put on their best clothes and, to carry their best appearance. Here, they apply the criteria of visual style on themselves, but once they reach the party, it is probable that person Y catches their gaze, because he or she is dressed (in accordance to understanding of visual style of person X) in visually pleasing manner, which can also be referred as beauty.

When David Hume writes “The sentiments of men often differ with regard to beauty and deformity of all kinds, even while their general discourse is the same,” he highlights the subjective nature of visual style. This branch of subjectivity bears its first fruit, which is expression. Let’s go back to the example of person X. They applied this subjectivity on themselves and, person Y to justify what is visually pleasing to them. But, when person X would’ve to create something, for example a photograph, they’d apply their subjective expression in that act as well. Even if the task is assigned by someone else, it will contain traces of person X’s individual expressions. This subjectivity is what distinguishes Richard Avedon from Robert Capa. Although, their medium of expression was same, their potential stimuli, and expressions were different.

This subjectivity becomes evident in mediums of visual art and, media and communication such as photography, music, textual expression and design. In this moment second fruit called aesthetics, comes to existence. All mediums of expression such as poetry, theater, music etc. are as inseparable from aesthetics as image making. But, since we are discussing visual style, we will discuss visual art and photography.

Expression is an act and, aesthetic is how one decides to perform that act. To explain this lets take the example of person X again. When they dressed up good for the party, it was an expression. But they decided to wear a particular colored dress, with a specific fragrance and pair of shoes, appropriate for that particular kind of occasion, it turns into aesthetic.

Often, aesthetics is defined as a set of principles concerned with beauty or its appreciation. Is it really that simple? Victor Burgin says “What we see … is not a pure and simple coding of light patterns that are focused on retina. Somewhere between the retina and the visual cortex, the in flowing signals are modified to provide information that is already linked to a learned response. … evidently what reaches the visual cortex is evoked by the external world, but is hardly a direct or simple replica of it,” Roland Barthes put this as “I see, I feel, hence I notice, I observe and I think,” and John Berger expresses that “Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning: Beauty, Truth, Genius, Civilization, Form, Status, Taste, etc.” all three of them talks about similar or same concept, but yet in different ways. And, this selection of different ways represents their personal aesthetic expression.

I use expression and aesthetics together, because both are weaved together as the fabric of visual style. But, with these statements one can surely derive a conclusion that expression and aesthetic are not independent of society and psychology. When it comes to modes of visual communication such as photography, this influence of society and psychology is very important to understand, because photography bears responsibility towards both; the viewer as well as the creator.

Talking about social influence on aesthetics, I prefer to call it as Macro Aesthetic; which is derived from society, culture, and politics etc. This determines the issue, event or sentiment which a photographer decides to portray, and the general ways of viewer’s perception. Photos from modernist and post-modernist era, or works of photojournalists influenced by a certain political movement, are an apt example of this. Roland Barthes talks about this influence as a spectator when he coins the term Studium saying, “It is by studium that I am interested in so many photographs, whether I receive them as political testimony or enjoy them as good historical scenes: for it is culturally (this connotation is present in stadium) that I participate in the figures, the faces, the gestures, the settings, the actions,” and Martha Rosler talk about this influence over photographer pointing out “The Bowery, in New York, is an archetypal skid row. It has been much photographed, in works veering between outraged moral sensitivity and sheer slumming spectacle,” in her essay.

On the other hand, I believe there is also Micro Aesthetics, which emerges from within the photographer, and is influenced by psychology. It influences the selection of subject and not only its way of portrayal. It is determined by personal experiences, hopes or ambitions of the creator as well as the viewer of the image. As a viewer, Roland Barthes calls it Punctum when he says, “It is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me.”

To simplify, I’d say; Macro aesthetics is where either photographer or spectator or both are playing the photograph as a musical instrument. They’ve control over the selection of theme, shapes, colors, issues and cultural knowledge or curiosity to enhance that knowledge, by studying the subjects portrayed. They’re involved but not participating in the image.

But, Micro aesthetics creates circumstances where either photographer, or spectator, or both are being played like a musical instrument by the photograph itself. Here, they participate in image making i.e. the photographer and spectator, share a part of inner self with the photograph. But, it is next to impossible to set permanent principles around it, because what might socially affect one could psychologically influence the other, and vice versa.

An example to this can be the recent trend in photojournalism, where photos of war and refugees, flood the media. These images might contain Barthes’s Studium for people from safe countries but, they’d have Punctum for persons that encountered war. Similarly the photographs might be results of Macro aesthetics of a photojournalist who hail from a safe country, but for a photographer who faced or is facing loss due to war, those photos might be an outcome of Micro Aesthetic expression.

These expressions can be static, dynamic, geometric or sculptural etc. depending upon the personal psyche of creator. And, can be sympathetic, empathetic, objective or symbolic for creator as well as spectator, depending upon their reference point within the image.

At macro level, aesthetic expressions are connected to society and culture in terms of trends of how one expresses oneself. But, this connection is not strong enough to behold subjectivity. At micro level, subjectivity works to expand the horizon of visual style. One can say that we are going through this phase of expansion of horizon in photography. From the descriptive documentary style to interpretive communicative, and in some cases even symbolically expressive.

The direction of this expansion is still blurred. But I presume that text, sounds, and films are gaining importance as aesthetic additions, or tools in visual style of photographic presentations. Reason behind this anticipation, is the lesser amount of time that spectators invest in image viewing, due to fast paced lives. Flood of images in online and offline visual media. Also, text, sounds and moving images, prevents misunderstandings in global society, by clarifying the meanings of symbols and intentions of the photographer. It appears that inclusion of other senses, than just sight is the next step. We’ll see.

By – Prashant Rana

Every Sunday we discuss live though Instagram @prashantrana_official (Link - https://www.instagram.com/prashantrana_official/ ), at 16:30 (04:30PM) Indian Standard Time (12:00 Central European standard time). The discussion is based on diary entry of Fridays. We pick one topic of photography to write about, and post it here on the website. And, on Sunday at the given time, we talk about that live on Instagram. (Next session on 15th March 2020.

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