Rogoff as Echoing Barthes
Reading Rogoff’s discussion of visual culture as an entirely new way of examining visual “things” is actually alot like Roland Barthes “From Work to Text,” an article that privileges the written text as always changing, “dilatory,” and having the capability to “explode.” Just as the text is an “irreducible plural” for Barthes, Rogoff presents visual rhetoric as an opportunity to “unframe” boundaries of discourse in which we have viewed “situated knowledge’s” (384). His quote from Spivak reinforces the idea that unlimited possibilities for questioning and examination that the potentials of visual culture provide, allow for the constant re-settling of “situated knowledge’s” and “continuous (re)production of meanings” (385). Visual art, media, etc., are areas, (much like Barthes notion of “text”), that cross-cut disciplines and contain multiple, potential interpretations simultaneously. Just thought this was interesting because Barthes is generally privileging the written text while Rogoff, visual medias.
Katie said,
April 30, 2008 at 6:43 am
Do you think Rogoff is trying to “unframe” or “re-frame”?
holoda said,
May 1, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I think he is suggesting both. He is acknowledging that “meaning” and “knowledge” are fluid, as are his own subjective impositions on the subject. Un-framing in the sense that one is re-examining and breaking down established conventions, perspectives, discourse etc; and re-framing in the sense of imposing the speakers own identity in relation to whatever referent she/he’s talking about (while being conscious of this imposed subjective perspective). In Rogoff’s case, he discusses how images “come into being” and inform a person’s perspective through their particular history or culture (385).