“On This Side of the Eyelashes”. Non-place, Non-person, Photo-graphy  Cover Image
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„Po tej stronie rzęs”. Nie-miejsce, nie-osoba, foto-grafia
“On This Side of the Eyelashes”. Non-place, Non-person, Photo-graphy

Author(s): Wojciech Michera
Subject(s): Anthropology
Published by: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: image; anthropology; photography

Summary/Abstract: The fundamental part of this essay is an analysis of a fragment from the autobiography of Roland Barthes, i.e. a photograph showing a theatrical spectacle in which Barthes took part in the courtyard of the Sorbonne, and a commentary connected with the photograph in question. By referring to other texts, both by Barthes and, i.a. Lacan, Foucault, Benveniste and Derrida, author demonstrated that within this visual-literary discourse the masked figure of the “author-actor” is not solely an “arbitrary and external sign of identity” (as is sometimes believed) but a non-person (non-personne), “non-place” (non-lieu), and a figure radically questioning the subjectivity of the narrator. A careful (narratological) analysis of this scene shows that the “mask” is negated, and ceases to be a “symbol”, thus assuming the subversive features that Barthes linked with the concept of “photography”.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 03
  • Page Range: 83-92
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Polish