Where is the performance in Joseph Roach's "Culture and Performance"?
I’d like to ask for some help, both in sorting out an essay, and in answering the question, “What is performance theory for?” I’ve been struggling with Joseph Roach’s essay in Performativity and Performance . At first reading, it seemed to be a clear tracing of three funeral performances as examples of social memory. Stepping back from it, though, I feel like it wanders over lots of territory, and I’m having difficulty finding the main point he is arguing. I believe one of his main theses is that literature and orature are interrelated, “that these modes of communication have produced one another interactively over time” (45). Another thesis is that performance allows culture to change. I don’t see how these arguments are supported with the analysis of different funeral performances, though. The literature he refers to is the libretto of an opera (an obvious aesthetic performance form) or a newspaper. How is performance related to what has traditionally been considered literatu...
Is your identity different from who you are? This question emerged for me out of some fragments of our discussion including:
ReplyDeleteIs Barthes reading the pictures from a French perspective? Am I reading my pictures from an exclusively American one? Does that matter?
Are there universal feelings we can appeal to or rely on?
Is the punctum completely outside of culture or code?
The discussion of studium/punctum seems tied to a discussion of culture (by which I mean signification, code, meaning-making, that which makes a collection of wood cells into a “tree”) and something before, beyond, or outside culture. The studium is culture. It is something everybody, or a group which is significant for me, would understand because we share a system of signification. This side is clear enough, I believe. But if the studium is culture, is the punctum not culture? Barthes writes, “The studium is ultimately always coded, the punctum is not” (p. 51). Does he mean the punctum is never coded, or merely that it is not necessarily always coded? Can anything, any association or meaning, exist outside the code or system of meaning making?
Approaching the dichotomy from the other side, the punctum seems to be irrational or analytical. Barthes often cannot explain why an element grabs him. “The effect is certain but unlocatable, it does not find its sign, its name” (pp. 51-53). The punctum, we suggested in class, does not work on the level of sign, but on the level of the body. It affects us in some embodied way before it works on an analytic level. So we say it appeals to emotions which seem to work separate from society’s encoding. Emotions seem to be more basic, primal things, perhaps part of being a human, not part of being an American, a man, a student, white, etc. I think this underlay Erfan’s use of the word “universal.”
For another example, I took Barthes’s interpretation of the picture of Brazza (p. 52) to be based on the relationship of French society at the time to race and colonial power. When he codes the hand as “ ‘aberrant’ ” (p. 51), I assume this is because, according to the social programming he has received, black people, especially young boys, should not touch white people, especially older men with more power, in this way. Maybe that is not how Barthes reads it. No matter, because what is interesting for him is the inescapability of the other detail, the crossed arms. Barthes’s fascination with this gesture, we are led to believe, does not come from Barthes’s identity as a race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, ability, etc. It comes from something deeper, something different from his socially constructed identity.
This understanding of studium/punctum suggests a similar dichotomy of social being and asocial being. Your identity and something else. What is this something else? Your essence? Your being? Something fundamental? I claim that this dichotomy does not exist. Our socially constructed identities do not exist separate from or on top of some deeper, more authentic self. I agree with Butler that our labels “cannot be understood as a role which either expresses or disguises an interior ‘self’ ” (p. 528). The punctum might point to some highly individual set of associations or meanings, and it might help me work with my identity through my physicality, my desires, or my affections, but it does not lead me to my “authentic self.”
DeleteI don’t think studium/ punctum has to suggest the dichotomy of social being and asocial being. I agree that the dichotomy does not exist. The “self’ in general is a linguistic construction. I don’t think he is saying there is an “authentic self” that reacts to punctum, but he’s saying the punctum is the more personal (less widely accepted meaning) in the body to something specific in the photo. This reaction to punctum still exists socially and is still informed by culture, but is not the widely accepted meaning(studium)of the photo as a whole. I think the performative writing may be misleading in some ways. I think he’s trying to teach readers what the punctum is by separating it from studium more dramatically.
I agree here with Taylor's thought that Barthes is neither describing an 'authentic self' that responds to punctum or an asocial self that is free of culture. Instead it seems he is referring to a personal association that certainly /can/ be picked up by others but that is /usually/ individual to the spectator. I think someone said it in class or it may have just been a note I wrote down in response to our conversation, that punctum creates the space for a spectator to enter and imagine or experience the work. I understand this as the idea of metonymy, that punctum allow for free associations to be applied based on our individual experiences and memories.These are not contrived points, poses, or elements of a photograph that work to elicit a response or an association from you based on cultural programming, rather they're an extraneous and unintended 'prick' that you bring to the photo, sometimes long after having seen it as Barthes goes on to describe. His suggestion that "I may know better a photograph I remember than a photograph I am looking at," (53) seems to illustrate the personal, metonymic nature of punctum; you best know a photo and what pricks you about it when alone with your own memories.
DeleteWow, Ethan, I really enjoyed your writing here—quite poetic! I have to agree with both Taylor and Ethan here. Thanks for the in-depth questions, Josiah. To be clear, I don't think Barthes and Butler are saying the same thing, but I think they are saying the the opposite less than they are saying the same. In fact, I think the studium/punctum and binary/gender performance play nicely together, or off each other in a playful split screen. I hear in Butlers final words, a call much like Barthes, to throw off all seeing with other's eyes (Barthes) when Butler says, "Gender is what is put on, invariably, under constraint, daily and incessantly, with anxiety and pleasure, but if this continuous act is mistaken for a natural or linguistic given, power is relinquished to expand the cultural field bodily through subversive performances of various kinds" (531). To me, Barthes' project is about throwing the rule book out about how a photograph is supposed to be assessed, assigned value, etc. to include affect, and his work exemplifies a subversive gender performance in the context of patriarchal heterosexual discussions of photographies meaning at the time. He is literally expanding the cultural field and theoretical field with his work, proven by his performative writing that, I would argue is a very counter-hegemonic gender performance—embodying queer theory before it had even been theorized (calling back previous blog threads here). Barthes queers the ways photography had been discussed. Put another way, Barthes walked into a conversation dominated by (mostly) straight, white, photographers who scoffed at his ideas, and said, 'my bodily' discussion of photography matters, and your limited terms and rigid ideas about what photography is and isn't is irrelevant.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with that the dichotomy between studium/punctum does not exist yet, they are not the same thing. As we remarked in class, the idea of an "authentic self" is performative and probably should not be taken literally or, rather, incontrovertibly. I would argue that whether or not punctum will lead to an "authentic self" depends on a lot of factors - based on the variables at work, it may lead or may not lead to an "authentic self." For example, I might see a native American performance in Navajo language and something strikes me about the performance that might not necessarily lead me to my individual self. On the other hand, assuming I am proficient in Navajo language with deep knowledge of the cultural codes, I might see some similarities in the Navajo culture and Yoruba culture that resonates deeply with me, and forces me to rethink some of the assumptions I had had about Yoruba culture. Unfortunately, Barthes did not reveal explicitly what he means by "authentic self" but to be sure, the examples he gives show that studium/punctum are not binaries even though they are not out rightly the same thing. They feed on each other.
ReplyDeleteQuotes that might provide clarity and fodder for this dialog: "It is not possible to posit a rule of connection between the studium and the punctum" (p. 43).
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not sure if these two notions, Studium and Punctum, are still relevant in contemporary photography art, I think it is great to have these ideas and start our conversations with them since we all know what they mean. I still believe that Punctum is "universal". It talks to me and my soul as a human not necessarily an Iranian young man. I was thinking about these terms and then I thought about my picture, the Tank Man. I noticed something that has made me remember that picture, something that stroked me and made me remember that photo from the first moment I saw it. The man is standing in front of those tanks and he is carrying two plastic bags. It seems like he was coming back from grocery shopping, and then suddenly he is standing for his rights! Those bags are the punctum. It is poignant and pricks me every single time I look at the picture! I have been shopping my groceries and carrying white plastic bags like him many times. I bet you all have done too. We all, as humans, know how it feels to be in that ordinary situation and that's why the photo can connect with you and your feelings. I can see myself there, in the photo, standing in front of those tanks and now I'm like " What is happening?" "Where am I?" I think talking about studium puts the photograph in a context- cultural, social, or political. We can talk about the protests that happened that year or why that specific square etc, However, punctum is the the sharp point of the photograph and stabs your heart, as a human, in a way that you cannot forget it.
ReplyDeleteHi Erfan, I think the plastic bags are the punctum for me too. I like your depiction of how the shopping bags place the viewer in the shoes of the person standing in front of the tank. Making the outrageous mundane.
DeleteWhat is the aura of your artwork/text/performance? What does it do? This particular statement carried with me as a left class that day. I kept thinking about it in terms of longevity-- how am I impacting people by pursing this degree? What is really the purpose of all of this? This was particularly the week of my show and I remember chatting with my cast about the impact we were going to have on the LSU community. Not because the show was simply "good", but because we were purposeful about "doing something" with our words and with our bodies... with the colors and with the music... with the prop choices and costumes... with the graphic design and with every program folded, we were intentional about doing something that would be visually temporal, but would live on.
ReplyDeleteThe photo exercise was an extension of this message (for me). By presenting Rosa Parks I was reminded of "the why" in a way that I hadn't revisited this semester for myself. Barthes explained that if the studium is always coded, and the punctum is not, the we should understand the photo exercise as a manifesto that could change depending on the context and location of the presentation. They are moments that we created for one another, but also they were a collective exploration of our relation to objects (photos) with invited guests.
laura