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How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?

Roland Barthes

What the Photograph reproduces to infinity has occurred only once: the Photograph mechanically repeats what could never be repeated existentially.
ROLAND BARTHES

Existence Oneself Repeat Reproduction
We don’t forget, but something vacant settles in us.
ROLAND BARTHES

Forget Ourselves Settle
Isn’t desire always the same, whether the object is present or absent? Isn’t the object always absent? -This isn’t the same languor: there are two words: Pothos, desire for the absent being, and Himéros, the more burning desire for the present being.
ROLAND BARTHES

Absence Burning Desire Object Present
All official institutions of language are repeating machines: school, sports, advertising, popular songs, news, all continually repeat the same structure, the same meaning, often the same words: the stereotype is a political fact, the major figure of ideology.
ROLAND BARTHES

Ideas Institution Meaning Official Popular Repeat Structure
I cannot classify the other, for the other is, precisely, Unique, the singular Image which has miraculously come to correspond to the speciality of my desire. The other is the figure of my truth, and cannot be imprisoned in any stereotype (which is the truth of others).
ROLAND BARTHES

Classification Desire Myself Speciality Stereotype Truth Unique
One must turn the tongue seven times in the mouth before speaking.
ROLAND BARTHES

Mouth Oneself Speaking Time Tongue
In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The ‘anything whatever’ then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.
ROLAND BARTHES

Notable Order Photography Sophistication Value
To eat, to speak, to sing (need we add: to kiss?) are operations which have the same site of the body for origin.
ROLAND BARTHES

Body Eat Origin Sing Talk
Where you are tender, you speak your plural.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fragile Soft Talk Tender Yourself
This endured absence is nothing more or less than forgetfulness. I am, intermittently, unfaithful. This is the condition of my survival.
ROLAND BARTHES

Absence Condition Endurance Faith Myself Survival
I have tried to be as eclectic as I possibly can with my professional life, and so far it’s been pretty fun.
ROLAND BARTHES

Fun Life Myself Possible Pretty Professional
Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.
ROLAND BARTHES

Literature Poet Talk Writing
The Ventoux is a god of Evil, to which sacrifices must be made. It never forgives weakness and extracts an unfair tribute of suffering.
ROLAND BARTHES

Evil Forgiveness God Ourselves Suffering Weakness
There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
ROLAND BARTHES

Escape Present Way
To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.
ROLAND BARTHES

Excession Language Love Try Writing
Painting can feign reality without having seen it.
ROLAND BARTHES

Myself Painting Reality See

How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?

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How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?

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