Project 3-3: Further thoughts on `Myth today’ and Barthes’ concept of myth.

A few more thoughts on Barthes’ concept of myth.It took me a few readings of Myth today (Barthes, 1999) before I felt comfortable with having some sort of understanding of what Barthes was trying to say.

My basic understanding of myth:

•  It is a second class of signification along the lines of association; to refer back to another of Barthes’ essays The Rhetoric of the Image (which I discussed in an earlier post here), myth is connotation rather than denotation.

• Myths obscure the realities behind them to the point that they become the concept, leading people to believe/assume they are how things naturally are.  Beliefs/assumptions that  ‘go without saying’ when in fact they don’t – beliefs/assumptions that are ‘falsely obvious’.  We need to reconsider what we take for granted – advertising is a prime example – advertisers often rely on myth to sell their products.

Chapter five (‘Semiotics’) of Howells and Negreiros (2012) provides some useful information about myth. Some of my comments below are a repetition of my earlier notes on the chapter as a whole (see my post here), however I’m finding it useful to have certain points reinforced.  Please note that this post is a list of jottings useful for me at this moment in time, an aide-memoire, rather than a full set of notes on the topic.

• • Fundamental to Barthes’ analysis is that everything can be a sign.
  • Whilst based on Saussure’s semiotic principles, Barthes takes these further (his introduction of ‘myth’).
  • Myth is the deliberate use of something to stand for something else – myth is more concerned with intention than form > connection is ‘never arbitrary’ (p. 120)
  • ‘Barthes contends that the function of myth is to (mis)represent history as nature’ (p.122)
  • Barthes argues that it is ‘bourgeois values that are falsely represented as natural and inevitable by the process of mythology’ (p.125)
  • For Barthes, mythology is essentially a right-wing phenomenon (p.126).  Exists also on softer left but ‘it is a myth suited to a convenience, not a necessity’ (p.126)

Another example of myth:

First semiological system (language)

• • •  Signifier = spoken word ‘dog’
    • Signified = the idea of a dog
    • Sign (A) =  union of the two – what we understand the word ‘dog’ to represent e.g. a furry animal that barks.

Second semiological system (myth)

• • • Signifier = Sign (A) – what we understand the word ‘dog’ to represent e.g a furry animal that barks
    • Signified = [takes the Signifier/Sign (A) a step further] e.g fidelity
    • Sign – union of the two.

Issues with Barthes’ viewpoint …

• • • Many strong left-wing myths – Stalin (propaganda approach of ‘purging’ people from history is famous), Chairman Mao, Che Guevara.
    • Barthes speaks of a ‘science’ of semiotics (p.126) but his methodology is not scientific; it is selective, subjective and interpretive – does not appear to be structured or rigorous.
    • Barthes sees what he wants to see > bourgeoisie appear in every myth.
    • Overly complicated.  Barthes terminology is often complex and confusing.

… However his theory has positives:

• • •  founded on semiotics > sound and sensible basis for visual analysis >> how communication of meaning is possible between two or more people.
    • extended Saussure’s linguistic model to visual culture.
    • theory that myths are made up of component sign systems opens up more complex visual texts for semiotic analysis > semiotic layerings – good example is in advertising.  Advertising campaigns can be heavily loaded with deliberate signifiers e.g. Renault campaign of the 1990s.

I also found  a good example of myth in Palmer (1997), using Barthes’ example of ‘passionified roses’ found in his essay Myth today (Barthes, 1999)

First semiological system (language)

• Signifier [image] = roses
• Signified [concept] = passion
• Sign [associative total] = passionified roses

(Palmer, 1997)

Palmer (1997:56) tells us that the signifier (roses) and signified (passion) ‘can be divided in analysis, but not in fact.  In real life we confront only the “associative total” – the sign itself’.

Second semiological system (myth)

For example when the sign above (passionified roses) is considered as advertising

• Signifier = passionified roses
• Signified = Valentine’s day
• Sign = product consumption and expenditure of money as romantic obligation

(Palmer, 1997)

So the original sign of the first semiological system (a signifier in the second) has now been emptied of its meaning.

Bibliography

Barthes, R. (1999) Myth Today.  In: Evans, J and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual Culture: The Reader. London: Sage. pp.51-58

Howells, R. & Negreiros, J. (2012)  Visual Culture (2nd ed.)  Cambridge: Polity Press

Palmer, D. (1997) Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners (Reprint ed.)  Danbury CT: For Beginners

Project 3-3: Myth is a type of speech – notes on the essay ‘Myth today’ by Roland Barthes

We are asked to read the Roland Barthes essay Myth today (Barthes, 1999) and make notes.Before starting my reading, I needed to make clear in my mind the common definition of ‘myth’.  Oxford Dictionaries (2017) tells us that a myth is:

‘A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events: ‘ancient Celtic myths’.

And this is broadly in line with my current understanding of the term ‘myth’.

A quick semiotic recap:

Semiotics concerns the relationship between signifier, signified and sign:

• Signifier – something that stands for something else => the three letters ‘D-O-G’ (the signifier being this combination of three letters on a printed page)  NB could be ‘C-H-I-E-N’ in French or ‘P-E-R-R-O’ in Spanish.  Could also be made-up e.g. by a child
• Signified – the idea of the thing the signifier stands for => the idea we get in our head when we see the signifier ‘D-O-G’.
• Sign – union of the two.

Now on to Barthes’ essay:

According to Barthes, myth is a type of speech.  It is a system of communication, a message.

Myth is not an object, concept or idea; it is a mode of signification, a form.

As it is a type of speech, everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse.  But it is not defined by the object of its message, rather the way it utters its message > it’s a way of saying something.  For example Barthes tells us that ‘a tree is a tree’, but can also be expressed as something more  > Drouet’s poem ‘ Tree that I Love’ imbues the tree with meaning, anthropomorphising and personalising it. (Drouet and her tree poem are discussed in greater detail in the second part of this project – see next post)

It is human history that converts reality into speech – myth is a type of speech chosen by history; it cannot evolve from the ‘nature’ of things.

Semiology proposes a relation between two terms – signifier and signified.   Relation of equivalence, not equality, hence we are dealing with three terms, not two:

Signifier (bunch of roses) + signified (passion) = sign (associative total of the first two terms =  passionified roses).    Both ‘roses’ and ‘passion’ existed before their unification into a sign.

Myth is a ‘second-order semiological system’ – it is constructed from a semiological chain which existed before it. A sign in the first system becomes a signifier in the second – ‘ … the materials of mythical speech (the language itself, photography, painting, posters, rituals, objects, etc.) however different at the start are reduced to a pure signifying function as soon as they are caught by myth.  Myth sees in them only the same raw material; their unity is that they all come down to the status of a mere language.’

First-order semiological system = linguistic system (the ‘language-object’) – the language used by myth to build its own system.

Second-order semiological system = myth itself (‘metalanguage’ – the second language in which one speaks about the first).

Example 1 – from Latin grammar

‘Quia ego nominor leo’  (because my name is lion)

First semiological system (language):

• Signifier = words are there, in a certain order – there to signify something to the reader.
• Signified = the words are a grammatical example illustrating a grammatical rule.
• Sign (A) = association of the written words and their literal meaning.

Second semiological system (myth):

• Signifier = sum of signs – sign (A) in first system becomes the signifier in this second system
• Signified = I am a grammatical example
• Sign = correlation of signifier and signified.

Example 2 – young black boy in French army uniform saluting (to the French flag?)

First semiological system (language):

• Signifier = photograph of a young black soldier giving a French salute = meaning
• Signified = mixture of Frenchness and militariness
• Sign (A) = message about France and its citizens

Second semiological system (myth):

• Signifier = sum of signs – sign (A) in first system becomes the signifier in this second system = form
• Signified = French imperiality  = concept
• Sign = correlation of signifier and signified – greatness of France, no colour discrimination, faithfully serving under French flag = signification.

Myth has double function – it points out an it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on us.

My summary:

LANGUAGE = Signifier (meaning )+ Signified = Sign

MYTH = Sign (from above)  becomes Signifier (= form) + Signified (= concept) = Sign ( = Signification)

The form and the concept

Signifier of myth is at the same time meaning and form – full on one side, empty on the other.

– As Meaning (= Signifier on first level), it already suggests a reading – has its own value.  It is already complete – it postulates a kind of knowledge, a past, a memory, a comparative order of facts, ideas, decisions.

– As Form (= Signifier on second level) the meaning empties itself, history evaporates, only the letter remains.  An abnormal regression from meaning to form.

But form does not suppress the meaning. ‘It only impoverishes it, puts it at a distance, holds it at one’s disposal.  Meaning loses its value but keeps its life.  ‘It is this constant game of hide-and-seek between the meaning and the form which defines myth.’ (p.56) 

Signified in myth – the history that drains out of the form will be wholly absorbed by the concept.  Concept drives the myth – it is a whole new history that is implanted in the myth.

Meaning is always there to present the form, the form is always there to outdistance the meaning.

Example – If in car looking through window, I can at will focus on the scenery or on the window-pane. Can see the presence of the glass and the distance of the landscape at one moment, at another I can see the transparence of the glass and the depth of the landscape.  The glass is at once present and empty, the landscape is unreal and full ==> mythical signifier – form is empty but present, meaning is absent but full.

‘… myth is a type of speech defined by its intention (I am a grammatical example) much more than by its literal sense (my name is lion)’ (p.57)

The ambiguity of mythical speech (uncertainty of form versus meaning) has two consequences for the signification – appears both like a  notification and statement of fact.

Myth is depoliticized speech

‘Myth has task of giving a historical intention a natural justification ‘>> = bourgeois ideology. (p.57)

World supplies to myth a natural reality – myth gives a natural image of this reality in return.

Myth is constitued by the loss of historical quality of things – ‘things lose the memory that they once were made.’ (p.58)

Myth in a bourgeois society is depoliticized speech  > myth does not deny things but talks about them simply and innocently, gives a natural and eternal justification > clarity which is not an explanation, just a statement of fact >> ‘it goes without saying’ – things appear to mean something by themselves.

Bibliography

Barthes, R. (1999) Myth Today.  In: Evans, J and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual Culture: The Reader.  London: Sage. pp.51-58

Oxford Dictionaries (2017) ‘Myth’ (definition 1)  [online]. At:   https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/myth  (accessed on 31 January 2017)

 

Notes: ‘Semiotics’ – chapter 5 of ‘Visual Culture’ by Richard Howells and Joaquim Negreiros

Saussure – language = system of signs or signals which enable people to communicate with each other.Semiotics concerns the relationship between signifier, signified and sign:

Signifier – something that stands for something else => the three letters ‘D-O-G’ (the signifier being this combination of three letters on a printed page)  NB could be ‘C-H-I-E-N’ in French or ‘P-E-R-R-O’ in Spanish.  Could also be made-up e.g. by a child

Signified – the idea of the thing the signifier stands for => the idea we get in our head when we see the signifier ‘D-O-G’.

Sign – union of the two.

Many different signifiers for a signified => not a ‘God-given’ relationship between signifier and signified => sign is always arbitrary – key point in semiotics.  Relationship between signifier and signified is purely conventional e.g. ‘Nova’ in English = ‘bright and new’ => good name for car for English people.  But ‘Nova’ in Spanish = ‘doesn’t go’ => bad name for car to sell to Spanish people.

Words only mean what they do because we agree that they do.

Structuralists – group of mainly French intellectuals who advanced Saussure’s early linguistic theory into diverse areas such as anthropology and psychoanalysis.

Barthes extended semiotics to the analysis of visual and popular culture – used semiotics to reveal both the text and the underlying ideological assumptions of the society in which it was created e.g our choice of clothes goes further than just keeping us warm and dry – we make conscious decisions as how we want to look (e.g. wedding, interview, a date) => semiotic decisions.   E.g. a tie has no practical function > its function is entirely semiotic as a signifier e.g. showing seriousness at an interview.

A sign is arbitrary, therefore the relationship between a signifier and a signified can change over time e.g. Eiffel Tower > today signifies Paris (connotations of street cafes, artists, sophistication etc).  Yet when built was condemned as an eyesore.  Blackpool Tower moulded on Eiffel Tower – connotations differ greatly >> the signifier is an empty vessel into which cultural meaning is poured to imbue it with meaning. (p.118)

Barthes believed that everything could be a sign – any material can be endowed with meaning. – not limited to spoken or written.  Pictures can be more potent than writing – ‘they impose meaning with one stroke’.

Barthes’ analysis built on Saussurian semiotics – but took it further than Saussure’s model:

• he extended semiotics from Saussure’s concern with written and spoken language to an analysis of the visual and the popular culture.
• he took semiotics a stage further into the study of what he called ‘myth’

Barthes’ Myth

Not a common misconception but a ‘second-order semiological system’ > the sign created by the signifier and signified (e.g. dog) can then go on to become the signifier of something else (e.g. fidelity).  The final term or sign in the (first) order becomes the first term or signifier in the (second) mythical system > fidelity becomes the mythical signified.  The mythical sign is the union of the two.

=> Myth = a sum of signs

Characteristics of myth:

• Relationship between the form and the concept is unequal – form is poorer as concept could be signified by a number of different signifiers.
• Relationship is never permanently fixed
• The form is impoverished by its relationship with the concept (e.g. an individual may lose his identity and become solely a form for the communication of an idea)
• More concerned with intention than with form – connection between mythical signifier and signified is never arbitrary > always in part motivated – ‘there is no myth without motivated form’.

Barthes describes a major purpose of myth as to ‘transform a meaning into a form’ – however importance of interpretation in the reading of myth.

Idea of something standing for something else is not new > early Renaissance artists included symbols in religious paintings.  Procedure then formalised in emblem books of later centuries.  Semiotics breaks the code.

Barthes’ Mythologies

Central argument – Barthes contends that the function of myth is to (mis) represent history as nature.  Similar to Berger, he believes that contemporary society is the result of natural rather than historical forces.

Myth does not lie, it distorts – it is a story ‘at once true and unreal’.  It does not deny, justify or explain things, just states them as fact.   Myths therefore have a false clarity in which ‘things appear to mean something by themselves’ when in fact they are the results of man-made history and could have turned out (as they still might) very differently > Myth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification.

For Barthes, myth achieves the representation of the historical as natural by leaving the historical out = a kind of amnesia.  Kind of speech with politics removed > Barthes’ definition of myth as ‘depoliticized speech’(p.123).  There is the need to seek out the underlying cultural assumptions contained within a text, assumptions that seem so natural that ‘they go without saying’, when in fact they don’t – they are falsely obvious.

For Barthes, mythology is essentially a right-wing phenomenon (p.126).  Exists also on softer left but ‘it is a myth suited to a convenience, not a necessity’ (p.126)

Issues with Barthes’ viewpoint …

– Many strong left-wing myths – Stalin (propaganda approach of ‘purging’ people from history is famous), Chairman Mao, Che Guevara.

• Barthes speaks of a ‘science’ of semiotics (p.126) but his methodology is not scientific; it is selective, subjective and interpretive – does not appear to be structured or rigorous.
• Barthes sees what he wants to see > bourgeoisie appear in every myth.

… However his theory has positives:

 – founded on semiotics > sound and sensible basis for visual analysis >> how communication of meaning is possible between two or more people.

– extended Saussure’s linguistic model to visual culture

– theory that myths are made up of component sign systems opens up more complex visual texts for semiotic analysis > semiotic layerings – good example is in advertising.  Advertising campaigns can be heavily loaded with deliberate signifiers e.g. Renault campaign of the 1990s.

A signifier is an empty vessel until it is filled with meaning in order to signify.  In many car adverts, the car itself is not seen much > the less specific the signifier, the greater its potential to signify exactly as we wish (p.129).  A sign works as much by connotation as by denotation – it implies as much (and possibly more) than it states. (p130) > many advertisements sell lifestyles, which they imply are available by association with the product they are selling.  Analysis of an advert does not tell us about the product but about the things to which many people aspire > e.g. Potterton’s Pizza  –  first level tells us about the  product, second level about the happy life which we will get by eating PP.

Can images be more real than reality?

Baudrillard – new approach presented in the 1980s > the idea that signs clearly stand for something recognizable in the ‘real’ world (p.132).  The signifier-signified relationship upon which semiotics is built has been broken and has ceased to provide an adequate basis for defining the working of the contemporary sign.  Representation has been substituted by simulation.

Reference to Borges – map and territory allegory.  An empire created a detailed map that was as large as the Empire itself – therefore useless > falls into ruin. When Empire crumbled, all that was left was fragments of the map.

Baudrillard inverts Borges’ analogy – it is the map that people live in, the simulation of reality. ‘The map engenders the territory’. (p.133).  Baudrillard claims death of the real, or rather reality as we used to conceive it.  Baudrillard – the Gulf War did not take place – rather than an event is was a simulation created through technologies of information mastered by the Americans.

Online construction of personal identities – online versus real – perception of the ‘real’

Baudrillard’s views controversial – based on radical version of postmodernity > The production of things has become secondary to the production of desire.  

Baudrillard’s views can sound excessive – but offer a provocative insight into the nature of images which, with growing intensity and increasingly complex functions, fill up our daily lives.

Bibliography

Howells, R. & Negreiros, J. (2012)  Visual Culture (2nd ed.)  Cambridge: Polity Press

Assignment Two preparation: Notes from ‘The Feathers of the Eagle’ by Sven Lütticken

In this essay Lütticken considers that a reappraisal of appropriation art (‘AA’) is needed, moving away from the stance that appropriation is critical in nature.  He looks at the argument that the more radical appropriationists were modern ‘mythologists’, inspired by Barthes.

Contemporary culture built on appropriation – digital technology has made it easier to reuse and manipulate images – photoshop, TV channel-hopping.

AA – emerged in 1980s > ‘clear intimations of transgression and illegality’ (p.109).  Objections to claims that appropriation art is an ‘artistic strategy’  – why should it have special status? > Crimp (who supported AA) ‘if all aspects of culture use this new operation, then the operation itself cannot indicate a specific reflection upon the culture’ (Crimp 1982, cited in Lutticken 2005:109)

Graw – AA theory treats the appropriation artist as a ‘fully conscious, detached and critical subject’ (p.110), therefore denying that influence of the appropriated material may affect outcome of the new work.  Goes against post-structuralist views on originality and authorship.

Barthesian thefts

c.1980 – Richard Prince (rephotographed contemporary ads), Sherrie Levine (rephotographed well-known photographs) and Louise Lawler (rephotographed works of art).  Considered by Crimp and [Hal] Foster to be ‘Barthesian mythologists who ‘steal’ and subvert media myths’ (p.111).  Crimp on Levine: ‘Drawn to pictures whose status is that of a cultural myth …[she] steals them away from their usual place in our culture and subverts our mythologies’ (Crimp 1977/79, cited in Lutticken, 2005:111)

Barthes’ ‘Myths’ – discussed in his Mythologies (1957) > bourgeois ideologies of our time – ‘hijacking signs and giving them a saturated surplus meaning’ (p.111). ‘Myth was a second-degree semiotic system grafted onto a first-degree one’ (ibid.)  Example of black soldier saluting before the French flag – literal meaning but also second ‘mythical’ meaning – signified greatness of France, its universal principals, different races pledged their allegiance.

Barthes > defined his mythology as a synthesis of semiology and ideology.  Historical dimension present in latter.  Positioned himself as a mythologist of modern media (p.112)

AA anticipated by Flaubert – ‘Bouvrard et Pecuchet’ > re-writing,copying, appropriating > second-degree writing – quoting and paraphrasing. Turned into a progressive strategy by Barthes > ‘hints at a true mythology in which logos and mythos critcize, transform and liberate each other’ (p.114)

Divine spirit, conquest, imperialism

Marcel Broodthaers – ‘The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present’ exhibition (1972) – ‘direct artistic response to the challenge posed by Mythologies’ (p.114).  Eagle – real bird (not imaginary) yet with mythical connotations (Zeus’ pet) >  shows how ‘an object can be appropriated by myth and still have same meaning on different levels’ e.g. power, authority, divine spirit, imperialism etc.

Broodthaers then presented photos and slideshows of eagles on various products.  Oppitz (an anthropologist) claimed that Broodthaiers weakened the mythical power of eagle by multiplying eagles.  [CS note – link here with Benjamin and the art of mechanical reproduction – weakening of the original]

Photographs and readymades

Barthes ‘advocated stealing myths rather than specific images or texts’ (p.116).   Image or text (or fragment of one) in new context can make the myth it hosts explicit – more common in visual art than in literature.  Camera ‘facilitates the two-dimensional appropriation of objects’ (p.116) > Duchamp’s readymades can be viewed as ‘a radical manifestation of a culture informed by photography’ (p.116)

Barthes – ‘recasts the distinction between first- and second-degree (mythical) semiological systems as the difference between denotation and connotation’ (p.116) > reading of pasta advert in ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ (Barthes 1964, cited in Lutticken, 2005:117)) > cliché of ‘Italianness’

Readymades – ‘ordinary objects which serve as their own representation through alteration of context and negation of their original function: in the process they accrue strangely solipsistic surplus meanings’.

Duchamp’s appropriated industrial images – ‘the negated and represented element is already a representation, already a negation of presence’ (p.117).

Broodthaers – also used images as readymades > photography became more dominant in his work – moved further away from the appropriation of images as objects to the appropriation of images through photography/re-photography.

‘Art which aims to reflect on media myths by a conceptual use of photography risks becoming mythified itself’ (p.118) > embodies the myth of ‘critical’ art.

Decodings

Situationists International – ‘the re-representation of images in an artistic context would only mean their integration into an art world that is itself part of spectacle’ (p.119) so SI détournement (= subverting elements of popular culture) had to go further > demands for ‘the negation of art itself as one prerequisite for an end to the spectacle’ (p.119)

Debord’s spectacle = representation > the spectacle of commodities – ‘Duchamps’ appropriated images but [and] all his readymades would be representations, or at least elements within the spectacle as the hieroglyphic transcription of social relations’ (p.119) >> Marx – commodity fetishism.

De Brosses – posited that ‘fetishism was the most original and primitive form of myth’ (p.120) > commodity fetishm is therefore defined by Marx as ‘a creature of myth’. Myth and capitalism > Debord and Raoul Vaneigem >> the spectacle is a representation of myth.

Debordian view – ‘The destruction of spectacular myth and its fetishist illusions cannot be achieved by a mere artistic appropriation of commodity-images’ (p.121) > ’Situationist détournement is the proper way of appropriating spectacular myth’ (p.121)

Sameness and repetition

Debord and Deleuze – concentrated on the temporal dimension of myth, drawing from work of modern mythologists such as Eliade.  Mythic time – ‘cyclic repetition of archetypal events in a remote, aboriginal past’ (p.121) > Debord  – pseudo-cyclic time of the spectacle.

Deleuze ‘identifies representation with the copying of models, and hence with mythical repetition; in this respect mass culture as a culture of cliches remains in thrall to myth.  Art can appropriate these representations and turn them into something else’ (p.122) > Pop art starts in the artificial and then can turn into the simulacrum.

Warhol – emphasised the second-degree nature of his images > often repeated into grids ‘to empty out the image’.  Strong fetishist and believer in mythical commodity – ‘his repetitions reinforce the images of the spectacle, and bring them into question precisely by doing so’ (p.122)

Inside myth

Warhol – started to be aware of copyright problems so started to take his own photographs – 1981 Myths portfolio.

Louise Lawler – makes numerous photographs of works by Warhol > appropriation of appropriation

Pop – omitted from discussion of AA – why? Is its ‘embrace of the commodification of art [was] too uncomfortably close to home?’ (p.124)

Defenders of ‘critical’ art – both Pop and Situationism undermined art – Pop ‘for’ the spectacle, Situationism against it. Pop’ collapsed the difference between artistic and other commodities’, Situationism ‘demanded the abolition of both artistic and other commodities’ (p.124) >> ‘Both can serve as a corrective for the tendency to idealise art as inherently critical’ (p.124)

Crimp – ‘doubted that critical reflection on culture could use a procedure that is an important part of the same culture’ i.e. appropriation (p.124)  Appropriations can end up reinforcing myths.  Second-degree mythology can also become its own myth – the myth of appropriation.

Criticality – ‘Criticality’ is only to a limited extent a result of the artist’s subjective intentions. Nor is it a stable attribute of any image or text. Rather, it is something that results from the use of a text or image by an artist or critic, or other viewers.’ (p.125, author’s italics)

My thoughts

Lütticken’s essay takes a completely different angle on appropriation than my other readings so far.  Although easy to read I found it quite difficult to digest, hence a number of readings and  these fairly detailed notes.  One of my initial issues was to convince my brain to retain the meaning here (and as used by Barthes) of the word ‘myth’ to refer to a dominant ideology of our time rather than a folklore legend.  I was also glad that I had read about the ideas of Benjamin, Debord and the Situationists before tackling this essay as having some knowledge of these helped my comprehension immeasurably.

I find the concept of appropriation of appropriation interesting – with the passing of time there is always the possibility that, through the receipt of additional mythical connotations, an appropriated image may end up losing its original individuality, its own message.  Hence the work of artists such as Louise Lawler (appropriating the appropriated work of Andy Warhol) and Michael Mandiberg (appropriating the appropriated work of Walker Evans) are important in keeping the intentions of edginess, the subversiveness that characterises so much of appropriation art works at their inception.

Bibliography

Lütticken, S. (2005)  ‘The Feathers of the Eagle’. In: New Left Review 36 November-December 2005.  [online].  At: http://dspace.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/21431/182536.pdf?sequence=2  (accessed on 08 March 2016)