“The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst different substances -as though any material were fit to receive man’s stories. Able to be carried by articulated language, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the ordered mixture of all of these substances; narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting, stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news item, conversation…Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature, narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself.” (Barthes, 1977, p.79)
The mime act by Julien Cotterau in the video above shows the power found through both the presence and absence of sound, image and gesture. Barthes (1977) states that “The stage is the line which stands across the path of the optic pencil, tracing at once the point at which it is brought to a stopand, as it were, the threshold of its ramification. Thus is founded – against music (against the text) - representation. (Barthes, 1977, p.69, italics in original)
Barthes, R. (1993) Image-Music-Text London: Fontana Press
I think Barthes is another great source. With Derrida and Deleuze I could fill my book shelf I think…
I know exactly what you mean Gina.
Since this module began my ‘to read’ list has taken on a life of its own – Both the shelf and credit card might be headed toward breaking point but on the flipside the mind is certainly opening!