[b]Roland Barthes
I have not a desire but a need for solitude.[/b]
Wholly determined perhaps.
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.
Tell that to [among others] the paparazzi.
Literature is that which he can not read without pain, without choking on truth.
Not much of that these days.
What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.
Right after irony in other words.
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals; I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
What’s that make the television then?
As a language, Garbo’s singularity was of the order of the concept, that of Audrey Hepburn is of the order of the substance; the face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn, an Event.
So, did he take the words right out of your mouth? Or, instead [like me], would this never have occurred to you in a million years?