Life, Love and Death: The work of Adam Fuss
Peanut butter and jelly, a common combination of two separate entities, most people have heard of this duo, many enjoy it, but only one manufacturer packaged them together in a handy snack. Much like the tasty treat that is Goobers is the tasty duo of Adam Fuss and Roland Barthes. Two separate men, Adam Fuss and Roland Barthes put together in one reading, complementing and accentuating each other. Fuss and Barthes, they share an interest in photography, they share an interest in the foundation and principles of photography, more over they share an interest in photography that is deeply personal. Fuss takes the camera out of photography. Barthes takes photography out of art. Both men want to get to the essence of what a photograph is, one by thinking and writing about it and one by doing it. In this paper I will show how Adam Fuss’ work matches up with and demonstrates the ideas of Barthes’ in Camera Lucida. I will look at one body of work at a time and show which parts of Barthes’ ideas are present in the work, in its creation and its theory. I will start with his first professional body of work, move through to his most recent work and then look back to some of his childhood pictures. Whether Barthes' ideas actually influenced Fuss’ work I am not sure of, I have not found any text or interview that leads me to believe that it is, however I would not be surprised if it has.
Camera Lucida was Roland Barthes’ last written piece, published posthumously in 1980. This book deals with the topic of photography and the death of Barthes’ mother in 1977. The role of photography is questioned; he asks what about photography makes it a valid media? We read about the operator (the photographer), spectrum (the subject) and spectator (the viewer), also about the studium (what we see in the photograph) and the punctum (the unclassifiable, the thing that makes the photograph important to the viewer). According to Barthes the photograph is an adventure for the viewer, but it is ultimately death, the recording of something that will be dead after the picture is taken. This idea is the main focus of Barthes’ writing, the photograph “that-has-been”, in Latin “interfuit: what I see has been here, in this place which extends between infinity and the subject; it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irref...
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...warns us about, by using it to document ideas and cause and effect. Barthes also warns us about color, but Fuss uses color judiciously and naturally in his work. Whether Barthes' ideas actually influenced Fuss’ work I am not sure of, however the similarities and differences between both men’s work suggest that Fuss has indeed been either directly or indirectly influenced by Roland Barthes’ Camera Obscura.
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Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photograph (R. Howard, Trans.).
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Bleckner, R. (1992). Adam Fuss. In Betsy Sussler (Ed.), Bomb speak art!: The best of Bomb magazine’s interviews with artists (pp. 98-106). Australia: G+B Arts International.
Crump, J. (1997). Visceral photography: The work of Adam Fuss. Afterimage, 25(1).
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Fuss, A. (1997). Adam Fuss: Essay by Eugenia Parry. Santa Fe, NM: Arena Editions.
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pBK-CMV is a plasmid vector 4518 in size, it also contains a multiple coding site (polylinker) that has recognition sequences for many restriction endonucleases. cDNA molecule CHI-1, which is 600bp, has been previously inserted. pUC19 is a cloning vector developed by….. in …….at….(REF). This vector is 2686bp in size and contains a 54 base pair (bp) polylinker containing 13 specific restriction sites, Xba1 and EcoR1 inclusive. It makes a good cloning vector as it is small in size, this makes it easier to be taken up by its host during transformation and allows for a faster replication time (Green, 2015). It contains an origin of replication pMB1 which is essential to be able to replicate. pMB1 has a high copy number allowing for multiple copies to be made (REF hcn pmb1). The pUC19 plasmid vector contains an ampicillin resistance gene, the host containing this plasmid will survive in the presence of ampicillin allowing for the selection of transformed host bacteria. The polylinker of pUC19 is contained within a lacz’ gene allowing us to distinguish between recombinant pUC19 and non-recombinant pUC19 through a process call insertional inactivation (Green, 2015).
Johnson, Brooks. Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on their Art.” New York: Aperture Foundation Inc., 2004. Print.
Cord clamping is a procedure where a baby’s umbilical cord is clamped and cut. This procedure clamps off the baby’s arteries and vein contained within the cord, which can immediately halt circulation depending on when the clamps are applied. Cord clamping might be done prior, during, immediately after or hours after birth. When cord severance is performed a plastic clamp is also applied to the remaining cord to prevent blood loss from the baby. I chose this topic because it is very interesting to see the differences between early cord clamping and the delayed cord clamping process. There are a few differences that I have found when doing my research on how delayed cord clamping can benefit the baby.
It has an outer membrane that contains lipopolysaccharides, a periplasmic space with a peptidoglycan layer, and an inner cytoplasmic membrane. It also consists of adhesive fimbriae. Some strains of E. coli are piliated and are capable of accepting, as well as transferring plasmid to and from other bacteria. This enables the bacteria under stressful or bad conditions to survive. Although its structure is simple with only one chromosomal DNA and a plasmid, it can perform complicated metabolism to help maintain its cell division and cell growth. E. coli produce very rapidly; a single microscopic cell can divide to form a visible colony with millions of cells overnight (phschool.com). It is the preferred bacteria in most laboratories because it grows fast and easy, and can obtain energy from a wide variety of sources. Since the birth of molecular cloning, E. coli has been used as a host for introduced DNA sequences (biotechlearn.org.nz). In 1973, Boyer and Cohen showed that two short pieces of DNA could be cut and pasted together, and returned to
The Species of the World. A people's history of the United States. (2003 ed.) In: The Journal of Science.
Schaaf, Larry J. Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot & the Invention of Photography. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1992.
For my final paper, I picked Leonardo da Vinci and his famous depiction of “The Last Supper” during the Renaissance period in European history. The origins of Renaissance emerged in Florence, Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. It reached its pinnacle in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. Western European culture experienced a rebirth of Classical learning and values. It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This period regarded as the cultural bridge between the middle Ages and modern history. The new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature.
Works Cited Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999. "The Species of the World. "
Man Ray’s Violin D’Ingres is a perfect example of a modernist photograph. Man Ray pushes both how photography is perceived and what is possible within a photograph in this example. Man Ray himself was an American, born as Emmanuel Rudnitsky, but moved to Paris and engaged in very non-American photography. Europe lacked the American ideals about what “strait photography” should be. While American schools of photography believed that an art photograph should only be made with a large negative with maximum depth of field, Europeans were busy experimenting with new uses of the medium as well as experimenting with altering the image in serious ways to change the meaning.
The camera is presented as a living eye in her work, capable of bending and twisting, contorting reality in its own light. It is at the same time a sensuous device, one that exp...
In the book, the Barthes creates some terms. Operator, Spectator and Spectrum are the first one. The Operator means the photographer, the viewer who looks at the Photograph becomes the Spectator and the thing emitted by subject is called eidolon(image, phantom, ghost), in other word the Spectrum. Barthes talks about Operator’s ability to take the picture of naturalness from the situation. He says that a Photograph is closer to the Spectator than the Operator and the Spectrum is the closest one. The stream of his thought naturally moves from the subject of the picture to viewers with excluding the person taking a picture. It was interesting for the artists like me because for artists, the subject matter goes first and then the work is created later. Particularly, for me, considering viewers mostly comes at the end or sometime, I even ignore the audience. For a viewer like Barthes, seeing the work is a completely opposite way to creating the work.
In Roger Scruton's essay, "Why Photography Is Not Art", an effort is made to question photography as a genuine art form. Roger spends much of his essay arguing that photography is merely a weak imitation of an object, rather than a carefully crafted depiction of a subject with its own aesthetic properties. Due to the rapid rise of photography all around the globe, his viewpoints are highly controversial. It is important for us to study both sides of the argument, because photography is so important in capturing world history. Photography is a rather new concept, yet its importance is paramount in seeing how others live. Photos allow us to see and capture a specific moment in time, just like a wide array of already accepted art forms. I find it truly interesting that Roger challenges photography as art. I am certainly not a photographer, but I never knew some people challenged photography's artistic merit. I will argue today that Roger Scruton is wrong in his belief that photography has merely a "casual and not intentional" relationship with its subject (Scruton, 89). In essence, photographs lack true depiction. I will also argue that the majority of photographs due indeed, have their own aesthetic properties. This is something Roger Scruton fails to recognize.
Roland Barthes believed that there were two components to understanding the characteristics of photography, one being the studium and the other being the punctum. The studium being what is recognized right away and defined by broad cultural meaning and the punctum being what pierces the studium and evokes an unpredictable personal response. Michael Fried believed that digital photography removed any possibility for an experience of punctum. In Michael Fried’s 2005 essay Barthes Punctum, Fried defends the idea that punctum can only exist without intent from the creator. He insists that in digital photography its maker puts the contents of the photograph there, therefore removing any chance of experiencing punctum. In response, James Elkin believed that nothing in a digital photograph threatened the punctum. In this essay, I will argue that digital photography does not impair the possibilit...
Cesarean birthing method can be voluntary as well as involuntary. When a cesarean is chosen in advance it is usually because the mother has a history of infection, which could be transmitted to the baby when it is delivered through the birth canal; the mother has severe to...
Video games are not considered as a serious addiction amongst teenagers and adults, often being compared to severe cases of addiction, such as drug abuse or alcohol abuse that may result in the appearance of a decrease in the severity of the addiction. However, video game addiction is a serious matter and has unhealthy consequences for an individual 's life and their health; spending too much time playing video games can take a great toll on one 's physical and mental well-being. Continuing unhealthy patterns of video game activity for prolonged periods of time can result in mental health issues, physical health problems, and a decline in a social life.