Project 16: Deconstruction (Jacques Derrida)

For this project there was no required reading concerning the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and the concept of ‘Deconstruction’; his seminal work being Of Grammatology (1967). I read a section, ‘The Engraving and the ambiguities of Formalism’ (included in the anthology Art in Theory).

For this project we had to find our own information on Deconstruction and then apply it to a text of our choice. As part of post-structuralism, the concept of Deconstruction continues from the last project – especially from the ideas expressed within Roland Barthes’s ‘Death of an Author’ (1974) – and the way we now view the text.

The statement ‘outside the text there is nothing’ (il n’ya pas de hors-text’) has been latched onto by Marxian’s and non-Marxian’s their own purposes:   (1) justifies the idea that there is no ‘real’ world outside of language, (2) language refers to nothing outside itself, (3) these is no ‘referent’. Many have claimed, however, that what Derrida is asserting is that there is no point outside the language, the text, the image, from which we can test its truth; its truth lies inside it. This accords well with the relativist tendencies in contemporary thinking:

“...in art it is ‘the represented and not the representer, the expressed and not the expression’ which matters; at the same time as this ‘represented’ can never achieve an unmediated presence.”

The word ‘unmediated’ is the key to understanding what is going on here. Even a formal portrait (a bad example really as the idea of a ‘postmodern’ portrait is problematic) may be thought of as representing itself rather than a sitter outside of the image and the representation of the sitter is mediated, that is manipulated or altered in some ways, through the agency of the artist.

Deconstruction explores how meaning and knowledge is constructed. Like the author, the structures within the text are not a deep truth waiting to be uncovered but they are themselves a cultural construct created through discourse. Cultural artefacts that were once unified now become texts that are fragmented.  There is no objective or universal way to claim truth in relation to the text. 

The concept of différance means that signifiers and signifieds are not identical as they differ from each other. Signs not only differ from one another as they also defer (Différer) to many other signs as part of an endless chain of signifiers; Signs only signify, or create meaning, via difference.

As it is a ready-made system, language supplements for reality and can simultaneously convey both the presence and absence of meaning.  Reading requires interpretation as we are not just reproducing what the writer expressed in the text. Critical reading must produce the text we are not trying to reconstruct a pre-existing non-textual reality as there is nothing beyond it to reconstruct; as Derrida said “there is nothing outside”. Reading thus uncovers the unconscious – the fissures and contradictions – dimensions of a text. A text then can contain a plurality of meaning by saying something quite different from what it appears to be saying.  Oppositional reading looks for the internal contradictions and inconsistencies of a text to highlight the disunity that underlies the apparent unity of a text.

Task: Deconstructing an Image

 

For the task I have chosen the poster for the film The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Pictures/Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, USA, 1963). 

What is striking about this poster is the presence of Hitchcock within it; his name dominates the poster. Obviously this is a marketing ploy but it is interesting how he is prioritised. Usually a director would have his name above the title but in this case his presence is extended.  We have a direct quote, his signature and, most importantly, his image. He is not only authenticating the potential film experience but he is stating his role within the construction of it; first and foremost you are seeing an Alfred Hitchcock film. 

The central image of the poster can be seen as a distillation of the thematic and narrative content of the film giving a potential audience member an idea of what they are about to see. We have a duality of the female image within this image. Firstly, you have an illustration of Tippi Hedren’s character, Melanie Daniels, in mid-scream as she is being attacked by birds. The horror is created by the reversal of nature attacking civilisation. If the birds are seen as masculine it shows the female in a position of submission; weak as she is not able to protect herself. With Hitchcock’s dominance within the poster this concept could be aligned with his own authorial perspective.  Also its illustrative nature further separates it from reality and highlights its fictional construction compared to the photographs. Secondly, you have the publicity still of Tippi Hedren; “a fascinating new personality”. While this may be a way of introducing to a public who are unaware of her, this image is also introducing her as a star: a marketable commodity. We are also abstracting her persona from the potential experience of the film. 

As a poster of mixed media – text, illustration and photographic image – we are able to identify the contradiction that while both Hitchcock and Hedren are part of the film, they are also entities separate from the film. The submissive role of the female within this image is reinforced by the colour publicity still of Hedren as she is being projected by Hitchcock as a type; the fetishised ‘Hitchcock blonde’. 

Bibliography 

D’Alleva, Anne. 2005. Methods & Theories of Art History. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Barry, Peter. 2009. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Derrida, J. 1967. “‘The Exorbitant: Question of Method’ and ‘The Engraving and the Ambiguities of Formalism’, from Of Grammatology’’ In: Charles Harrison and Paul Wood (ed.) Art in Theory: 1900-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing pp. 949-953.

Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts, 1999. Jacques Derrida [online] Available at: < http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/derrida/index.html> [Accessed 18 March 2011]