Death of the author
Saturday night, went to Freshly Cooked Rock, at House of Sound (York Street Chruch of Christ's live music venue) to see Endel, Standing Tall and Rhinosaur.
After the gig, at Sturt Street McDonalds (Standing Tall always go there after Ballarat shows), Chris was concerned because someone in the mosh pit had been 'worshipping' (they were raising their hands in the air, and singing with their eyes closed) to a song which was supposed to be about a girl. Being a Christian, Chris didn't want his music to cause people to worship each other.
This reminds me of some stuff I learnt at Ignition ('Art and the Church'), about how when churches use art, we try to make it so that there is little room for the audience to end up with their interpretation.
It also reminded me about similar stuff I've learnt at uni about the death of the author.
Roland Barthes said that in the interpretation of a text, it doesn't matter what the author intended it's meaning to be, because every person will have a different interpretation. In some way, each person who engages the text creates a new text. Often Christrians don't like the idea that people might interpret Christian music or literature the way we want them to, so we try and leave little room for individual interpretation.
The person who was 'worshipping' to the song had a different interpretation of the song to the one Chris intended when he wrote the it.
4 comments:
this is really interesting christop! "interpretation" is a very personal thing...so how should the authors/ artists / song writers etc take it when others interpret their 'things' differently from what they originally intended?
Once someone has released their creation out into the world, they don't have control over it anymore. So it might be helpful for the artist if they came to terms with that beforehand.
yeah true dude, but like the song with Chris, he probably wrote that so it is personal to him and he might be dealing with someone not getting the meaning of the song, like he might want someone to get the message that he wants to get across, and yes it can be good if someone gets a different message, but i think an artist still has a right to feel disapointed, it is like some potter making a mug, and them someone sees it turns it upside down and says it is an interesting plate, then try eating off it, wouldn't you be tripped out that they thought it was a plate to eat off and not a mug to drink from. Maybe not the best analogy, but oh well.
The artist has the right to love what they made and want it in it's true state.
The observers/users/whatevers have the right to interpret it as what ever they see it is.
And the artist should eventually see that if someone wants to see it a different way, yeah that's ok, but the initial shock may still remain.
I think its very interesting how this conversation makes me think of God. He created us and gave us a free will (putting us in the world and chose not to control our choices). Life is therefore left to our interpretation. I wonder if God gets disappointed when we interpret life and ourselves in a different way than He originally intended?
God created us with a definite picture in His mind. And now He works to try and help us see the original intention and reach to acheive all that He designed us to be.
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