Ebook: Seeing Degree Zero: Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics

Examines the critical concept ‘zero degree’ through the work of Roland Barthes and Victor Burgin
In the fields of literature and the visual arts, 'zero degree' represents a neutral aesthetic situated in response to, and outside of, the dominant cultural order. Taking Roland Barthes’ 1953 book Writing Degree Zero as just one starting point, this volume examines the historical, theoretical and visual impact of the term and draws directly upon the editors’ ongoing collaboration with artist and writer Victor Burgin.
The book is composed of key chapters by the editors and Burgin, a series of collaborative texts with Burgin and four commissioned essays concerned with the relationship between Barthes and Burgin in the context of the spectatorship of art. It includes an in-depth dialogue regarding Burgin’s long-term reading of Barthes and a lengthy image-text, offering critical exploration of the Image (in echo of earlier theories of the Text). Also included are translations of two projections works by Burgin, Belledonne and Prairie, which work alongside and inform the collected essays. Overall, the book provides a combined reading of both Barthes and Burgin, which in turn leads to new considerations of visual culture, the spectatorship of art and the political aesthetic.
Seeing Degree Zero: Barthes/Burgin and Political Aesthetics is part of a two volume set, alongside Barthes/Burgin,. The two books represent the editors’ long-term collaboration with artist and writer Victor Burgin. Read together, the books set out the preparatory work for an exhibition, as well as detailed critical reflections and extended research, cutting across art practice, critical theory and the politics of aesthetics.
Key Features

Explores topics including drawing, painting, image, projection, space, architecture, temporalities, gallery spectatorship, the neutral and cinematic heterotopia

Includes the first print translations of two major projection works by Victor Burgin, Belledonne and Prairie, and two in-depth interviews with Victor Burgin

Richly illustrated in colour

Contributors include Christine Bertin, Domietta Torlasco, James O’Leary and Kristen Kreider