Who Comes After The Subject by Rosalind Krauss

(my translation of the essay)

Roland Barthes idea of the death of the author suggests that a text only becomes significant as an original thing when it is read by the reader, it is through reading that all the ideas, appropriated and assembled by the author, become unified. Barthes develops this idea in 'From Work to Text' (1971) were he discusses the author as being present in his own personal 'charms' rather than as the great originator or 'centred subject'. The author can be appreciated and found in the small details that are personal and specific. Michel Foucault argues in 'What is an Author' that only recently has authorship been institutionalised as a means of classification. Foucault discusses a relationship between the sharing of 'knowledge (discourse)' and 'the imposition of power (discipline)' he argues that the author is needed not as a 'real person outside' of the writing but as a way of defining and separating one text and its ideas from another, Krauss describes this as 'a function of disciplinary order'. Heidegger also challenged 'the post-enlightenment idea of the centred subject.' Heidegger defines subject as a 'relational centre' and stipulates that man sees himself as such. With a view of man as a centre then his representations become objectified as 'phenomena' on a 'structured image'. In 'the question concerning technology' Heidegger describes 'technology as a way of revealing' he defines technology 'as a kind of challenging-forth that is also a storing-up' he calls storing up 'standing reserve' Nature becomes orderable and substitutable and objects lose their autonomy, reality becomes a picture, a concept rather than a living entity of its own. Heidegger distinguishes between Gestell - classifying things and grouping them together which is seen as negative, it 'insults objects' and the opposite Gestalt - a poetic revealing of connections between objects and their background. Krauss argues against Micheal Fried's critique of Minimalism by questioning his idea that a good object should be instantly convincing, by moving around a minimalist object the context is revealed and this allows for 'communal perception'. Fried favours seeing everything at once wereas minimalism favours a longer unravelling of experience. Krauss concludes by making a comparison with the trend in biographical interest in trauma towards an interest in split personalities and comes to say that after the subject comes the de-centred multiple personality.



nexus (plural nexuses or nexus or nexûs)
1. a form of connection
2. a connected group
3. the centre of something

contrapuntal (comparative more contrapuntal, superlative most contrapuntal)
1. (music) Of or relating to counterpoint.

vicissitude (plural vicissitudes)
1. Regular change or succession from one thing to another, or one part of a cycle to the next; alternation; mutual succession; interchange.
2. (often plural) a change, especially in one's life or fortunes.

promulgation (plural promulgations)
1. the act of promulgating or announcing something, especially a proclamation announcing a new law.

purview (plural purviews)
1. Range of understanding.

reification (plural reifications)
1. The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living.
2. The consideration of a human being as an impersonal object.

poiesis (plural poieses)
1. An act or process of creation

socius m (feminine socia, neuter socium); first/second declension
1. sharing, joining in, partaking, associated
2. kindred, related, akin
3. leagued, allied, united, confederate