Seeing Degree Zero

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, but with reference to broader historical discourse that picks up on critical notions of 'zero', 'zero degree', and the 'neutral, 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. Taken together, the volume argues that the critical concept of 'zero degree' presents a common, underlying interest threaded through the work of Roland Barthes and Victor Burgin. With respect to literature and the visual arts, it specifies a 'neutral' aesthetic situated in response to and outside of the dominant cultural order. This book provides an historical, theoretical and visual exploration of this term as it pertains to the writing and art practices of both Barthes and Burgin.