Fig. 1. Shusaku Arakawa - Untitled (from the portfolio No! Says the Signified), 1973
'The second degree is a way of life. All we need to do is change the focus of a remark, of a performance, of a body, in order to reverse altogether the enjoyment we might have given it. There is an erotic, an aesthetic of the second degree. ... We can even become maniacs of the second degree: reject denotation, spontaneity, platitude, innocent repetition, tolerate only languages which testify, however frivolously, to a power of dislocation: parody, amphibology, surreptitious quotation. As soon as it thinks itself, language becomes corrosive.'
'The second degree is a way of life. All we need to do is change the focus of a remark, of a performance, of a body, in order to reverse altogether the enjoyment we might have given it. There is an erotic, an aesthetic of the second degree. ... We can even become maniacs of the second degree: reject denotation, spontaneity, platitude, innocent repetition, tolerate only languages which testify, however frivolously, to a power of dislocation: parody, amphibology, surreptitious quotation. As soon as it thinks itself, language becomes corrosive.'
Roland Barthes
