The Situation of Practice
The Situation of Practice In Writing Degree Zero Roland Barthes addresses the dilemma of the writer who wishes to be free from the grip of bourgeois history as enshrined in language: the doxa of style. Thus at the end of that book, he invokes the image of the writer facing the blank page. The confrontation with the blank page is the degree zero of any art practice, the schematic centre of the situation of the practice. In everyday speech the word 'situation' is used in disparate senses: from the gallery space in which it is encountered to the geopolitical context of its production and reception. The issues explored apply to the material means specific to Burgin's own art practice - writing and camera images - and at other times concern 'art' in general.