Essay Example on the Most Photographed Barn: Reality Ousted by Images

The Most Photographed Barn in America is an extract from DeLillo's novel White Noise, published in the year 1985. The extract is just a metaphor of numerous ways so many people conceal reality through the multiplication of images that oust the reality, which later thrives and exist on their own without any support. We are no longer living in reality in this contemporary life, Murray critics the traditions, elaborating ways in which the barn does not exist anymore because it is no longer a structure but an event continuously being practised. It is no longer being introduced as a structure but by symbols in most advertisements making so many people lose connection with the structure's reality. The barn location is an esteemed holy place and being at the site is like spiritual surrender. Therefore, to establish a deep connection to the barn reality, we should not be warped by advertisement signs but to see the barn for what actually it is.

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The six moments of silence after each declaration that Murray makes regarding the significance of the event was to give him humble time examining in details the barn, and establish a real connection to the reality of the object, not just taking pictures of the barn (Berke et., al, 1-774) Additionally, during these six moments of silence, he was scrutinizing how most people escape reality by seeing the sign of the most photographed barn and not the barn itself since their eyes have been conditioned to see the signs and not the barn.

The five signs acts are advertisements about the most photographed barn even before one sees it. These barn advertisements warp an individual's mind and what they see instead is the most photographed barn, not the structure itself. The signs make people lose the connection between them and the real object making it difficult to see the barn for what it is (Allen and Handley, 365-385). According to Murray, the event of the barn is a sort of religious experience since everyone is blinded and their minds have been warped, cannot establish the true connection to the reality, and this has become a norm to spiritually surrendering to the image signs they see and not seeing the real object. Barn event is like tourism to Murray since there is a disconnect between the reality and the image of the barn as perceived by the tourists. Everyone wanted to have the picture of the most photographed barn in America because the claims about the barn on the barn signs reach their mind before the real barn does, thereby shaping their reality seeing only what other people see (Berke et., al, 1-774).

The significance of taking notes while watching the barn was to identify in great details, not the picture but what the actual barn without escaping from the reality just like everybody else did. Both Murray and the theorist Walter Benjamin recognize that every artwork has an aura (Gram). However, Murray reverses Benjamin's view regarding the authenticity of a reproduced photograph of an artwork. According to Murray, he believed that the perception and uniqueness of a given photograph are maintained through the multiplication of its initial image. As a result of this reproduction, the artwork gains and acquires its uniqueness, aura, and identity which it maintains regarding its own obtained history at a particular time.

Works Cited

Berke, Amy et al. Writing The Nation:: A Concise Introduction American Literature 1865-Present. 1st ed., University Of North Georgia, University Press, 2016, pp. 1-774.

Gram, Sarah. "The Most Photographed Barn In America". Bit.Ly, 2011, http://bit.ly/1REPadj. Accessed 21 Apr 2020.

Allen, David, and Agata Handley. "The Most Photographed Barn In America": Simulacra Of The Sublime In American Art And Photography". Text Matters, no. 8, 2018, pp. 365-385. Uniwersytet Lodzki (University Of Lodz), doi:10.1515/texmat-2018-0022.