In order to analyze the transformation of the role and meaning of authorship and its relation to disruptive technologies such as the printing press, this chapter uses the work of Ronald Barthes on the perspective of materiality of art,14 as well as his theory on authorship.15 According to Barthes,“work” is aphysical object,“a fragment of substance occupying a part of the space of books”16 and this was to be contrasted with the intangible “Einsteinian” text that constitutes “a methodological field ….a process of demonstration…experienced in an activity of production.17 Contrary to the materiality of the “work”, the “text” moves without any restrictions and has the possibility to impact many at the same time.18 Dürer was born at a time when the printing press was transforming techniques related to woodcuts in the same way as it was revolutionizing bookmaking.19 During the period before the printing press artists produced woodcuts by hand, a technique preventing them from adding many details for the risk of turning the woodcut into something blurry. The technique of engraving originated in the traditional craft of metal ornamentation. Woodcuts produced before 1450 were usually of rather cheap quality, mainly used as a means of ornamenting book covers, boxes or alters. Printing press and the revolution that Johannes Gutenberg brought with his invention in 1440 allowed the first mass production of woodcuts in Northern Europe. With the sophistication of printing techniques, woodcuts could be easily incorporated in books. 78 disruptive technology and materiality as vessels of authorship Disruptive technology and its impact on the art world 14 Barthes, Roland ‘From Work to Text’, in Stephen Heath, trans. Image Music Text,New York, 1978. 15 Barthes, Roland, ‘La mort de l’auteur’ dans Le bruissement de la langue. Essais critiques IV 1984, pp. 63–69. 16 In this respect, Barthes refers to the physical space, for instance the space occupied in a library. See also, Culler, Jonathan, Barthes, A Very Short Introduction, Oxford,Oxford University Press, 2002. 17 Citations from Barthes (1978) pp. 156–157. 18 See also Walter, Benjamin ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in HArendt, et- Illuminations (New York, 1968) pp. 217–251. 19 Hughes, Anthony, ‘The Cave and the Stithy: Artists’ Studios and Intellectual Property in Early Modern Europe’, Oxford Art Journal 13, 1990, pp. 34–48.
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