Death of the Author (literary theory and 1967 essay by Roland Barthes)

This is a fairly popular school of thought in art and literature criticism, and I am not a big fan of it. I agree that the writer's biography should not be the be all and end all of analysis and criticism, but I also think that it is important to consider in the context of the work. Art is not created in a vacuum; someone made it for a purpose that they believe in based on their past experiences. Part of my goal in creating this work was to bring attention to that, combining the artist's biographical information with his works and making it impossible to ignore. The fact that the character of Tim Oren is literally dead is kind of an ironic reference to this.