Transcript 4semiotics_325_2011

Semiotics
Readings: Theory Text Ch. 5, 3:5, 3:6
Semiotics on-line
• Semiotics as the “study of signs” (very basic definition)
• Other useful terminology
– semantics: relationship of signs to what they stand for;
– syntactics (or syntax): formal or structural relations between signs;
– pragmatics: relation of signs to interpreters
• Resources:
– Daniel Chandler Semiotics for Beginners
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html
– See also: Course website links on WebDav
Language (F. de Saussure)
• not just a namingprocess linking
words & things
Linguistic Signs
• Words and language link a ‘signifier’ to concepts and “sound-images”
• “sound-images” have two parts : Signified, signifier
Simplified Semiotic Model
“Semiotic Domains and Non-Textual Technologies
From Design”
by Barrie Carter and Duncan Knight (2008).
Peirce’s Model
Complex Model
Sign (C.S. Peirce)
• Sign “is something
which stands to
somebody for
something”
(representamen)
• Creates another
sign (mental image)
or “interpretant” that
has like content
• NOT like this
picture
Semiotic & Analysis of Visual Images
Zhang O’s series ‘Daddy & Me’
–
–
signifiers? (shown, not shown)
What is signified
Types of Signs (Peirce)
• Icon
• Index
• Symbol
Icon
• only is a “sign” if the “object” exists
Icon: has meaning
even if the “object”
doesn’t exist
•
From M. McArthur
Reading Buddhist Art
Yamandejia or Yamantaka (Terminator of
Death--Victory over evil) (From M.
McArthur Reading Buddhist Art)
Yamantaka
Thangka
Textile
Tibet/Xizang
C. 1644-1911(?)
The John C. and Susan L. Huntington
Archive of Buddhist and Related Art, The
Ohio State University
Court Scene: Picton Trial
Index
•
•
Connects both with the
“object” and with the person
for whom it serves as a sign
Three characteristics
– No significant resemblance to
object
– Refer to singularities
– Direct attention by
“compulsion”
•
•
Does not depend on
association by resemblance or
intellectual activities
Video clip (Cai Guo-Qiang
discussing Gunpowder
Paintings & Reading a
Painting--from Art:21, Art in
the Twenty-first Century,
Season Three)
Symbol
• Associated with “objects” (or
ideas) by habit or
convention without regard
for original selection
Pride Flag
Che Guevara--revolution
Uncropped photo
Nike Che
Levels of Meaning (Roland Barthes)
•
Informational
(communication of
message)
•
Symbolic (semiologies of
various kinds, common
lexicon of meanings, closed
sense, obvious meaning(s))
•
Signifying/Obtuse (extends
beyond culture, signifier
without signified, outside
language, disturbs,
indifferent to the story,
against nature, free of
narrative, subversive,
DIFFERENT, point where
“another language begins”)
Ivan the Terrible Screen Shot
Ordinary fascism image
screen shot
•
•
Signs,
Meanings
& “events”
(Make Bal)
Rethinking
encounters with
signs and
meanings
Narrativity vs.
scenes from
everyday life
with no
iconographic
expectations
(maybe)
Nailhole
NailHole
How do we know what viewers will respond to?
• Differences
between
verbal and
visual texts
• Fundamental
differences
between
verbal and
visual “reality”
(or ways of
seeing)
• Work-reader
interaction
“A picture is worth a thousand
words”
• New skepticism about
photography and “truth”
BUT….persistence of
belief in visual images
– Video of tasar use by police
and death of R. Robert
Dziekanski at Vancouver
International Airport:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=_3Ggpme5nUA
Larry Berg, CEO of the Vancouver Airport Authority, points to a
map showing the customs area controlled by the Canada Border
Services Agency.
(CBC)
Facts, “Truth” and Design (Kress and Van Leeuwen)
Theories and Images
(Paul Gilroy)
• Denotations
• “reading” visual
representations &
text
• Critical discourse
analysis
August Sander--”Men in Suits”
(John Berger)
P. Diddy (200-2008)
Hipster
“Beautiful Women”
•
Ad and Illustration for article about ‘White Trash’ aesthetics by M. Talbot, “Getting Credit for being White” New York Times
Magazine. Vol. 147 (Nov. 30 1997)
Jeong Mee Joon: Girl & Boy babies and
their things
Notions of ‘semiotics’ useful for analyzing
visual challenges to conventions
Marcel Duchamp. Fountain, original (left) and recreations of lost 1917 “Original”
Manet Olympia
Yasamasu Morimura
Communication & Semiotics (Signs &
Codes)
• “Sign: something that stands for
something else in a system of
signification (language, images,
etc.)” (M. Levine 2005)
• “ Code: the relational system that
allows a sign to have meaning, the
social organization of meanings into
binary oppositions, hierarchies, and
differential systems.”