Semiotics 2013

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WHAT IS SEMIOTICS?(DISCIPLINE OR MEDIUM?)(THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING?)

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…or, WHAT IS A PHOTOGRAPH

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A question… What defines a photograph?

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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image?

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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?

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A set of discourses or genres?

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A use? An object in set of contexts (personal / social)?

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Does it have a defined function?

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If I ask ‘what is a photograph’ it is to ask whether

photography is primarily a

technology

or a

social practice

…and in considered this reflect on how meaning mightbe seen to be constructed in photography.

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To repeat an idea again:

Is photography

…a medium? or

…a discipline?

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Is photography

…a medium? or …a discipline?

i.e. a self-sufficient mode of making?

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Is photography


i.e. part of a set of regulated norms?

Not a homogenous whole but a set of different discursive practices…

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A key disciplinary concern: What is semiotics? (any ideas?)

The science of signs…

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Some disciplinary concerns: What is semiotics? (any ideas?) The science of signs…

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The science of signs? Two key names: Ferdinand de Saussure C.S. Peirce

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Two key ideas: PART 1. Peirce: “A sign is something which stands to somebody for

something else”

Signs stand in for things.

Signs are a means of communication. Signs are ‘meaning’ communicated.

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Peirce’s lexicon of signs: iconindex

symbol

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Peirce’s lexicon of signs: icon: visual similarity (looks like, resembles) index

symbol

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Peirce’s lexicon of signs: icon: visual similarity (looks like, resembles) examples: image diagram

metaphor

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Peirce’s lexicon of signs: iconindex: a causal relation (no smoke without fire) symbol

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Peirce’s lexicon of signs: icon

indexsymbol: an interpretive norm (no similarity, must be

learnt: an example – the red cross ‘means’ medicine –

there is no ‘natural’ link)

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What is a photograph here? Index – a causal relation: a photograph is proof of ‘that-has-

been’ (Barthes), Andre Bazin: it is a decal, a transfer of reality, a

moment of time mummified… Icon – a resemblance, a perspectival version of the world, world

transformed into picture, a visual language… Photographs are both icon and index,

both temporal imprint and visual language…

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A paradox: the photograph seems to be a message without a code… a neutralrecording… ‘natural’ Reality appears to pour out of a photograph…

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YET – we must understand photography as part of a

visual language. It is the indexical aspect of photography that makes it

most convincing, that makes us believe it.

(Natural / Realism) It is the iconological part we must investigate to see how

a picture is constructed…

(Cultural / Historical)

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An approach:

With photographs we must look at two parts: What it points towards /DENOTATION What it implies /

CONNOTATION

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Taking these two aspects together

THEN we can say what a

photograph is ‘of ’ (ie the subject of a photograph is an

amalgam of denotation AND

connotation – of indexical pointingAND iconological implication)

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Roland Barthes proposes several methods that provide connotations

for the seemingly ‘natural’ photograph, and these can be applied to portrait photographs… *trick effects *pose

*objects *photogenia (lighting effects)

*aestheticism (artiness – call to art historical codes)

*syntax – image sequence

see his “The Photographic Message” in Image/Music/Text

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*The pose Henri Cartier-Bresson

denotation:

a man walks in a space with sculptures

connotation:

a man is the same as his work

the subject: the artist Alberto Giacommeti (a man is a studio who ‘lives’ his work, who is identical withhis sculptures…)

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Juergen Teller

denotation?

connotiation?

subject?

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2 x tears… Corinne Day / Man Ray Denotation: a woman cries Connotation?

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*The object…

Gordon Parks

Signs operating with other signs The flagthe broom

the historical resemblance… *see Grant Wood

American Gothic

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Larry Clark

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Robert Mapplethorpe

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Diane Arbus

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Julia Margaret Cameron

denotation?

connotiation?

subject?

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Gillian Wearing

denotation?

connotiation?

subject?

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August Sander

denotation?

connotiation?

subject?

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Alasdair McLellan

In Glorious Mono / Vogue

S/S 2013

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Mel Bles

Monochrome Set / Pop 2013

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Denotation: ‘that’ dress… Connotation… ?What different connotations are provided for this object in these

three different ‘styles’?

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Katy GrannanBoris Mikhailov

Denotation:

A woman lying down outside

Connotation: What differences (throughphotographic choices: horizon,color, positioning, location…)

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Ryan McGinley / Ansel Adams: photographs of rocks, with what differences?

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Two key ideas:

PART 2. How is meaning communicated? By signs… Signs, in the system developed by Saussure, are divided into two

components. The signified. The signifier.

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The signified. The signifier. definitions please…

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

SIGN =

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

SIGN =

Signified = concept

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

SIGN =

Signified = meaning

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

SIGN =

Signifier = material carrier: t-r-e-e

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- A-r-b-r-e

SIGN =

Signifier = material carrier: a-r-b-r-e

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e

--------------------------------- A-r-b-r-e

SIGN =

Signifier = what it means

Signifier = how meaning is transmitted

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An application of Saussure’s version of semioticsto cultural analysis: structuralism… Some names: Claude Levi-Strauss

Michel Foucault Jacques Lacan

Roland Barthes

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Sign / Message:France is a great empire Loved by all its subjects

Signifier: A black soldier giving a salute

Signified: French-ness / Colonial unity

An ideological strategy: The empire is united

‘see, even this man salutes the flag’

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Sign / Message:

Volvic is a great brand Its consumers help others Signifier: A black child being given water Signified: Buy this product to give life to Africa A mixture of information and feeling Information: 1L (here) = 10L (there) Feeling: This product provide ethical ‘feel-good’ factor

An ideological strategy:

The commodity can replace ethics

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Another example in practice: Red Roses = Love

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“Take a bunch of roses: I use it to signify my passion… [yet] there are

here only ‘passionified’ roses… on the plane of experience I cannot

dissociate the roses from the message they carry, as to say that on the plane

of analysis I cannot confuse the rose as signifier and the rose as sign”

…the sign is the fusion of ‘roses’ as material object with concept ‘passion’ Roland Barthes, ‘Myth Today’ in his Mythologies, p.113

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---------------------------------

T-r-e-e ---------------------------------

SIGN =

Signified = what it means Signifier = how meaning is transmitted

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---------------------------------

T-r-e-e ---------------------------------

SIGN =

Signified = Love Signifier =

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Semiotics at work… Sign =

Signified = fresh / natural Signifier = flowers

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Semiotics at work… Sign =

Signified = fresh / natural Signifier = flowers

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=

freshness…

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--------------------------------- T-r-e-e ---------------------------------

SIGN = Signified = Herbal Essences

Sensual / Natural / Freshness Signifier =

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A strategy: Adverts do not only provide information, they

provide ‘feeling’… They also strongly demonstrate how semiotic

systems work… Products have no ‘essential’ meaning so one must

be constructed… a task of semiotics.

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A question – does shampoo signify / meannatural freshness? A semiotic reading: a product attempts to link

itself with another system of value (from product that ‘cleans’ to product that links

to ‘sense of self ’)

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Judith Williamson in her Decoding Advertisements,

p.31: Art / Poetry invokes feelings in the experience of

the work… Advertising invokes the idea of a feeling youWILL have if you buy the product (if you own it)

… Advertising links the tangible (a cleaning product)

with the intangible (feeling natural)

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NOT a question of:

1. what a thing means… (a bottle of shampoo can ‘mean’ different things) BUT a question of: 2. how a thing means… (how a thing is given meaning…)

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NOT a question of:

1. what a thing means… (a bottle of shampoo can ‘mean’ different things) BUT a question of:

2. how a thing means… (how a thing is given meaning…)

Th d i i h d / di J di h

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The advertising method / according to Judith

Williamson… SEMIOTIC PROCESS To make a connection: 1. color 2. orality (the drives: oral, anal, genital, invocatory, gaze) 3. object-to-object

4. object-to-world 5. object-to-person

(the object stands in for the person you want to be /

you think you are) 6. object-person-object (the person becomes an object –

skin-care, hair-care)

Obj bj f i

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Object-to-object – conferring

value…

Obj bj f i

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Object-to-object – conferring

value…

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Object-to-person

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A key set of principles: Signs operate via: *connection

(with other signs)

*(in order to establish) difference

*in relation to a set of values that

emanate from a system (a commonlanguage…)

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When products are the same, they need to be perceived as

different…

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CONNCETION? DIFFERENCE?

VALUE?

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CONNCETION? DIFFERENCE?

VALUE?

CONNCETION?

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CONNCETION? DIFFERENCE? VALUE?

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A conclusion:

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A conclusion: Semiotics doesn’t give the ‘key’ to meaning… It emphasises that meanings are not given in advance, but emerge

from a process. (ie not what something means, but how something means

something) Semiotics is not the ‘code’ but that which shows us that meanings

are historically constructed not naturally given.

Semiotic analysis can be applied to ALL kinds of meaning

processes… advertising is only one (as it is the most obvious inattempting to make things mean something else).

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Signs are NOT natural. Signifiers have no essential link

with their signified.

Signs are cultural. The relation between signifier and

signified is arbitrary, but this relation is agreed in culture YET with photography and advertising signs can

appear natural… This is what Barthes calls MYTH

BUT semiotics shows us that meanings do not arrive inadvance, they arise from a process of combination,

difference and agreed / understood value …

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Semiotics / Meaning is a process

vs. The Da-Vinci Code: ‘there is a hidden meaning’ There is no ‘hidden meaning’ but the ‘meaning is out there’ (ie in

the process, in semiosis – the process of transmitting andinterpreting meaning…) Meanings are not fixed, but subject to dynamic transformation

(as advertising shows us… but for what purpose?)

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Semiotics 2013

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