Post on 04-Jun-2018
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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 question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
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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 question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
A use? An object in set of contexts (personal / social)?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
A use? An object in set of contexts (personal / social)?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
A use? An object in set of contexts (personal / social)?
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A question… What defines a photograph? A technology or a way of making an image? Proof or a picture?
A set of discourses or genres?
A use? An object in set of contexts (personal / social)?
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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To repeat an idea again:
Is photography
…a medium? or …a discipline?
i.e. a self-sufficient mode of making?
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To repeat an idea again:
Is photography
…a medium? or …a discipline?
i.e. part of a set of regulated norms?
Not a homogenous whole but a set of different discursive practices…
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To repeat an idea again:
Is photography
…a medium? or …a discipline?
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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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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Object-to-person
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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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