Here's a quick bit on yesterdays seminar on semiotics and cultural/social associations. I'll be honest, I thought I had a rough idea of what semiotics were beforehand, which was that I assumed they were hidden meanings with design work (which is true to an extent I suppose), however I was thinking about it in an extremely literal way. For example, whenever I thought of semiotics, I'd think of the FedEx logo with its subtle arrow made in the negative space between the 'E' and the 'x'. It turns out it's a much deeper subject entirely, but still plays a massive part in the understanding of visual literacy.
I'm going to briefly sum up what I've taken from this seminar by trying to define some of the terminology used in this subject:
- Representation of anything (in language, either written or spoken) relies on a shared cultural knowledge through periods of social evolution. We basically rely on agreement within our own cultures that certain words refer to certain artefacts, for example: the physical appearance of the written word 'dog' or the spoken word has no logical connection to the four legged creature we conceptualise in our brains. These are just solutions to the human race naming this creature over time (in English), through social agreement, a dog could equally be known as a 'woofer' or a even a 'cat'.
- A sign is any cultural artefact that conveys a meaning, and ranges through many different medias, common ones include: Image, Type, Gesture, etc. It's basically any communication device that conveys meaning through processes of semiotics, denotation and cognition/connotation.
- A signifier is something that triggers the thought of the sign, for example, the written word, spoken sound, image etc.
- Denotation is our basic understanding of what something is, lets take dog as an example again: We know that a dog is a four legged mammal that has evolved over the last 10,000 years. Nothing can change this conception, it is the literal and primary meaning of it, and it means that something is exactly as it appears to be.
- Connotation or Cognition is the associations our minds develop with the thought of the sign. Again with dog, we think loyalty, hairy, fun, etc. This is subject to change through each person, and is programmed in us through years of social and cultural acceptance.
Cognition especially ties in with the Lecture we had this morning on Visual Literacy...
Personally, the first thing I think of when I see this symbol is 'plus', it has connotations too though, such as a literary symbol.
When we see the object surrounded by other common mathematic symbols, it is contextualised. It no longer transmits that meaning of a literary plus.
This is a similar cross, the only difference is the longer vertical stalk. This is probably one of the most common symbols on the globe, it represents Christianity, and yet it is not the official symbol for Christianity.
This exercise was interesting, I'll be completely honest it stumped me. Here is a prime example of what can happen when people are presented with two conflicting signals that have powerful connotations with certain aspects of culture. In this case, the symbols for male and female have been presented juxtaposed against what is culturally accepted as the colours for male and female. It confuses us. The point is that there is no logical connection with colour and gender, colour is simply what we perceive as rays of light in different wavelengths and tones. Again, we have social and cultural evolution to blame.
I'll be honest I've seen this reference before (there's a brief mention in Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code), the manipulated swastika to act as a fascist symbol, when it was once similarly an icon of peace. This is an important point and it links back to my feedback on the seminar, denotations are how we understand something by it's visual syntax, that won't change, we understand that the swastika is a system of straight lines in rotational symmetry. But the connotations and cultural associations of it are subject to change determined by social culture and timing. For all we know, the swastika may be used as a symbol of government again within the next hundred years, which would change some of our existing pre-conceptions of the icon.
No comments:
Post a Comment