Semiotics II - Lecture by Juliet McDonald, Contemporary Art in Context

Semiotics and semiology are often interchangeable terms which both will mean the same thing, that is the study of science-or anything which "stands for" something else (see the work by Chandler, 2002; number 02).

These can take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.  Contemporary salutations study signs, not in isolation, but as part of the semiotic sign system (such as a medium or genre, together with types).  They study how meanings are made and how reality is represented.  (Chandler, 2002:2)

As artists ourselves, we are the producers and interpreters of signs.

To remind ourselves of what we learned in our previous year, there were two schools of thought from which semiotics came from.  The first was the work by Ferdinand De Saussure (1857 to 1913).  And the second person to study semiotics, which has now become the general name for the study of signs, i.e. semiotics, was Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 to 1914).  He was an American philosopher, whereas Ferdinand, De Saussure was a linguist from Switzerland.

Saussure's concept was:    

Signified (concept).
Signifier (sound pattern)

The concept was dependent upon a shared understanding of the concept itself (the signified) and the pattern of a linguistic sound as a signifier.
Others suggest the signifier is the material or physical form of the sign, for example, the sign "open" as worded in a shop window, where the sign is the signifier, but it is is the shop itself that is the signified.

• Contexts and associations are also important to when considering semiotics.  This also stated that the relationship between signs-signs that don't make sense on their own, only in relation to other signs, for example, like letters in the sentence.
• Arbitrary relationships between signifier and signified, for example, "house" in English, but this is "Maison" in the French language.
• Convention and Association-especially, by the use of advertisers, who particularly use the power of association.  Brand recognition, for instance, is a vital example of this, for example, consider the "orange" trademark brand.

Charles Sanders Peirce, however, suggested that not all signs have an arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified.

1.  -symbol-  this has no resemblance, the relationship is arbitrary.  By convention.
2.  -icon-    the symbol represents or resembles the signified.
3.  -index-   "the pointer"-a direct contact or causal connection between the signifier and the signified.  As an indexical, an example may be, "smoke means fire"… This is a causal sign.
   A relationship could be, for example, the footprint in the snow, which signifies that somebody has been in that place
   Alternatively, a picture of a pointed finger, which means direction.

In photography.  There is a notion of some photographs being indexical.  Roland Barthes wrote extensively about the use of photography in his book mythologies and how it can convey the meaning as indexical.
Consider the advertising by the Coca-Cola brand for Coke Zero.  This also rhymes with hero?  Is this an mystical association?  Within the advert can be seen a black panther?  This is a rather negative connotation to some, but also it suggests wildness.  There is also a figure of a reclining female, is this feminist exploitation with evocative masculine associations?