Say What?

"The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is (Mark Twain, Eve's Diary)." The unconscious and arbitrary relationship between words and their meaning is purely a societal convention. As Mark Twain demonstrates it is not necessary to know the particular string of speech sounds that is the signifier to know what equally delusional utterances will be called the signified thing you see before you. Yet, if there were not some sort of established framework for a language, shared and employed by communities whom interact, it would be impossible to function. Michael provides an excellent example with the image of a stop sign, Although there is no intrinsic value to using a red octagon, we have learned to obey the symbol resulting in our safety. If drivers did not associate the geometric form with the acceptable corresponding action the result would be chaos. The stop sign is, according to Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners, symbolic. "A mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional." Chandler offers two additional categories iconic and indexical. It was our class discussion of the indexical image working symbolically in the Rodney Kind trial that inspired my image this week. A book that was gifted to me entitled, On Reading by Andre Kertesz is a collection of photographs capturing a variety of people reading printed texts. The images are meant to provoke nostalgia and question the direction of literacy into future generations (yay Ulmer!). Books are signs of intelligence and wisdom. There is a certain connotation connected to the image of someone who is reading. There is no sensible tie between the signifier (the photographs) and the signified (the engendered emotions) still the book is effective in its desired delivery. Like the Rodney King footage it is up to the viewer to interpret what is going on in the image, but at least the image is used for the artist's intent, as a spark to provoke thought. 

--Sam