Showing papers on "Semiosphere published in 2019"

The Semiotics of Common Sense: Patterns of Meaning-Sharing in the Semiosphere

Abstract: Abstract That which is usually called “common sense” is nothing but the complex deposit of implicit cognitive, pragmatic, and emotional rules through which the members of a society interact with each other and, simultaneously, affirm their belonging to the group. This sense is called “common” both because it is current – meaning that it permeates the daily life of the group in all its manifestations – and because it is shared: it is something that belongs to the community as a whole and something through which, at the same time, the members of the community can belong. What is the relation between “sense” and “common sense”? This question is extremely relevant to semiotics, hermeneutics, and the other disciplines and philosophies of interpretation.

The semiotics of the face in digital dating: A research direction

Abstract: The article investigates the socio-cultural meaning of the face in relation to its natural and biological features, focusing on the particular domain ofmating habits. After surveying the role of the ‘face’ in the sexual behaviors of several non-human animals, and especially of primates, the article ponders on the crucial role that the face plays in the seductive discourse which precedes and accompany mating in all human cultures and also in many primates’ behaviors. It, then, deals with the transformation that these seductive patterns of signification and communication undergo in the passage from face-to-face intercourse to digital dating. Here, the gap between the necessarily realistic representation of one’s bodily face and the idealized version of it allowed by digital picture editing widens, to the point that new epistemic parameters start to circulate throughout the digital semiosphere.

Consciousness, Mind and Spirit

Abstract: The explosion of interest in consciousness among scientists in recent decades has led to a revival of interest in the work of Whitehead. This has been associated with the challenge of biophysics to molecular biology in efforts to understand the nature of life. Some claim that it is only through quantum field theory that consciousness will be made intelligible. Most, although not all work in this area, focusses on the brain and how it could give rise to consciousness. In this paper, I will support this challenge, but I will suggest that the focus of work in this area reflects the failure to fully overcome the assumptions of Cartesian thought, associated above all with a defective understanding of consciousness as a ‘thinking substance'. Firstly, as Bergson, Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty argued, consciousness is embodied. Secondly, as Jacob von Uexkull argued, consciousness is only comprehensible in relation to the organism's world defined as such by the organism. Thirdly, in the case of humans, this is a ‘with-world', a world shared with others. The consequent social nature of human consciousness is better captured by the German word for mind: Geist , which also translates as ‘Spirit'. And as Hegel argued, along with Subjective Spirit, there is also Objective Spirit, the realm of institutions, and Absolute Spirit, the realm of culture, with Subjective, Objective and Absolute Spirit being conditions, and even components, of each other. My argument is that this broader notion of mind as Spirit should be embraced, but without abandoning the work in biophysics. What is required is a further expansion of the notion of mind and Spirit as humanity comes to appreciate that it is part of nature and that it is through the development of institutions and culture that nature, through human subjects, is becoming conscious of itself and its significance. The development of process philosophy inspired by Whitehead, associated with the development of the concepts of field and ecology, should be seen as a development of the semiosphere and the advance of the Spirit of Gaia, essential for the creation of a global civilization able to augment the life of the current regime of the global ecosystem of which we are part. It is to orient humanity to create an ecologically sustainable civilization; an ecological civilization. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

Memória do futuro, explosão, pancronia: a semiótica de Lotman e os estudos da memória e do tempo nas teatralidades juvenis

Abstract: This paper problematizes certain concepts and propositions of Iuri Lotman that portrayed his conceptions of memory and time, such as semiosphere, text, panchronism and explosion. In the context of juvenile theatricalities, mapping such a theoretical scope aims to understand the production of memories and the temporal codifications as communicative instances. Steampunk theatricalities experienced in face-to-face meetings are considered empirical objects. This analysis is conducted in urban areas of the Southeast of Brazil, counting on a bibliographic research focused on theories of memory, a field work following the flânerie methodology in events attended by these youth groups. It aims to demonstrate the dialogue between the semiotics developed by Lotman and the mnemonic and temporal representations present in these theatricalities.

Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere

Abstract: Abstract In the framework of the theory of the semiosphere elaborated by Juri Lotman in the 1980s, the notion of translation acquires a new, broadened meaning and is used to describe a general mechanism of cultural dynamics. This is a direct consequence of the understanding of the semiosphere as a “continuum of semiotic systems” of which heterogeneity and polyglotism are constitutive features. If the “smallest functioning semiotic mechanism” is not an isolated system, but always a (at least) binary system, translation will play a central role in communication not only between different cultures, but also within every single culture. The article focuses on the different places of translation within the semiosphere as a system of systems and its relations to the notion of border. It argues that in Lotman’s theory, translation can function both as a homogenizing and a heterogenizing semiotic force, depending on its position at the center or the periphery of a given semiotic system. The first part of the article develops a theoretical argument on the relation between translation processes and cultural borders, which acquire different meanings and functions within Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere corresponding to differently oriented kinds of translation. The second part of the article develops a close analysis of Giacomo Leopardi’s poem “L’Infinito,” where the tension and dialogue between the different functions of the Lotmanian borders and the different kinds of cultural translation become devices for the generation of new meanings. Finally, the article briefly considers the significance of Lotman’s semiospheric understanding of the relation between borders and translation for contemporary translation and border studies.

Health semiosphere in parks: case study in Quito and Madrid

Abstract: Introduction: The parks importance as green environments for healthy recreation is not assumed in their real dimension given their health benefits, although the World Health Organization recommends the availability of a minimum of 9 m2 of green space per person. Various international organizations recognize that the park's main essential services for communities are economic value, health and environmental benefits. Objective: To determine the health semiosphere in emblematic parks of Quito and Madrid. Methods: A mixed investigation was carried out using semiotics as the main tool. For the information gathering, the citizen survey technique of Quito and Madrid was applied, as a basis for a comparative analysis that allowed measuring the perception modes. Results: Intrinsic health activities were determined as part of the park's semiosphere, both in Quito and Madrid. In the first city, recreation was recognized as the main one, and sports in the second city; as well as cultural and recreational activities such as the relevant ones to be enhanced. Conclusions: The park's main activities are intrinsically linked to citizen's health, so their semiosphere is based on their determination with the aim of repowering them.

Translation is Dialogue: Language in Transit

Abstract: Tucker has created a programme for people of all ages to understand intersemiotically what happens in the communication and creative process. Translation is Dialogue: Language in Transit uses the framework of the ongoing art installation, Translation is Dialogue (TID). TID introduces various theories of translation and points of entry on how to translate through an array of activities. It is argued that approaching an artwork through the lens of Roman Jakobson’s, Juri Lotman’s, and Peeter Torop’s perspectives on intersemiotic translation, semiosphere, and translational semiotics can help translators, artists and members of the general public to build a practice-led platform for problem solving and understanding creative issues.

Música de fronteira, música de memória: o experimentalismo de DJs pela Semiótica da Cultura

Abstract: The paper analyzes musical pieces of experimental DJs from two categories related to the semiotics of culture: semiosphere and its borders and memory of culture, developed by the Russian semioticist I. Lotman. The discussion is about the characteristics of electronic dance music, its subgenres, and the differences put in experimentations produced by these DJs. The corpus of analysis is formed by compositions of three artists: DJ Tudo, Psilosamples and Dandara. The argument and the analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of these two categories for the understanding of the productive and creative dynamics of this kind of work that differs from the mainstream of electronic pop music.

Finite semiotics: Cognitive sets, semiotic vectors, and semiosic oscillation

Abstract: The grounding of semiotics in the finiteness of cognition is extended into constructs and methods for analysis by incorporating the assumption that cognition can be similar within and between agents. After examining and formalizing cognitive similarity as an ontological commitment, the recurrence of cognitive states is examined in terms of a "cognitive set." In the individual, the cognitive set is seen as evolving under the bidirectional, cyclical determination of thought by the historical environment. At the population level, the distributed "global" cognitive set is argued to be constrained to a manifold in which the cognition of individuals is determined only when their cognitive sets meet certain conditions in the world: a result seen as consistent with Lotman's semiosphere. With these foundations in place, dimensional modelling of the semiosic field is inaugurated. Firstly, measures of cognitive similarity are formalized as cognitive "distance" and on this basis the concept of a semiotic vector is defined. Secondly, semiotic vectors are seen to shape a general pattern of oscillation in semiosis, and thus to imply zero points in semiosic potential. Thirdly, semiosic oscillation in individual agents is shown to be consistent with a novel diachronic or longitudinal interpretation of Greimas' semiotic square expanded into a "semiotic pipe" in which cognition traverses an n-dimensional space structured by axes of oscillation. Finally, the expanded theory of finite semiotics is advanced as a useful basis for two new complementary disciplines: (1) a computational, mathematical science of "natural semiotic processing" (NSP) to trace and model semiotic vectors and oscillation; and (2) an ethical, rhetorical art of "technological influencing" (TI) to guide its inputs and applications.

Afterword: (Re)constructing the Drafts of Past

Abstract: In general, the evolution of Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School may be presented as follows. From the semiotics of text, it evolved into the semiotics of culture, and from that, into the semiotics of mental processes and the semiosphere. In conjunction with that, the center of attention shifted from the semiotics of space to the semiotics of time.

The Vardar River as a border of semiosphere – Paradox of Skopje regeneration

Abstract: As suggested by its etymology, regeneration usually carries positive connotations while its negative aspects tend to be belittled. However, any renewal results in major morphological, physiognomic, functional or social changes, which imply changes in the meanings encoded in space. These transformations are not always welcome and they may lead to public discussions and conflicts. Skopje 2014 is a project within which such controversial transformations have been taking place. The area surrounding the Vardar River and its banks plays a major role here. On the river banks monumental buildings were erected, bridges over the river were modernised and new ones, decorated with monuments, were built for pedestrians. Bridges can be considered a valuable component of any urban infrastructure as they link different parts of a settlement unit (in the case of Skopje – left (northern) bank and the right (southern) bank; Albanian and Macedonian), improve transport, facilitate trade and cultural exchange. In this context, referring to Lotman’s semiosphere theory, they may become borders of semiotic space, which acts as a filter that facilitates the penetration of codes and cultural texts. Yet, in multicultural Skopje meanings attached to bridges seem to lead to social inequalities as they glorify what is Macedonian and degrade the Albanian element. To validate this assumption we carried out semiotic analysis of bridges over the Vardar River which were renewed or built within the Skopje 2014 project to identify their role in shaping the semiosphere of the Macedonian capital.

Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School and the Development of Semiotic Studies in Indonesia

Abstract: This paper proposes the importance of the infusion of Tartu-Moscow Semiotics School (TMSS) into the development of semiotic studies in Indonesia. Semiotic studies in Indonesia have mostly departed from the ideas of Peirce, Saussure, and Barthes, while TMSS has not been recognized by Indonesian scholars. The paper proposes two concepts of TMSS, namely ‘text’ and ‘semiosphere’, which would significantly enhance semiotic studies in Indonesia. Indonesian scholars usually regard text as a concrete artefact, causing overgeneralization that every artefact is text, as well as oversimplification that every text is concrete artefact. Semiotic studies in Indonesia tend to exclude text as the object study from its cultural context and to analyse it in its individuality. While, TMSS defines text based on its meaningfulness, authority, and cultural functions. Besides its function as message carrier, TMSS proposes three functions of text, namely creative, poetic, and memory functions. These functions are connection points between a text and its wider cultural and historical contexts and its dynamic aspects. Finally, the concept of semiosphere, an abstract model in which semiosis occurs and outside of which semiosis cannot exist, would drive a holism perspective, avoiding the tendency to analyse the discrete text in its individuality. Keywords : Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School; text; text function; semiosphere; sign system.

“foreign dialogues” in the literary semiosphere of p. kapelhorodskyi and o. dosvitniit

Abstract: У статті розглянуто моделі культурного діалогу, репрезентовані в українській белетризованій прозі початку ХХ ст. За об’єкт наукового аналізу вибрано тексти з інонаціональним матеріалом: повісті «Аш хаду» П. Капельгородського, «Алай» і «Гюлле» О. Досвітнього. Увага фокусується на особливому національному складі мислення героїв, стійких проявах волі до життя і свободи, традиційних морально-етичних цінностях. Доводиться, що культура, життя і побут народів екзотичного Сходу як об’єкт художнього зображення, психологічно переконливе відтворення індивідуального в людині й у кожному окремому етносі притаманні творам українських письменників, сторінки біографії яких пов’язані з незвіданими та маловідомими районами Російської імперії. Аналіз іманентної текстової структури повістей П. Капельгородського «Аш хаду», О. Досвітнього «Алай» і «Гюлле», у яких представлена художня візія східної «картини світу», дає можливість зробити висновки щодо формоі змістоформувальних складників культурної та інонаціональної самоідентифікації.

A semiosfera colocada à prova pela enunciação antropossemiótica

Abstract: The confrontation between the model of semiosphere, the Greimassian theory and contemporary anthropology highlights the difficulty of implementing an epistemology of diversity starting from Lotman's work. This difficulty leads to question systematically the conditions required for an anthropological enunciation, in particular summoning the positions of Descola, Latour and Viveiros de Castro. This confrontation tries to update the semiosphere model.

Chronillogicalities: Déjà Vus and Hallucinations in the Digital Semiosphere

Abstract: Abstract The semiotics of phenomena like déjà vus and hallucinations constitute a limit-field of a theory of the sign, but one that offers opportunities to question the fundamental principles of the discipline while at the same time offering the opportunity to address their underlying cognitive processes. The article describes the cognitive nature of déjà vus and hallucinations, briefly reviews the literature about them, and reads them as cognitive perturbations in the light of a semiotics of mental simulacra related to perception, apperception, awareness, memory, and imagination. The article then uses such cognitive and semiotic modeling in order to develop a critique of present-day digital culture, in which the uncritical adoption of a mnemonic ideal based on digital memory jeopardizes one of the key features of embodied memory: imperfection and, as a consequence, the possibility to access aesthetic and temporal singularity. A collective memory prone to déjà vus and hallucinations ensues.

O tonto e o louco. Notas sobre a cena cultural contemporânea

Abstract: In his book Culture and Explosion , Lotman studies the dynamics of culture using the fool and the madman as paradigm characters incarnating social change. Immersed in the space of a semiosphere, human acts gain meaning only in the context of the particular universe they take place in, when understood as a whole. Lotman invites us to consider the ternary structure fool/smart/crazy as a continuum where we can gauge individual and collective adequacy to the norm. Here, I summarize Lotman’s multifaceted description through my own lens with the aid of some examples centered on the notion of the fool and the madman in some representative spaces. I am particularly interested in finding paradigm changes through the reading of contemporary texts, or better said, through some complex manifestations of madness and stupidity, which are difficult to translate accurately without a subjective assessment.

Iuri Lotman: a análise da cultura segundo a perspectiva da complexidade e da transdiciplinaridade

Abstract: We have several objectives in this article. Firstly, we return to the category of semiosphere due to its dialectical and polysemic character, but we also introduce some reflections in order to analyze more complex cultural productions. In this same sense, the category of internal and external semiotic border allows us to present the cultural, intercultural, and transcultural translation problems that are articulated with the dynamic changes of every culture. Secondly, we examine the category of culture and articulate it with the no-culture, with the anti-culture, which would lead to propose three types of semiosphere: cultural semiosphere, noncultural semiosphere, and anti-cultural semiosphere, which introduce controversial aspects that must be considered. Thirdly, we study Iuri Lotman’s latest approaches on the unpredictable in cultural processes, assuming assumptions of complexity and transdisciplinarity that are present in all his work.

Towards Conceptually Novel Oscillating Agent-Based Simulation of the Relationship Between Cultural Participation and Social Capital

Abstract: Effective simulation and prediction of the social impact of culture is one of the most important questions in contemporary social science and formative cultural policy. After a comprehensive review of the current simulation approaches, we found an evident lack of systematic conceptual models, however. It gave an impetus to investigate some novel conceptual approaches. In general, we admit that cultural events take part in the formation of social capital via the ability to communicate behavioral information in social networks. Following the bottom-up approach, implications of the social impact of cultural events are taking place on the individual (agent or actor) level first. Consequently, the aggregated effect can be simulated and predicted for the group or society (multiagent) level as well. For several reasons, we used CIDOC-CRM cultural ontology, which gives a structured framework of main cultural entities. We discovered that relations between them are not trivial and require fundamentally different viewpoints and simulation frameworks, which would better conform to the emergent complexity of social networks. For this reason, we analyzed in more detail Youri Lotman‘s semiosphere concept and OSIMAS (an oscillations-based multiagent system) paradigm. Consequently, in the proposed agent-based conceptual model, there is employed not only classical pair-to-pair based Axelrod’s neighborhood interaction model but also a one-to-many information broadcasting model. Such conceptual approach is able to provide simulation models for the complex emergent relations between cultural participation and social capital.

Which university at the treshold of 2020

Abstract: The international debate on the physiognomy of higher education started more than twenty years ago, between reforms of organizational and didactic models and profound reflections on the epistemological statutes of every single discipline. However, at the threshold of 2020, the contours of the tertiary training cycle are still blurred. Is university following the rules of markets, in an attempt to keep up with globalization and the frenetic pace of the new economy, or is the homo oeconomicus who carefully observes, with an eye to the future, the changes in knowledge production approaches that are more functional to his interests? The article, starting from the current socio-economic framework, proposes a reading of some of the possible disciplinary approaches dedicated to the planning, production and transmission of knowledge. It also touches the theme of transdisciplinarity, observing it from a constructivist perspective and also semiological, taking up Lotman's theories on the semiosphere. Finally, it suggests the potential traits of a new physiognomy of the tertiary training cycle.

Permeable Boundaries: Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) and Jurij M. Lotman’s Semiosphere

Abstract: Abstract This article argues that the cultural semiotic model of the “semiosphere” by Lotman (Lotman, Grishakova and Clark 2009) can be productively employed to interpret the complex layers of social order and liminal sociality in Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722). Defoe’s text, analysed with a cultural semiotic approach, appears as more than a shocking re-narration of a historical event, as it becomes possible to read this proto-novel as a text that showcases and makes experiential the entanglement of social breakdown and social needs. London during the plague is shown as a space that labours to enforce both discursive as well as physical borders, but fails in both instances: The lively media public which Defoe depicts for the mid-17th century is shown as failing to establish boundaries of ‘facts’ and ‘fake news’, while single human beings constantly defy the shutting orders of the authorities, or flee the city illegally. In the semiosphere of a London constituted by a state of exception, Defoe strategically inserts permeable boundaries to show a survival of conviviality in the face of the breakdown of society. The main topoi of Lotman’s cultural semiotic model – explosion and periphery – illustrate both the discursive disorientation during the plague as well as the spatial peripheries of the city as sites of liminal social survival in the face of catastrophe.

Дихотомія схід–захід: історико-культурологічний аспект

Abstract: The purpose of the article is a historical and cultural analysis of the dichotomy of the East and the West as antinomy systems with immanent semantic codes. Methodology. The conceptual methodological core of the study is a historical-comparative analysis of the East–West dichotomy. With the help of the hermeneutic interpretation method , the peculiarities of eastern and western civilizations which determine their dichotomy are revealed; the dialogic method is used to determine the mechanisms of interaction of civilizations. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the conceptualization of the phenomenon of East–West dichotomy from the standpoint of the binary opposition I–Other . Based on the historical-comparative analysis of Eastern and Western civilizations, the factors, mechanisms, and results of their interaction at various stages of world history are revealed. A hypothesis was advanced to explain the transition of the world system from globalization to a new form of internationalization – dialogization . С onclusions. The historical-culturological aspect of the East-West dichotomy is considered from the perspective of the concept I–Other . The factors of the worldview parallelism of Eastern and Western civilizations as antinomian systems with different worldviews, traditions, economic and military-political potential are identified. The semantic transformations of the East-West dichotomy are studied in the context of the entry of one culture into the semiosphere of another culture in a time perspective. The factors of the dialogical turn in international relations in the context of global integration processes at the turn of the XX – XXI centuries are revealed. It is shown that in the XXI century globalization is being replaced by dialogization as a modern form of internationalization of social life based on the communicative principle.