Search results

Abstract
Why has semiotics focused more on iconicity and resemblance than on aniconicity and dissemblance? Can a semiotic theory of how signs, and in particular icons, tum into non-signs, be formulated? Taking as theoretical point of departure Peirce's triadic conception of signs as consisting in the relation between a representamen and an object through an interpretant, the article explores the evanescence of iconicity and resemblance through several examples of aniconicity and dissemblance: a son who cannot recognize his own father's picture because it is too old; a writer who cannot recognize his own city because it was turned into rubble by aerial bombing; a cubist painter who distorts the pictorial icon of an object so that viewers cannot recognize it; etc. Through these and more examples, the paper points out that semiotics should develop not only a cultural theory of how signs are created, but also a cultural theory of how they are dissolved.

This article is written in the first person, but maintains that, in order to understand the meaning of a selfie, it is necessary to articulate different levels of analysis. First, we must differentiate between the meaning of the practice of taking selfies and the meaning of selfies themselves as images. In addition, we must consider that there are selfies whose nature is hidden in the communication of these images (crypto-selfies), as well as there are images that circulate as selfies but that are actually not such from the point of view of their empirical production (pseudo-selfies). There are, then, crypto-selfies, pseudo-selfies, and even meta-selfies, that is, representations of social contexts in which selfies are taken (the latter subgenre, as we will see, is widely used by politicians). The practice of taking selfies and the images it produces give rise to meanings that can be distributed according to the famous hermeneutical tripartition formulated by Umberto Eco. In selfies there is an intentio auctoris, that is, a meaning that the subject wants to express in a more or less conscious manner through this photographic format and its content; then there is an intentio lectoris, that is, the meaning that emerges from a selfie or a set of selfies when an audience observes and interprets them; but there is also an intentio operis of the selfie, that is, a meaning that this practice, its format, and the texts it produces implicitly entails within the framework of the history of culture and especially in the structure of the current semiosphere.

Pourquoi ne peut-on pas vivre dans un espace où chaque communauté religieuse décide d'utiliser librement les ressources matérielles de l'environnement afin de signifier son identité et son appartenance religieuse, sans pour autant entrer en conflit avec les projets de signification des autres communautés spirituelles, à l'inclusion des projets de ceux qui n'adhèrent à aucune croyance ? Il serait sans doute merveilleux de vivre dans un espace aussi paisible ; cependant, cela demeure une utopie car, en premier lieu, comme on vient de le souligner, les ressources matérielles de la signification sont souvent limitées : soit l'on arrête de travailler le dimanche, soit le samedi, soit le vendredi, soit le jeudi ; respecter les jours fériés des toutes les religions à la fois peut créer de problèmes majeurs dans l'organisation du travail. Cependant, même si l'on arrivait — par une gestion de plus en plus rusée de la coexistence religieuse — à éliminer toute tension évidente autour des projets de signification spirituelle, sa nature conflictuelle ne disparaîtrait pas. Ce que les chercheurs et les chercheuses en sciences religieuses ont souvent négligé est le fait que, pour un croyant, la pluralité des signes religieux constitue souvent une menace à la fois cognitive et émotionnelle. Le phénomène est macroscopique dans les religions monothéistes : constater que le même dieu peut être vénéré d'une façon différente affaiblit sous-consciemment la vigueur identitaire de la croyance spirituelle. Pour le fondamentaliste, par exemple, il n'est pas suffisant de maîtriser toutes les ressources nécessaires à son propre projet de signification religieuse ; il faut également faire en sorte que des autres projets ne se manifestent point, car cette manifestation implicitement évoque l'impermanence et la relativité de sa propre croyance. La pluralité religieuse exprime un contenu de relativité que seule la conception post-moderne de l'existence a pu sous-estimer. Au contraire, accepter que, dans l'anthropologie humaine, la présence symbolique de l'autre menace de façon intrinsèque tout projet identitaire, notamment dans le domaine religieux, ne signifie pas renoncer à toute aspiration de coexistence paisible entre les diversités. En revanche, développer une conception réaliste, voire parfois pessimiste de la raison anthropologique et sociale peut emmener à un optimisme raisonnable de la volonté de politique religieuse.

The article points out that the current expansion of the semiotic focus from signs and texts to whole cultures needs the development of a coherent method. It therefore proposes to establish it through an application of the topological theory of fractals to the analysis of different kinds of symmetries in the semiosphere. Having defined fractals as resemblance between two topological structures, the article first dwells on what "resemblance" means in the comparison of both visual and conceptual patterns; it then proposes a typology of fractal similarities, based on the topological operations of rotation, translation, and reflection. Examples of each typology are given from the fields of cultural and political analysis. The article concludes by hypothesizing that cultural semiotics might evolve into a "pattern science", challenging the customary disciplinary barriers between the study of regularities in nature and in culture.

Abstract
The article proposes a semiotic comparison between the phenomenological structure of rituals and routines, and claims that they share the same features of repetition through time, impossibility of change, unavailability of choice, and transcendental conception of origin. If a modern, structural conception of meaning based on alternative is adopted, both rituals and routines can be considered as meaningless. However, if the non-structural, pre-modem conception of meaning based on repetition is embraced, rituals and routines appear to be meaningful, although they do not have a meaning according to the structural semiotic ideology. The sense of belonging that emerges from rituals and routines (from routines as rituals) relies exactly on the feeling that no alternative is possible, that meaning depends on a subject's repetitive frequentation of a physical or conceptual space, and that dis-placement does not exist. The section concludes by focusing on the main phenomenological difference between a ritual and a routine- whereas the former is collective, the latter is individual-, contending that this is the main reason for which the existential value of rituals in pre-modem societies is not satisfactorily replaced by that of routines in contemporary societies. Routines offer to (post-) modern subjects an alienating feeling of belonging that fails to replace the sense of belonging guaranteed by pre-modem rituals. Only through rituals do subjects feel part of a collective routine that secures their feeling of belonging.

The article focuses on frontiers from a semiotic perspective. They are a classic object of research for human and social sciences, especially in geography and cultural anthropology. They have become a phenomenon of much relevance and global visibility, in the often controversial center of the attention of citizens, politicians, and the media. On the one hand, as always in the history of cultures, attention has grown for displacements of people throughout the world have increased, because of the geopolitical crises that they suffer on the planet, but also thanks to the new facility with which these displacements are now imagined, organized and carried on. On the other hand, public attention towards frontiers grows because the conditions of their media representation change too.

Abstract
From birth to death, the human body is constantly veiled and unveiled, clothed and unclothed, wrapped and unwrapped. Nothing of this process is " natural". Through this process, a natural body belonging to the human species is transformed into a cultural body belonging to a human civilization. Each object that is on the body modifies its meaning, for it is impossible for the human body not to communicate. Even nudity, like silence in verbal language, is hardly deprived of any meaning. In order to understand the meaning of the body and its signs, one must distinguish between signification and communication, and between intentional and non-intentional communication. Bodily communication always entails the encounter between two or more interpretative hypotheses, which can completely match or mismatch. Since globalization, misunderstandings concerning the meaning of the body and its signs are more and more frequent as a correct interpretation of the intention and the content of bodily communication strictly depends on the cultural background of those who are involved in it. One of the most misunderstood bodily signs of our epoque is the veil of observant Islamic women. The paper initiates a reflection on the semiotics of the veil by proposing a phenomenological grid of its possible meanings.

Abstract
Global communication today is strictly connected to the dominant social reproduction system which is regulated by dominant ideology and official discourse. These are grounded in the logic of identity, therefore the logic of roles with their limited responsibilities and alibis, ultimately the logic of self-interest. Human behaviour is sign behaviour and ideological behaviour, in other words, it is never neutral, but, on the contrary, is permeated with values and regulated by social programs. Global semiotics and semioethics contribute towards a critical understanding of communication today, of semiosis, in a globalized world. Dialogism and listening are the condition for a new form of humanism based on the logic of otherness rather than on the logic of identity.

Este artículo está escrito en primera persona, pero sostiene que, para comprender el sentido de una selfie, hace falta articular distintos niveles de análisis. Primero, hay que diferenciar entre el sentido de la práctica misma de tomarse selfies y el sentido de las selfies mismas como imáge­nes. Además, hay que considerar que hay selfies cuya naturaleza de selfie se oculta en la comunicación de estas imágenes (cripto-selfies), así como hay imágenes que circulan como selfies pero que en verdad no lo son desde el punto de vista de su producción empírica (pseudo-selfies). Hay, enton­ces, cripto-selfies, pseudo-selfies, e incluso meta-selfies, es decir, repre­sentaciones de contextos sociales en los que se sacan selfies (este último sub-género, como veremos, es muy utilizado por los políticos). La práctica de sacarse selfies y las imágenes que produce dan lugar a sentidos que se pueden distribuir según la famosa tripartición hermenéutica formulada por Umberto Eco. En las selfies hay una intentio auctoris, o sea un sentido que el sujeto quiere expresar de manera más o menos consciente a través de este formato fotográfico y de su contenido; luego hay una intentio lectoris, o sea el sentido que se desprende de una selfie o de un conjunto de selfies cuando sean observadas e interpretadas por un público; pero incluso hay una intentio operis de la selfie, o sea, un sentido que esta práctica, su forma­to, y los textos que producen implícitamente conllevan en el marco de la historia de la cultura y sobre todo en la estructura de la semiosfera actual. ; This article is written in the first person, but maintains that, in order to understand the meaning of a selfie, it is necessary to articulate diffe­rent levels of analysis. First, we must differentiate between the meaning of the practice of taking selfies and the meaning of selfies themselves as images. In addition, we must consider that there are selfies whose nature is hidden in the communication of these images (crypto-selfies), as well as there are images that circulate as selfies but that are actually not such from the point of view of their empirical production (pseudo-selfies). There are, then, crypto-selfies, pseudo-selfies, and even meta-selfies, that is, re­presentations of social contexts in which selfies are taken (the latter sub-genre, as we will see, is widely used by politicians). The practice of taking selfies and the images it produces give rise to meanings that can be distri­buted according to the famous hermeneutical tripartition formulated by Umberto Eco. In selfies there is an intentio auctoris, that is, a meaning that the subject wants to express in a more or less conscious manner through this photographic format and its content; then there is an intentio lectoris, that is, the meaning that emerges from a selfie or a set of selfies when an audience observes and interprets them; but there is also an intentio operis of the selfie, that is, a meaning that this practice, its format, and the texts it produces implicitly entails within the framework of the history of culture and especially in the structure of the current semiosphere.