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In line with cognitive semiotics, this paper suggests a synthetic account of the important but controversial notion of narrative (in street art, and more generally): one that distinguishes between three levels: (a) narration, (b) underlying story, and (c) frame-setting. The narrative potential of street art has not yet been considerably studied in order to offer insights into how underlying stories may be reconstructed from the audience and how different semiotic systems contribute to this. The analysis is mainly based on three contemporary street artworks and two political cartoons from the 1940s, visualizing the same frame-setting, which may be labeled as "Greece vs. Powerful Enemy." The study is built on fieldwork research that was carried out during several periods in central Athens since 2014, including photo documentation and go-along interviews with street artists. The qualitative analyses with the help of insights from phenomenology show that single static images do not narrate stories themselves (i.e. primary narrativity), but rather presuppose such stories, which they can prompt or trigger. Notably, the significance of sedimented socio-cultural experience, collective memory and contextual knowledge that the audience must recruit in order to reconstruct the narrative potential through the process of secondary narrativity is stressed.

The Athenian graffiti functions as a testament of creativity and artistry occurring during the hard times of socioeconomic and political crisis in Greece the last seven years. The impact of Greece's crisis is unavoidably presented through urban art in downtown Athens. This extensive street art practice on Athenian walls as a linguistic and imagery line is approached in this work via the semiotic and multimodal perspective, as the main symbolic and representative expression generated by the crisis, contributing to the production of visual urban culture. Fieldwork research was conducted in Athens from January to July 2015. The findings of the qualitative analysis highlight that politicized wall writings constitute a modern wall language, expressing social and political messages produced mainly via text and image, reconstructing the wall slogans and murals as the fundamental means of sociopolitical reaction.

The Athenian graffiti functions as a testament of creativity and artistry occurring during the hard times of socioeconomic and political crisis in Greece the last seven years. The impact of Greece's crisis is unavoidably presented through urban art in downtown Athens. This extensive street art practice on Athenian walls as a linguistic and imagery line is approached in this work via the semiotic and multimodal perspective, as the main symbolic and representative expression generated by the crisis, contributing to the production of visual urban culture. Fieldwork research was conducted in Athens from January to July 2015. The findings of the qualitative analysis highlight that politicized wall writings constitute a modern wall language, expressing social and political messages produced mainly via text and image, reconstructing the wall slogans and murals as the fundamental means of sociopolitical reaction.

This paper discusses the urban writing on Athenian walls as an imaginative medium of intercommunication occurring during the socioeconomic and political crisis era in Greece, over the last seven years. The street art activity on the city's walls as a linguistic and imagery phenomenon could be approached as the main symbolic mode of public expression generated by the crisis. To investigate it fieldwork research was conducted in central Athens from January to July 2015. Three research methods were applied: participant observation into two graffiti crews, consequent photo documentation of wall writings, and eight semi-structured interviews with street artists. The research findings disclose the metamorphosis of public walls into an interactive public notebook as an attestation of the processes in the Athenian multimodal urban landscape.

In this poster presentation, Ι discuss about the urban writing on Athenian walls as a creative medium of intercommunication occurring during the hard times of socioeconomic and political crisis in Greece, the last seven years. Analyzing works of street art both as visual artifacts and as performative practices, I argue that they are not merely representations of the given socio-cultural context they are embedded in but also have the potential to actively transform and politicize the urban space. The findings of my mostly qualitative analysis highlight that politicized public writing constitutes a modern wall language, expressing vibrant socio-political messages construed mainly by the visual semiotics and multimodal discourse analysis transforming the wall slogans and murals as the fundamental means of the current socio-political propaganda.

AbstractCognitive linguistic and semiotic accounts of metaphor have addressed similar issues such as universality, conventionality, context-sensitivity, cross-cultural variation, creativity, and "multimodality." However, cognitive linguistics and semiotics have been poor bedfellows and interactions between them have often resulted in cross-talk. This paper, which focuses on metaphors in Greek street art, aims to improve this situation by using concepts and methods from cognitive semiotics, notably the conceptual-empirical loop and methodological triangulation.In line with the cognitive semiotics paradigm, we illustrate the significance of the terminological and conceptual distinction between semiotic systems (language, gesture, and depiction) and sensory modalities (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste). Thus, we restrict the term multimodality to the synergy of two or more different sensory modalities and introduce the notion of polysemiotic communication in the sense of the intertwined use of two or more semiotic systems.In our synthetic approach, we employ the Motivation and Sedimentation Model (MSM), which distinguishes between three interacting levels of meaning making: the embodied, the sedimented, and the situated. Consistent with this, we suggest a definition of metaphor, leading to the assertion that metaphor is a process of experiencing one thing in terms of another, giving rise to both tension and iconicity between the two "things" (meanings, experiences, concepts). By reviewing an empirical study on unisemiotic and polysemiotic metaphors in Greek street art, we show that the actual metaphorical interpretation is ultimately a matter of situated and socio-culturally-sensitive sign use and hence a dynamic and creative process in a real-life context.

The campus of the National Metsovian Polytechnic in central Athens (henceforth Polytechneio), which was constructed in the late 19th century, has been a significant cornerstone in the sociopolitical landscape of the city. Within the history of modern Greece, Polytechneio is regarded as a symbol of resistance against the Greek military dictatorship (junta) in 1973. The surrounding wall of Polytechneio has ever since functioned as a canvas for various kinds of political messages and artistic interventions. In March 2015 and during the times of austerity politics, the west wall of the Polytechneio was covered by a "black-and-white mural" (Tziovas 2017: 45). This paper examines if, how, and why this black-and-white mural has been discussed often controversially from different kinds of recipients, leading to an ardent public debate between local and international street art practitioners and graffiti writers, public and research authorities, communication media, and Greek public opinion. For our analysis, we use data from primary and secondary sources. Primary data sources include interviews and photographic documentation of the field. Secondary data sources include photographic material and newspaper articles circulated online.Taking into consideration the blurred delimitation between street art and graffiti, we focus on the creation and erasure of this black-and-white mural through the lens of a triadic scheme: 1) urban and spatial semiotics 2) design and 3) cultural heritage. The first layer refers to spatialization of semiosis and semiotization of space and examines if and how this mural was integrated into the constructions and experiences of public space. The plasticity of the wall content bears the potential to change the city by making space for pluralistic kinds of aesthetic, dialogic, urban, political, social, and activist encounters (Halsey & Pederick 2010). The second approach implies the need of understanding design as a predominant axis of the human activity for meaning construal and includes all the practicalities involved for the fulfilment of this mural. Thirdly, the issue of cultural preservation, when applied in this case, illustrates the tensions between the institutional frameworks of cultural heritage on one hand, and the growing heritagisation of the street artworks on the other (Merrill 2015). Our goal is to avoid binary interpretations, and instead, to induce the significance of public dialogue, which this mural achieved to trigger.

The campus of the National Metsovian Polytechnic in central Athens has been a signi cant cornerstone in the socio-political landscape of the city. Within the history of modern Greece, Polytechneio is regarded as a symbol of resistance against the Greek military dictatorship (junta) in 1973. In March 2015 and during times of austerity politics, the west façades of the Polytechneio were covered by a "black-and-white mural" (Tziovas 2017: 45). This paper examines how and why this black-and-white mural has been discussed often controversially from di erent kinds of recipients, leading to an ardent public debate within Greek society from a cross disciplinary point of view: 1) semiotics, 2) design, and 3) cultural studies. For our analysis, we use data from primary and secondary sources. Primary data sources include photographic documentation of the eld. Secondary data sources include photographic material and newspaper articles circulated online, as well as, relevant academic literature.First, we examine how this mural was integrated into the constructions and intersubjective experiences of public space from the perspective of semiotization of space. Second, we discuss the practicalities involved for the ful lment of this mural from the perspective of design-scope. And third, we advance the discussion around the issues of cultural preservation and heritagization of street art and gra ti. Our goal in this paper is to avoid binary interpretations, and instead, to induce in an intermediary way the signi cance of public dialogue, which this mural achieved to trigger.