Notes on "Discources in Place: Language in the Material World"

Preface

"There are just three ways a sign such as a word, a sentence, a picture, a graph or a gesture can have meaning in semiotic theory. It can be a picture of the thing in the world. In that case we call it an icon. The little picture of a happy face made by email users out of a colon and the right parenthesis ( :) ) is an icon. It shows us a schematic picture of a smiling face. A sign can also be a completely arbitrary representation of the thing in the world. In thtat case we call it a symbol. A green traffic light means we can continue driving. There is nothing inherent in the color green that 'means' move ahead or keep going. It is an arbitrary association. Finally, a ign means something because of where and when it is located in the world. In this case it is called an index. An arrow pointing one direction down an street is an index which shows the exact direction in which traffic should go."(pg. vii)

This book deals mainly with indexes and the concept of indexicality, examining how signs function when placed in the material world.

Chapter 1 - "Geosemiotics"

"Geosemiotics takes four elements to be central to our undertanding of human action in the three-dimensional and multiply discursives spaces in which we live and act...:

• social actor
• interaction order
• visual semiotics
• place semiotics" (pg. 14)

"The social actor"

The social includes: "sociocultural-psychological knowledge, the social actor or agent, and the physical body in space and time."(15)

The final category "a unified physical body" is complicated in the digital world. From movies like The Matrix and Surrogates, we can already begin to see a future in which our physical selves are split into virtual and real worlds. Far from being science fiction, this split is already occurring through everything from our use of email (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/590650) to facebook to Second Life. Though this split into virtual and real selves is arguably ancient, the proliferation of new media technologies adds a physical dimension to the virtual self (i.e. virtual reality) that has been far less tangible in media technologies such as books or movies.

The interaction order

Types of interaction form "a recognizable way of being together with others in the social space as a set of agreed upon social arrangements to maintain a kind of social interaction. (i.e. conversational encounter vs. a wedding or a funeral)."(16)

Kinds of space form the places in which these social interactions take place. "Hall distinguishes among five kinds of space:

• visual space
• auditory space
• olfactory space
• thermal space
• haptic (or tactile) space"(16)
  

My interest is mainly in auditory space, although these kinds of space can hardly be separated in our experience of the material world. Who controls an auditory environment, and for what purpose? Are the sounds we hear designed to make us happy, sell us something, encourage communication, make us dance, make our bodies feel good, distract us from personal and social problems, call attention to these problems, etc.??? What are the effects of our day to day sound environments the typically go unnoticed? Whose interests do the sounds we hear, and make, serve - our selves, our friends and family, our broader community(ies), a cooperative, our government or nation state, a corporation, a god, etc.? On the other hand, many of the sounds we hear are produced with no intention to manipulate auditory space whatsoever (i.e. a neighbor hammering a nail, or the noise of a crowded coffee shop), but are instead byproducts of other meaningful actions.