Free Transcript of Episode 2.10 Why Are Semiotic Signs Dependent On Interpretation?
Semiosis 101 Season 2, Video 10 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 28 Jun, 2023, we discuss the question, why are semiotic signs dependent on interpretation? Which means encoding semiotic signs into the aesthetic during ideation TRIGGERS audience perception!
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…
…and here is the video’s transcript.
NOTE: As with any video transcript the tone used is conversational. The following transcript text features ad libs, and therefore should be read in the spirit of any semi-scripted video.
I am not attempting to obfuscate here, but the subjective is… wriggly.
Determinable. Quantitative.
These provide an unequivocal definitive answer, but both semiotics and Visual Communication Design outputs deal with people. Let me expand this thesis, as I can already hear some of you saying, “Hang on there!”
Both graphic design and illustration’s outputs can obviously present facts and “reality” in denotative ways. Both discipline’s can make the most dry of facts “pop” for the audience, while not having to worry about the ephemeral nature of “the subjective.”
That is great. But.
(There is always a but!)
As soon as a designer or illustrator begins to play with the aesthetic, even with objective data, then the audience is being invited to visually interpret meaning. As soon as the aesthetic is decided upon, the subjective slides in. Okay, I make the subjective sound like a supernatural possession waiting to happen. My tongue is firmly planted in my cheek here, but I quickly want to reinforce the idea that the aesthetic (however you currently think of it) provokes response.
Let us play a thought exercise here so I can get quickly to my point.
The same data is shared on the same page in two different ways. Neither version changes the data. One version of the data presents it in a typeset column, in 10pt Times New Roman, with no paragraphing or other visual hierarchy to emphasise any parts of the data over other parts.
Another version puts exactly the same data into an infographic, utilising colour, hierarchy, illustration, different type sizes, etc. to make the same data accessible.
The data has not changed.
Do I have to ask which version of the same data will be more accessible to an audience?
Okay. Now we are on the same page. Let us continue.
Version two of the data in this thought exercise is clearly more desirable to read over version one. Aesthetic decisions have rendered the data more accessible. With each aesthetic decision taken, the data is not changed, but how the audience perceives the data is… manipulated. In version one, there are no indicators to hierarchy in the data. In version two, hierarchy is the key to understanding the data.
This begins the subjective response in the audience to what parts of the data they will perceive first. Does the audience scan headings first, or jump straight to the visual display of the findings, or do they jump to the conclusion first? This is quickly sliding into a deconstruction of an academic research poster, so let me quickly change tack.
I said in my welcome at the beginning of this video that we will discuss and not answer why are semiotic signs dependent on interpretation? In past Semiosis 101 season 2 videos I have spent time exploring Peirce’s semiotic determination flow, from both a macro level and a micro level of analogues to the creative process. (Check out Omnibus 2.2.)
From a macro analogue level, I used the example of a client : creative : audience triadic flow. If the client wanted the data to be disseminated in a unadulterated way, then the creative would do just that. Meanwhile, what about the needs of the audience?If that audience is a small academic niche of experts, then fine. But…Yes, there is always a but. Before the comments start filling up with comments that I am constructing a “straw man” argument, let us consider human nature.
We are visual animals. We are hard-wired that way. Many of us are visual learners, who take information in much better by appealing to our visual nature.
Visual Communication Design is what the creatives do. Audiences do not know something, until they know something. (That should not be a controversial statement). If a client could disseminate directly AND effectively to their audience, then we would not exist. But we do, because the client cannot do it effectively. How can the audience know what the client wants them to know? Well the creative’s aesthetic choices can effectively facilitate this.
Or not.
Semiosis (sign-action) can enhance the success.
The aesthetic grabs attention.
Or not.
We have already spent time exploring this in previous videos. Hall in his book discusses “visual noise” that permeates modern societies, visually overloading the audience. In Semiosis 101, through Peirce’s Pragmatic semiotic theory, we have examined ways for creative’s to hack through that “noise” straight to their target audience. When I discuss the aesthetic, I am not doing so in the classic sense, of a creative inspired to provide a visual statement of artistic creation. I am firmly framing this within Richard Shusterman’s Pragmatic framework, where the aesthetic attracts attention and holds it. In this way the aesthetic comprises of visual triggers to attract and retain attention.
The aesthetic as we frame it in Semiosis 101, is crafted with the audience in mind and not the client : creative. By framing the aesthetic Pragmatically, its appeal is emergent in the audience. Whatever content (or data) is conveyed through the aesthetic, is visually communicated in ways that subconsciously appeals to the intended audience.
Shusterman was influenced in his view on the aesthetic by John Dewey, a fellow founder of Pragmatism with C.S. Peirce. Dewey was also interested in education, where learning can emerge through actions, through “doing.” This Constructivist pedagogy from Pragmatism underpins my HE teaching, and Semiosis 101 itself. So back to our audience.
What are these visual triggers embedded in the chosen aesthetic, then?
Let us return to Peirce’s semiotic determination flow, as the answer is in the levels of crafting effective sign-action. Here we will also see the answer to this week’s question emerge in a pure Constructivist way, too.
Peirce’s sign-action flows from what he describes as the Object, through its Representamen, resulting in an Interpretant that puts the Object in the mind. This is an ongoing process of sign-action where the new Object then suggests further meaning, and around the determination flow we subconsciously continue.
Those terms of Peirce’s are loaded with problems for creatives (and everyone else who is not a Peircean scholar).So in Semiosis 101 we use the designer-centric analogue terms Concept > Representation > Interpretation. (This is the micro analogue level I mentioned at the beginning of this video.) If we equate Concept with the client/brief, Representation with the designer/illustrator, then that means the audience are the ones involved with Interpretation. But what will they interpret? Will it be the intended meaning set out by the client’s brief? That scenario only leaves one who can facilitate a smooth determination flow from Concept to successful Interpretation.
Yes, I am talking about you creatives. If you are not mindful of the decisions you make in your aesthetic choices, you can fail the audience. Fail the client. That is a scary thought and extra pressure on a role already pressured with many subjective variables. So how can a creative enhance the visual communication chances of eliciting the successful responses in the intended audience?
We have spent time over the last few months discussing design as an experience rather than an event. If Pragmatically the aesthetic attracts attention, then the creative can utilise, during their ideation phase, Iconic representation as basic visual communication building blocks to attract the attention of the target audience.
To end this tenth season two video, it is important to remind ourselves that any semiotic sign will not begin to work UNTIL it is perceived by the audience.
Firstly, this strongly suggests that semiotic signs remain dormant and powerless to begin communicating UNTIL the audience interprets some thing as something.
Secondly, these semiotic signs are encoded into the aesthetic to TRIGGER perception at an Iconic representation level. This is nothing more than visual suggestions, or similarities to qualities that are recognisable by the audience to things that are familiar to them. If these qualities can be visually linked to the Concept, the aesthetic will have more chance of grabbing and holding their attention, long enough for the desired meaning to interpreted.
Come back next week to Semiosis 101 to understand how the aesthetic can be semiotically encoded.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…