Semiotics & Symbolic Anthropology: An Introduction and Discussion of how it relates to Technology & Digital Transformation
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The document explores the concept of visual languages through semiotics, symbolic anthropology, and cultural literacy, emphasizing the importance of understanding the symbols and narratives that shape our societal context. It discusses the decline of cultural literacy and the impact of various historical and cultural paradigms, particularly the influence of Greco-Roman mythology on Western thought. The text calls for a reevaluation of how we teach and engage with these visual languages, advocating for a more comprehensive understanding that integrates diverse perspectives and archetypes.
Semiotics & Symbolic Anthropology: An Introduction and Discussion of how it relates to Technology & Digital Transformation
- 1. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Visual Languages: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
- 2. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
- 3. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy We’re surrounded by visual languages all the time-- We implicitly know how to make meaning from some of these languages without even realizing we “speak” them---they are environmental, biological, and psychological ‘archetypes’ Others we’re trained to understand--either fluently or partially… -- in order to function and understand our larger culture and society And still others we accumulate along the way via sub- cultures and specific communities we engage with… And these ones like to swap round on themselves A LOT
- 4. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy How do we study them? How do we make meaning of making meaning? = “the study of meaning-making” = “the study of sign processes and meaningful communication” SEMIOTICS The Father of Semiotics: Ferdinand de Saussure 1857-1913 As the proposed ‘meaning-making’ system of the future, we definitely want to look more into this field ;) Defining Terms (the boring bit)
- 5. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Semiotics Social Semiotics (fashion, linguistic slang, marketing Social things affected by economics) Pictorial Semiotics (image processing) Semiosis (the act of interpreting a sign) Visual Semiotics (Visual narrativesand modalities, super finicky separatists) Literary Semiotics (languageuse, structure, tone, all those literary vocab words like oxymoron, hyperbole, etc) Cognitive Semiotics Film Semiotics Semiotic Anthropology Contextualism Symbolic Anthropology Anthropological Semantics The Most Bad Ass General Semiotician: Umberto Eco 1932-2016 AnthropologyLinguistic Anthropology Social Anthropology Cultural Anthropology Psychological Anthropology Anthropological Archaeology Cognitive Science THE AMERICAN SEMANTIC ONTOLOGY OF SEMIOTICS Sociology Archaeology History But it’s really all a mush-- divisions are based on academic in-fighting & funding regulations Biological Anthropology
- 6. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Symbolic Anthropology(a.k.a. Symbolic InterprativeAnthropology, vs. Cultural Materialism) General definition = The Most Marvelous of Symbolic Anthropologists: Clifford Geertz 1926-2006 “how the study of cultural symbols can be used to better understand society”
- 7. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Software of the brain –trained to interpret cultural symbols Hardware of the brain responds to universal human symbols/concepts Semiotic Anthropology Contextualism Symbolic Anthropology Anthropological Semantics Cultural Literacy The fun squidgy bits of long duree storytelling that pull from and require both
- 8. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy The Tom Hanks Introduction (as Dan Brown’s fictional Professor of Religious Symbology, Robert Langdon)
- 9. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy In an Antipositivism model, Symbolic Anthropology = studying symbols to look at over-arching historical trends and universal ‘archetypes’ of the Jungian Collective Unconscious Studying the humanities ‘scientifically’ as ‘big data’ but being aware that the very act of studying something is all part of the construct you’re trying to study, so you can’t actually just study it without having an existential crisis about your role in society how everything and how the way you’re looking at is all made up anyhow and nothing is real…. #FrenchPostmodernism The theorized ‘structures’ of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species Archetypal Events Archetypal Figures Archetypal Motifs • Birth • Death • Initiation to Adulthood • Mating • Childbirth • The Great Mother • The Father • The Child • The Trickster • The Wise Old Woman • The Hero • The Creation • The Deluge • The Apocalypse • The Rebirth Arguably, the prevailing post- Enlightenment philosophy of thought
- 10. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy The Best Big Data for Symbolic Anthropology: World Mythology The Most Esteemed Mythologist: Joseph Campbell 1904-1987 A place where we repeat our visual symbols over and over all around the world, regardless of culture or community but within the framework of that culture or community
- 11. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Archaeometallurgy vs. Ghosts Superstition & Storytelling pop up before and more easily than ‘scientific’ practices---than merge, than separate Example: The Birthplaces of “Ideas” Places that thought to melt rock to make metal Places that thought up an afterlife and denizens thereof
- 12. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy “Western culture” “speaks” three mythological paradigms at the foundation of the visual language of its “cultural literature” Occidental Judeo-Christian “Religion” Greco-Roman Mythology & CultureEuropean Fairy Tales (3.5 or 4 if you count Shakespeare as a mishmash of all three that’s become it’s own mythological paradigm)
- 13. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy BUT we’re forgetting how to speak them! We’re losing our cultural literacy. • We don’t learn them formally anymore • We’re surrounded by an avalanche of content • If we are familiar with it, we know it through a diluted lens How? Why?
- 14. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Examples from Judeo-Christian Mythology • Old Testament • New Testament • Hagiography Can someone please tell us the story of David & Goliath?
- 15. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Now, Can someone please tell us the story of King Saul & the Witch of Endor?
- 16. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy The first serves a cultural story archetype that society likes. The second is too easily misinterpreted and could be seen as promoting values ancient (and subsequently modern) society doesn’t want you to like--- which one did know better? You knew the one society wanted you to know, so you’d work within the construct of society…..
- 17. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Tell me about Apple
- 18. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Now tell me about Apple -----in the context of a Judeo-Christian Visual Language schema-- ….Because that’s why Apple is called Apple
- 19. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Fairy Tale Ontologies & Cartographies of Time Fairy Tales Are Obsessively Studied for their Archetypal breakdowns Now 0 1000 CE1000 BCE2000 BCE3000 BCE4000 BCE Bronze Age/Iron Age Transition Old Testament Written, But it’s About Old Testament Written, But it’s About Greco-Roman Mythology Being ‘Written’ First Human City (Sumer) Oldest known, still told, fairy tales Shakespeare EUROPEAN FAIRY TALE EXAMPLES Fairy Tales Are Serious Fucking Business
- 20. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy The Little Mermaid
- 21. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Disney preserves but dilutes the fairy tales in pursuit of a happy ending… Original ‘Real’ Castle (Dover Castle, England) Fake ‘Romanticized’ Castle (Neuschwanstein, Germany) Disney Castle –Our New ‘Archetype’ for “CASTLE” “Disneyfication” = anthropology vocab word----- whereby the fake version becomes the archetypal version, despite questions of phenomenological authenticity- changes promote cultural norms and iterative societal values (& It doesn’t always specifically involve Disney)
- 22. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Examples of Greco-Roman Mythology & Culture in our Visual Language = Roman goddess Minerva/Greek goddess Athena Goddess of wisdom and war But she’s not our goddess for being her awesome self, it’s a super erudite reference to how Athena was born as an adult, just like California was ‘born’ as a state without having ever been a US ‘child’ or territory (We used to be part of Spain, #neverforget!) California is named after Califia, the name of the medieval Spanish literature version of the Greco-Roman mythological Queen of the Amazons. We are the only state that has such an awesome mythological name. = Greek for “I’ve Found It”
- 23. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Why is it Greek AND Roman Mythology & Culture? • Tolerant polytheism of Eastern Med • Syncretic Traditions of Alexander the Great • Easier to adapt and Empire build by finding commonalities and correlations between deities than shut them down (like in monotheism) • Author/Content crossover, Greeks wrote about Greeks, Romans wrote about Greeks • ++++++++++++++
- 24. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Greco-Roman Architecture as a Symbol of Sustainable Democratic Power & Authority Roman Pantheon, Rome, Italy French Pantheon, Paris, France US Capitol Building, Washington DC, USA Acropolis, Athens White House, Washington DC, USA Roman Pantheon, Rome, Italy French Pantheon, Paris, France Hadrian’s Triumphal Arch, Gerasa, Jordan Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France French NeoClassical & Greek Revival Styles
- 25. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Why did Greco-Roman Culture become the foundation for Western visual language? • Greco-Roman philosophy/critical thinking/logic as basis of modern ‘rational thought’ • Seen as the birthplace of our modern society • Democracy • Globalization • Science & Technology • Cultural Institutions PLATO ARISTOTLE DIOGENES OF SYNOPE PLOTINUS STRABO APELLES CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY EUCLID HERACLITUS PARAMENIDES HYPATIA PYTHAGORAS ANAXIMANDER Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd or Averros EPICURUS ALCIABIADES OR ALEXANDER THE GREAT? XENOPHON OR ANTISTHENES? SOCRATES APOLO ATHENA
- 26. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy We’re still speaking it, so why are we losing our ability to ‘make meaning’ Greco-Roman Mythology in our Visual Culture? • Changes in our education system---we don’t teach critical thinking anymore— therefore we don’t teach its original philosophers and their discourse which means we don’t get the ‘timeless’ jokes of previous centuries anymore—can no longer read the buildings of the Renaissance or the artwork of the French Revolution—we can’t make meaning of the cumulative cultural symbolism all around us = lack of cultural literacy
- 27. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Shakespeare As An Example • Shakespeare is Super Erudite to us all NOW • But everyone would have understood it at the time. It was their entertainment and their entertainment insisted that they be culturally literate in order to enjoy it. Both were entertainment, but one references our older archetypes. One doesn’t.
- 28. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Why aren’t we being ‘taught’ cultural literacy? Rise and fall patterns of interest in Greco-Roman culture 2000 CE2000 BCE 1000 CE01000 BCE Tyrants take Athens The Dark Ages The Black Death Golden Age of Athens Pax Romana High Middle Ages Shakespearean England Renaissance Enlightenment French & American Revolutions Awesome things seem to coincide with points of cultural literacy. Not awesome things coincide with bad points in history Movement away from rational thought & science towards conservatism & rise of #fakenews World Wars
- 29. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Current dip in cultural literacy could also be related to our extreme, unprecedented access to information & huge population numbers (more people = more consumption = more content delivery systems = more content = more diversity of content)
- 30. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy HOWEVER diversity of content only goes so far-- there are layers of abstraction BUT they’re still the same archetypal stories (albeit Disneyfied and often remixed) And sometimes we just cheat and pull straight from our older stories to repopulate our new allegories
- 31. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy What does this mean? (The Semiotics OF Symbolic Anthropology) • Are we just in a valley of the long duree pattern of cultural literacy, and should be preparing for it to peak again soon? in which case us embedding the symbolism of the classical past into our system = a good thing to do Example: Teaching Sacred geometry chance to embed the history of maths
- 32. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Or is different this time because of all the new variables? • Humanity has never had so much access to content before-could mean a paradigm shift for what’s considered classics/what’s read by many/what constitutes “cultural literacy” HOWEVER---popular fads for globally relevant narratives still pop up---so the willingness for large groups to congregate around archetypal stories, like Harry Potter, the Marvelverse, and yes, unfortunately, even Twilight-- may be oddly solid evidence that humanity isn’t abandoning its cultural literacy entirely, but we still might want to be careful and stay on the Harry Potter end of storytelling vs. Twilight. One will stand the test of time and be added to humanity's canon of stories that reflect our archetypes, one won’t. Let’s be on the sustainable side of cognitive storytelling.
- 33. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Or then again…all of this could just be a construct, built out of a post-colonial, imperialist, capitalist narrative retrospectively trying to make sense of the past as it was run and as it is interpreted now ….. It’s a Trap.
- 34. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy But Then…. • If all the old white guys were wrong---what patterns are there? What were they missing? What can we see looking more comprehensively by looking at the symbolic anthropology of both East & West in conjunction? • What archetypes were shaped by their perspective and the subsequent study of those perspectives? • What patterns could we find re: the collective unconscious that have gone unutilized or been under utilized by all previous mechanisms for storytelling/knowledge transmission? • What universal visual language can be created that will be accessible to all? Or how can we teach everyone all of the visual languages of the world to create a globally society with a universal cultural literacy? • = We need to evaluate what semiotic archetypes of storytelling/knowledge transmission can we adapt as cognitive levers? Or is rational thought which dictates decipherable patterns in long duree big data a lie? Is logic real or isn’t it? What and when can we trust our critical thinking skills when it comes to qualitative data?
- 35. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy But More Pressingly: What Are We Each Missing About the World Around Us? What symbols don’t we notice? What are history and our ancestors saying to us that we can’t hear anymore even though it’s imprinted on our buildings, on our money, in our pop culture, in #allthethings? How can we build technology that helps everyone to listen and speak these languages again?
- 36. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy How can we annotate & guide people through digital data that pulls back the curtains and reveals all of these layers to them without it being dense and tedious like this powerpoint presentation and this sentence?
- 37. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Further Reading Did semiotics strike your fancy? Did comparative mythology hit a chord? Did Cultural Literacy Speak to the Colors of Your Wind? Here are some suggested texts to follow up with: • Joseph Campbell: ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ or ‘The Power of Myth’ (the latter of which is also a rather famous PBS documentary) • Clifford Geertz: “The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays” (‘Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’ is one of the seminal anth documents) • Roland Barthes: “Mythologies” and “The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies” • Claude Levi-Strauss: “Myth & Meaning” • Maurice Merleau-Ponty: “Phenomenology of Perception” • Michel Foucault: “The Archaeology of Knowledge” and “Of Other Spaces” • And Umberto Eco’s: “From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation” (lookson point, but haven’t read it in full (yet)).
- 38. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy Spoilers: Bad Wolf = A Phrase repeated across time and space in all contexts, in all civilizations as a future indicator to The Doctor & Rose Tyler Did you notice the Bad Wolf references scattered throughout the presentation?