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The "Zeitschrift für
Semiotik": Abstracts ______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________ Jean-Marie Floch Lucia Santaella Francis Edeline Börries Blanke Hardarik Blühdorn Enclosure Discussion Literary report Study To what extent is artistic creation an act of expression? The mythological answers by Jörg Immendorff Jean-Marie Floch, Institute of Political Studies, Paris Summary. This contribution investigates the changes in the conceptions of the artistic
utterance which are implied by the paintings produced by Immendorff between the seventies
and the early nineties. After some methodological considerations, an analysis is given of
the figurative axiology underlying these paintings. As is shown, they correlate natural
elements with the opposition of life and death. The utterer implied by Immendorff's
paintings develops into a "bricoleur" in the sense of Levi-Strauss, and this
especially concerns the painter's conception of the relationship between history and art.
This development is accompanied by parallel changes in the treatment of pictorial
space. Photography between death and eternity Lucia Santaella, Pontificia Universidade Catolica de São Paulo Summary. After a survey of the most important studies in the theorie of photography the
manifoldness of photography is elaborated. This is done with respect to the essential
elements of the photographic process: (1) the photographer in his or her specific
difference from the painter and the cineast, (2) the photographic gesture and its
consequences for the relationship between photographer, camera, and world, (3) the camera
as a medium, (4) the photo as such, (5) the relationship between the photographic picture
and its referent, (6) the distribution of photographs and (7) their reception. The
Janus-facedness of photography between (a) its physical and its symbolic character, (b)
the unique and the repetitive, (c) the fragmented and the intensive, (d) the real and the
hyperreal, (e) presence and absence, (f) proximity and separation, (g) coalescence and
cut, (h) euphoric and dysphoric responses leads to the reflections on the central topic of
this article: the dialectics of photography between death and eternity, which are
developed on the basis of Bioy-Casares' novel Morel's Invention. The rhetoric of contours: how borders are created and how they are crossed Francis Edeline (Gruppe æ, University of Lüttich) Summary. This contribution investigates the structure and function of contours in
drawings and paintings. Part I describes the perceptual basis of lines and analyzes the
special type of line called "contour". Five features of lines are postulated
which characterize the usual practice of forming contours, i.e., the zero level of a
contour. Part II scrutinizes the conceivable deviations from this zero level and analyzes
examples from the practice of well-known artists. The usual practice of forming contours
is based on the laws of perception, but deliberate violations of this practice can suggest
special interpretations of the objects represented. Börries Blanke, Technical University Berlin Summary. Taking the triadic model of the icon proposed by groupe æ as its starting
point, the article focuses on the relationship between similarity and abstractive
relevance by comparing this approach to Eco's semiotic categories of ratio facilis and
ratio difficilis. The possibility of integrating conventional iconic signifiers into this
model is discussed. Finally the relationship between iconicity and pragmatics is examined
by taking into account the role of encyclopedic information in the interpretation of
iconic signs. Hardarik Blühdorn, University of São Paulo Summary. This article proposes to replace the usual folk theories of signs by a more
complex conception of the role signs play in human societies. The given world is
distinguished from man-made reality and perception is described as the production of
pictures which create reality when projected into the world. While perception takes the
world as an object, behavior takes it as a project. A considerable part of the behavior of
organisms consists in the production of signs which either represent perceptions (such as
photos), behavior (such as films), or signs (such as how writing imitates spoken
language). Signs have the function of making a given perception, behavior, or sign
communicable, but they also serve to anticipate perceptions, behavior, and signs which are
as yet unrealized. While signless behavior takes the world as project, signs of this kind
(schemata) present reality as a project. The article ends with a discussion of the various
types of schema signs which are used by humans to control their perception space, behavior
space, and sign space. It postulates the necessity for an elaboration of our folk theories
of signs so that we can function better in the cultural reality we have created. The theater poster as a medium between theater and society: Stephan Despodov's posters Ioanna Spassova, New Bulgarian University, Sofia Discussion Jacques Geninasca, University of Zürich Summary. The author of this contribution criticizes the model of the generative
trajectory, which is fundamental in the semiotic theory of A.J. Greimas. It is shown that
the fragmentary illustration given for the convertibility of the various levels of meaning
in discourse does not hold up under closer scrutiny. The model of the generative
trajectory predicts that meaning in discourse is constituted through the progressive
enriching of an elementary deep structure, independently of the actual operations of the
utterer. In contrast, it is argued here that meaning in discourse must be constituted
through a process of meaning construction which is sucessful only if an adequate strategy
for the production of textual coherence is applied. A special science: comments on the analysis of Geninasca and Greimas Denis Bertrand, University Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris Summary. From the perspective of the Paris School of Semiotics, the author of this
article comments upon the criticism of concepts and models of Greimassian semiotics as
formulated by J. Geninasca in his contribution "Was nun?" (cf. p. 341-354). He
points out that by linking the concepts of a semiotic square with that of a narrative
structure, the model of the generative trajectory allows Greimas to handle both the
logical-semiotic and the anthropological aspects of meaning constitution. In addition, he
shows how Greimas and Geninasca differ in their account of the role which is played in
meaning constitution by the procedures of the utterer. Literary report Thomas-M. Seibert, Frankfurt am Main Summary. "Sense" has become a standard term within recent legal semiotics.
When there are several options in the application of laws to a given case, a legal
decision is called sense-oriented if it fully takes into account the peculiar properties
of the situation under scrutiny. Among the approaches towards sense-orientation developed
within law-theoretical literature in the last decade, five different schools of thought
are presented here. Well entrenched within semiotics of law are Bernhard Jackson's works
published under the title "Making Sense in Law". His counterparts are the
"Analytical Rhetoric" by Ottmar Ballweg and Katharina Sobota and the
"Structuring Legal Theory", in which Dietrich Busse and Ralph Christensen
elaborate on the work of Friedrich Müller. "Sense" has also become a central
term in the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, which can be related to the new
ways of understanding sense established within postmodern jurisprudence by Kostas Douzinas
and Ronnie Warrington, who elaborate upon Lyotard's notion of the
"differend". |
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