Dr John Crossley
#6
HSFC FOUNDATION SEMINAR
Week 6 -
Semiotics 3
SIGNS
Interpretation of 2D images
Icons always involve some sort of physical resemplance. In some ways they can be undersood without learning a particular language - but there can also be a learnt way of seeing tied up with decoding them
PHYSIOLOGY OF PERCEPTION
TASK
Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not resemble the signified but which is fundamentally arbitrary or purely conventional - so that the relationship must be learnt: e.g. language in general (plus specific languages, alphabetical letters, punctuation marks, words, phrases and sentences), numbers, morse code, traffic lights, national flags; Icon/iconic: a mode in which the signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified (recognizably looking, sounding, feeling, tasting or
Read the clips, analysis should include reference to Sypbols, icons, Indexs - thinking about different levels of meaning and where the meaning might stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t60oY0TbTU&feature= fvwrel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-HYj5cLfEI smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scalemodel, onomatopoeia, metaphors, ‘realistic’ sounds in ‘programme music’, sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures;
footprints, echoes, non-synthetic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulserate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level), ‘signals’ (a knock on a door, a phone ringing), pointers (a pointing ‘index’ finger, a directional signpost), Index/indexical: a mode in recordings (a photograph, a which the signifier is not arbifilm, video or television shot, an trary but is directly connected in audio-recorded voice), persome way (physically or caussonal ‘trademarks’ (handwritally) to the signified - this link ing, catchphrase) and indexical can be observed or inferred: e.g. words (‘that’, ‘this’, ‘here’, ‘there’). ‘natural signs’ (smoke, thunder,
For a more serious message, look to The Birds. The Birds is a resounding warning about what happens when a flirty female tries to make a joke. Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, is a prank-player and liar (of course) who tried to gift some lovebirds to the younger sister of Mitch, the chap she fancies. The entire bird world, chagrined to be the pawn in a devious woman’s game, gets its revenge. Thereafter, it’s women on the verge of a feathery freak-out, all the way. The message is that women (a) are all about men and (b) can’t get along because they’re so busy pecking and squabbling over men. Mitch’s mum hates Melanie. Mitch’s mum hated Mitch’s ex too, but Mitch’s ex loves Mitch so much she can’t bear to live far from him. Mitch’s ex hates Melanie and dies. Mitch’s mum is so hung up on men that since Man No 1 (her husband) left her, she’s gripped by fear that Man No 2 (her son) will leave too. Melanie’s own mean mommy abandoned her family. All these neurotic females get the avian thrashing they deserve, in a squawking, Jungian free-for-all of throbbing birds and fabulous hairdressing. Guardian When this is understood, the symbolic film’s complex fabric makes more sense, especially if interpreted in Freudian terms. It is about three needy women (literally ‘birds’) - and a fourth from a younger generation - each flocking around and vying for varying degrees of affection and attention from the sole, emotionallycold male lead, and the fragile tensions, anxieties and unpredictable relations between them. The attacks
are mysteriously related to the mother and son relationship in the film - anger (and fears of abandonment or being left lonely) of the jealous, initially hostile mother come to the surface surface when her bachelor son brings home an attractive young woman. Curiously, the first attack has symbolic phallic undertones - it occurs when the man and woman approach toward each other outside the restaurant in the coastal town. On an allegorical level, the birds in the film are the physical embodiment and exteriorization of unleashed, disturbing, shattering forces that threaten all of humanity (those threatened in the film include schoolchildren, a defenseless farmer, bystanders, a schoolteacher, etc.) when relationships have become insubstantial, unsupportive, or hurtful. In a broader, more universal sense, the stability of the home and natural world environment, symbolized by broken teacups at the domestic level, is in jeopardy and becoming disordered when people cannot ‘see’ the dangers gathering nearby, and cannot adequately protect themselves from violence behind transparent windows, telephone booths, eyeglasses, or facades. Numerous allusions to blindness are sprinkled throughout the film (the farmer’s eyes are pecked out, the children play blindman’s bluff at the birthday party, the broken glasses of the fleeing schoolchild, etc.), giving the hint that the camera’s voyeuristic lens (and its screen-viewing audience) is also being subjected to assault.