Summary of Lecture - Semiotics & Language - Week 3

This lecture concentrated on looking at text as art, or as a component of art, rather than a separate communication, particularly within conceptual art.

Using text within artwork can transform meaning by adding context. This is evident, for example in Magritte's painting entitled 'the Treason of Images'. He examines the relationship between the viewer, the signified and the signifier within the image, reminding the viewer that the signified is not real. He questions our perceptions and interpretations by reminding the viewer through text that the pipe is not a real pipe; it is an image of a pipe which he has created and we have interpreted as knowing to represent a pipe. This knowledge has been imposed upon the viewer by society and a viewer who had never seen a pipe before would not necessarily know this to be a representation of a pipe - it could mean nothing, or something different entirely. The image is not a real pipe in the same way that the text is not a pipe & in this way the text is the same as the image - man made markings on a page. Text and image are illustrated here as one and the same - visual encoding.

Magritte is emphasizing the use of painting as a visual language and asking us to question what we understand by what we see. This image creates a visual message which we recognize in a similar way that written language does this. Conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth examines this in his work 'Five Words in White Neon.' This piece is under no fancy illusion & poses the question - what is art when not a signifier?

Text, like image, is a visual language which society has created & we have been trained to recognize. An unknown language would be unconprehensible to a viewer (unless they had a key to unlock the code, such as with the Rosetta Stone.) Reading language is so thoroughly ingrained into us that we take it for granted and decode this visual language unconsciously, as we would a image. David Abram commented that language is "a form of animism that we take for granted, but it is animism nonetheless - as mysterious as a talking stone." When a reading, words & sounds leap out at the viewer in a way that we are so used to that we expect this.

The phonetic alphabet is not based on image & is a creation of shapes comprising a code. We take for granted the definitions of words, but these are just combinations of the phonetic alphabet - any single word could just as easily have been defined as something else entirely. Marcel Broodthaers examines this in his work 'Farm Animals', 1974. He disrupts the relationship between signified & signifier by naming different car manufacturers underneath the cows rather than breeds of cow. This piece refers to capitalism & branding. Brands change; cows were branded and previously a form of wealth, now cars represent this.

Aestheticly pleasing artistic methods have also developed through text, such as demonstrated in the inlay of the Taj Mahal - the creation of images was forbidden so artists expressed themselves through ornate text. This demonstrates a combination of traditionally aesthetically pleasing art and a purposeful visual code which is not based on an image. On this note, it is interesting how text can be differently perceived according to how it is directly presented - different fonts, handwriting, etc, would give a reader some knowledge of the creator of the text and its purpose.

In conclusion, text & image can be seen as one and the same - created visual communications which we use our knowledge of society & our surroundings to decode, often without even realising.