E|C

Index

Editorial staff — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This issue’s papers

Giorgia Costanzo, Dario Mangano — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Intermateriality

Giorgia Costanzo — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Appearing Stones. The Sacred Wood of Bomarzo

Stefano Jacoviello — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Sacred Wood of Bomarzo has been the subject of extensive iconological research aimed at deciphering the allegories with which it is strewed. Rather than devoting to deciphering the symbols, this article investigates the semiotic mechanism of the Sacred Wood, which concerns the simultaneous construction of different enunciative axes in a complex discoursive device that simultaneously includes illusion and simulation. Diverse configurations of the matter – stone, statue, creature, each relating to an order of the world –, produce different effects of presence in space and time that characterise the aesthetic experience of the place. In the tight confrontation between the human and the inhuman, the natural and the unnatural, the stones show themselves to be far from being inert material. Stones emerge from the ground, appear as elements in the landscape, stage themselves as such, and then they hide behind the machine of representation that asks to be evaluated by the visitor as art, nature, or simple artifice. Through the oscillation between looking and being looked at, the appearing of Bomarzo’s stones manifest the place of a crisis of the human dimension, and at the same time offer the antidote to exorcise it by coming to terms with time, passions, and the certainty that, after all, life is deception.

Eight Dusts: Healing Rituals and Metaphysics of Dust among Nepalese Followers of a Japanese New Religion

Marilena Frisone — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Every morning a group of Nepalese followers of the Japanese new religion called Tenrikyō (“Teachings of the Heavenly Wisdom”) gathers in a small room in Kathmandu and performs rituals and prayers, hoping to be able to experience the Joyous Life in this world. One of the topics often discussed after the prayer is the doctrine of the “eight dusts” (Jp. yattsu no hokori). According to it human nature is not inherently evil, and the selfish or unethical behaviour that sometimes characterises human actions, can simply be understood as the result of a bit of “dust” – eight types in fact – which has settled on an otherwise originally pure “heart/mind” (Jp. kokoro, Np. man). “Dust” is here conceptualised as “mistaken thoughts – that is, states of mind that do not accord with the intention of God”. From a semiotic point of view, dust thus plays here the actantial role of Anti-Subject, which needs to be removed through ethical practice and the ritual gestures of a sacred dance – in order to fully realise an Ethical Subject in conjunction with an Object of Value, the pure “heart/mind”. Dust is to the broom of God, what selfishness is to divine will. In this complex semi-symbolic use, dust, connected with dirt, is not only conceptualised in opposition to cleanness and purity, but also as the result of a selfish behaviour which has neglected the will of God. This paper, based on fifteen months of anthropological fieldwork in Nepal, will explore the moral and metaphysical implications of the doctrine of eight dusts as discussed among Nepalese followers of Tenrikyō, trying to show how dust may connect more in general to the ethical dimension of practice.

From matter to artifact conveying the sacred: the ritual laurel of St. Sylvester in Troina

Maurilio Ginex — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the contexts of popular religiosity, material culture has a considerable weight in identity capital. Matter, in its most multifaceted forms and through a powerful process of agency, has the power to transform contexts according to the uses made of it and to generate forms of aggregation around it. It can also build an entire ceremonial structure that identifies a cultural context around it. This is the case of Troina, a town in the Enna district of Sicily. Troina’s festive calendar includes a feast in honour of its patron saint: San Silvestro. A pilgrimage that moves from the village towards a dimension, a sacred one, of the extra-urban, the forest, where only one thing counts: a tuccata ru ‘ddauru. The touch of the laurel, the plant that conveys the sense of the sacred, underpins a pilgrimage that has been taking place for centuries in a territory of devotees.

Desemantization, Re-semantization and Elemental Materiality of Some Abandoned Houses. The Case of the "Albergo Diffuso"

Giorgio Lo Feudo — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The widespread hotel is a tourist-type housing innovation which consists in the transformation of some old buildings, located in often abandoned and uninhabited villages, into hotel structures spread over several sites which are not always contiguous. In this article we will try to analyze this new housing structure with the lenses of semiotics, paying particular attention both to the symbolic conversions which, with the processes of desemantization and resemantization, determine its tourist-cultural form and purpose, both to the elementals components which, in our opinion, they match what A.J. Greimas and J. Fontanille consider the “phenomenal dimension, but also paradoxically real”, considered as “prerequisite of every object of semiotics”.

When Traceurs Meet Steel. Re-signification of a "Functional" Material within the Practice of Parkour

Valerio Santori — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Exalted by the modernist discourse due to physical properties such as hardness and tensile strength, steel within the practice of parkour seems to possess entirely different, even opposing, characteristics. In this paper, this “schizophrenia of steel” is investigated by drawing on recent insights by Cosimo Caputo on the concept of “double materiality” in Hjelmslev, which opens the doors to the recognition of a multiplicity of substances. The proposed hypothesis posits that the affordances of a particular material should be understood as possibilities of reacting to a non-hypothetical resistance, that is, not subjected to analysis, and that such an approach reveals the perpetual ambiguity of the “contract between man and material”, as formulated by Hammad.

The Primitive Path. For a Polyphony of Cognitive and Material Agencies

Gabriele Giampieri — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last quarter of century, several scientific disciplines from different perspectives have been focusing on the engagement between organisms and environment and on how cognitive and material agencies affect each other. The integration and the simultaneities of the agencies looks developing strictly from a theoretical point of view, however as analysis of interactions comes into play we – as analysts – seem doomed to preserve a dualistic perspective (cognitive VS material) while presenting our accounts and practical examples. The paper seeks to demonstrate how a pre-logic mentality might overcome the divisive cultural logics of the analysts and support instead the emergence of a polyphony of agencies occurring simultaneously during the analysis, leading towards a non-dualistic and a-chronic account of the human-material engagement.

Graphic Materials. How Materiality Affects the Form of Writing and Written Texts

Rossana De Angelis — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the history of writing, the relationship between the raw materials available (stone, wood, wax, clay, leaves, rags, metals etc.), their transformation to make materials as blocks, boards, layers, papers, bars etc., adapted to inscription (engrave, paint, ink, type etc.), and the tools adopted to inscribe (stylus, brushes, pens, keyboards, screens etc.), shows that the circulation of writing systems and written objects depends on a complex balance between several factors, including material ones. In fact, this materiality interacts both with the enunciative authorities and the enunciative institutions for the production, stabilization and transmission of texts. In this article, we’ll try to understand how the materiality of writings acts in this dynamic.

The Stuff that Data is Made of. Materialisation Strategies Between the Visible and the Tangible

Valentina Manchia — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Even the most abstract form of visualization can be described as an expressive material structured into a proportionally formed substance. Recently, however, a new paradigm has arisen: data physicalization, i.e., the use of physical artifacts whose geometry or material properties encode abstract data (Y. Jansen et al. 2015; Dragicevic, Jansen, Vande Moere 2021). In parallel, theories of physicalization as well as classification proposals and taxonomic models are emerging. From a semiotic point of view, it seems more relevant to ask how practices and strategies of materialization and rematerialization of data, both in data physicalization and in classical, abstract forms of visualization, contribute to a different narrative and to a greater engagement of the user/observer. The paper deals with this question through the analysis of some examples and projects, including the U-DATInos project by Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico, which appeal in a particular way to materiality to communicate data and information.

Banknotes as Matter and as the Support for Semiosis: Towards a Semiotics of Paper Money

Sebastián Moreno — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Nowadays, banknotes and coins are part of an economic system that over time has become more digital, complex and diversified. These two elements are created in different material supports: while coins are minted in metal, banknotes are designed in a type of paper called paper money. Although its use is decreasing, we normally use(d) paper money in our daily lives to resolve economic exchanges. This article approaches paper money from a semiotic perspective and regards it a material that has some features that make it an appropriate medium to convey social meaning through visual language. Besides its economic function, paper money also serves the State to convey contents linked to national identity and cultural memory. After approaching paper money as an element and studying some of its material characteristics, the article focuses on studying it as the support for semiosis and of how States use banknotes to convey meanings related to national identity and cultural memory.

Monsters of the Waste-land. Materiality and Abjection of Waste

Luca Pezzini — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Waste, as a semiotic object, is intrinsically characterized by materiality. The interplay between matter and form has a key part in a recurring theme in environmental awareness campaigns: namely, the idea of an animal-like form composed by waste material, in a fashion reminiscent of Arcimboldo’s art. I propose a classification scheme “sub specie materiæ” for visuals based on such trope and offer an in-depth analysis of one case study from the 2017 campaign “Turtle, Pelican, Bear” by Fudena. Drawing from Kristeva’s idea of abjection, I show how waste and its representations can be fruitfully understood, on many levels, as “monsters”, detailing how, in this interpretation, a key role is played by materiality and absence (or loss) of form.

When Matter “Speaks”: Matter and Process of Signification Around the Ephemeral Post-attack Memorials of La Rambla in Barcelona

Cristian Monforte Rubia — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Based on three objects from the La Rambla grassroots memorials, created following the jihadists attacks of August 17, 2017, in Barcelona and Cambrils, this article aims to examines the relationship between matter, meaning and significance. By considering these spaces as axes of reconfiguration of the symbolic, as well as the link between meaning and materiality, it is a question here of understanding what are the reserves of meaning specific to these materials, what are the implications of this materiality in the construction meaning and understand how materials participate in the process of memorialization and sacralization of these memorial spaces.

Making Memory (in) Concrete. A Material Perspective

Gabriella Rava — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The inspiration for reflecting on the historical time embodied by concrete comes from two episodes from Grass’ The Tin Drum (1959) which take place among the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall. The relation that Grass establishes between these concrete buildings and the History to come seems to reverse the general perception of this material as almost unhistorical (Forty 2005, 2012), ultimately unable to convey a temporality of the past. The “unexpected” connection between concrete and memory/history is then further investigated through two case studies, that of the Brion Tomb realized by Carlo Scarpa and the so-called concrete punishment (Delso 2018), i.e., the practice of pouring concrete into the houses of Palestinian attackers deployed by the Israeli military. Regarded as examples of the “misuse” of concrete, they show that this material is able to convey different conceptions of memory that may eventually “rediscover” the irreducible matter (Bennett 2010) behind the material, never fully determined by human agency.

Protuberances. Materiality and Testimonial Function in Lesson of Darkness by Werner Herzog.

Angela Mengoni — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the film Lessons of Darkness (Lektionen in Finsternis 1992) Werner Herzog explores the landscape of Kuwait devastated by the burning oil wells left behind by the retiring Iraqi army at the end of the first Gulf War. The director, nevertheless, combines this extraordinary documentary images with an apocalyptic text that makes no explicit reference to the specific context and political reasons of the conflict. This was the reason why several critics and audiences accused the director of accomplishing a so-called “aesthetization of war”. The paper discusses these accusations in order to show how the film actually bears witness to specific aspects of the conflict through its own semiotic strategies and, in particular, how the emergence of materiality, both in the body of civilians and in the landscape, is the way through which the traumatic impact of war on the victims regains a visibility that was programmatically absent from the media narratives.

The aesthetic practice of sound matter making. Ethnosemiotics under the test of techno and its collective listening

Michele Dentico — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of the paper is to investigate the intricate relationship between the actors involved in techno music events, through an ethnosemiotic gaze, with a focus to the practices of listening. The hypothesis is that there is a heuristic foundation in the study of techno music that goes beyond its “literal” sense and instead focuses on exploring its functioning through collective listening modalities, which form the basis for some musical experiences in related events. This calls for a pragmatistic approach that acknowledges the active role of the listener. Furthermore, the article emphasizes the significance of context and the relationships between human and non-human actors in the process of constructing musical meaning. Findings from interviews and ethnographic report, it highlights how is possible to describe a complex musical experience in terms of sensations and relationships with others, rather than solely focusing on the aesthetic aspects of the music itself. Lastly, the characteristics of an aesthetic paradigm capable of capturing the complexity of the collective listening experience of techno are outlined.

From Stones to Pages and Back. Trans-media Translations in the Notre-Dame of Victor Hugo and Viollet-le-Duc

Elena Ramazza — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The French restorer Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) acknowledged two natures into the architectonical artworks: the spiritual and the material one. With his restorations, he aimed to restore the spirit of the buildings, while the matter, which was kept in a subordinate position, could be modified or sacrificed. Such concept of spirit consisted roughly in considering a building as a subject capable of producing signification, and had one of its theoretical basis in the chapter “Ceci tuera cela” of Notre Dame de Paris (1836) by Victor Hugo. There, the author reflected on the death of the cathedrals by the action of the print, which had inherited its communicative power. Therefore, Hugo and Viollet-le-Duc detected a significative strength in the stones of the cathedrals and both of them translated it into words: the first in his literature, the second in scientific publications, such as his Dictionnaires. Finally, Viollet-le-Duc walked the reverse path getting back to stones: with his restorations he used the matter as a flexible mean and modified it in order to restore the original spirit of the monuments.

The Human Body and the Corporeal Novel. An Analysis of Olga Tokarczuk's Flights.

Izabele Skikaite — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines how corporeality (content plane) can explain its expression plane in O.

Tokarczuk’s novel Flights. It consists of fragments of different genres narrating distinct stories. However, all of them

involve various types of bodies: bodies in motion, sick or dying bodies and fixed body specimens. By attempting to

resolve the axiological conflict between the valorization of dynamics (traveling bodies) and statics (admiration of

body specimens), the novel’s coherence is revealed. The semantic universe of Flights’s is described by the category

of integrality/disintegration. All characters seek to maintain their body integrity (kept by motion) and avoid its

fragmentation (resulting from reduced mobility) and disintegration caused by death. This category and the

recurrent corporeal relationships explain the novel’s expression plane: Flights’s composition resembles a particular

body composed of interacting organs-like stories, and the isolated body specimens-like fragments.

Museum-Body-Device: a Semiotic Study of Visits to the Centre Pompidou

Aluminé Rosso — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes how the materialities involved in modern art museums establish different links between the institutions and their public. Through the semio-anthropological perspective developed by Traversa (2009, 2014) and Verón (1983, 2013), this research examines the new types of links that emerge from the intersection, tension, or overlapping of the different material supports (physical and virtual) that manage the development of the museum visit. Observing these links is possible by analyzing the different enunciative scenes configured by the institutional discourse according to its orientation towards the different types of collectives that coexist in the contemporary museum experience: audiences, followers, and visitors. The case of the analysis presented is the communicative device of the Pompidou Center (Paris): website, profiles on social networks, spatial organization, and, particularly, the application “Suivez le guide” since this is presented as a tool of mediation between the physical and virtual instances of the museum experience, what we have called mediated visit and mediatized visit.

Some Side Notes on a Possible Elemental Semiotics

Filippo Silvestri — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The present study moves from a theoretical alignment with Merleau-Ponty’s research in Le visible et l’invisible, where the French philosopher discusses Husserl’s project of foundation/return to the basic structures of the apophantic judgements regarding/in the antepredicative dimension of experience. As is known, Merleau-Ponty moves forward, aiming at a phenomenology of human-material-elemental engagement with the chair du monde, of which we are an inextricable part, beyond what are only subsequent perceptual and logical distinctions. Given these assumptions, I lay out my doubts regarding the possibility of describing an elemental semiosis (which, as such, would precede any meaningful human hypothesis), as it seems to me like a noumenon that remains beyond any semiotic pretense. Despite my doubts, at each moment of this work I have tried keeping in mind how deeply affected our semioses are by the material elements that compose them, finding also inspiration in different literary works that span Le avventure di Pinocchio and Maurice Blanchot’s thought on what he called dehors. Based also on those thoughts – which encouraged me – I chose to conclude with a theoretical opening to a type of cognitive semiotics that moves from our enactive involvement with the chair du monde.

Performativity and Evolutionary Signification of Plastics

Michela Musto — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The evolving language mirrors societal shifts, with few materials influencing contemporary culture as profoundly as plastic. This material has reshaped daily life and entrenched habits, underscoring civilization as a construct of material existence. Plastic’s interplay with Earth’s ecosystem has defined us as material beings in a reciprocally performative relationship. J. A. Brandon’s 2019 Science Advances study, “Multidecadal increase in plastic particles in coastal ocean sediments”, highlights our era’s growing alignment with the so-called Plastic Age. In German, “Kunststoff” (plastic) suggests its artistic potential, a notion gaining prominence since the 1960s when plastic became central to mass consumption and disposable culture. Its pervasive influence extends beyond human environments to the entire ecosystem, spawning phenomena like artificial “islands”. This shift necessitates a reevaluation of humanity’s future coexistence with plastic. The material’s journey from valued to vilified demands exploration of its evolving semiotics, especially as we grapple with the natural-artificial symbiosis.

The Playful Diagrams of Digital Matter: the case of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Enzo D’Armenio — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper offers a semiotic exploration of the concepts of purport and materials in video games, structured around two primary axes. In the first part, following the concept proposed by Gilles Deleuze and revised in the light of the concept of image as environment as elaborated by Andrea Pinotti, I suggest defining interactive images as movement-images: expressive systems articulated in accordance with two interconnected groups of qualities or syntaxes: a visual and a kinetic syntax. With these concepts, an attempt is made to define the semiotic purport of the languages expressed by video games. Building upon this theoretical framework, in the second part, my paper aims to analyze the interactive dynamics of the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the way in which they build playful and creative diagrams. Elements such as water, fire, air, and electricity are digitally reproduced and engage qualities that can be manipulated by the player in relation to materials such as wood, rocks, and metals.

The Materiality of the Digital: Form of Archive from Hardware to Interface

Marco Giacomazzi — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The article examines the pervasiveness of digital technologies, the remediation of traditional media, and the emergence of a new set of practices, actors, knowledge, and languages that are based on an apparently virtual space but are deeply rooted in computer networks, program codes, and material servers. The importance of a material approach to meaning-making in the digital context will be emphasized, with a focus on the interaction with media technologies. It argues that the impression of immateriality associated with digital technologies is not simply a reconfiguration of the tangibility of traditional media but rather a reorganization of the semiotic agency generated by digital media technology itself. The article underscores the need to consider the significance of material signs and the associated agency, along with the reintroduction of epistemological principles from the semiotics of technical objects. The Material Engagement Theory highlights the importance of interaction as a participatory moment in the emergence of meaning. Based on these theoretical assumptions, the objective is to establish the foundations for a semiotics of media technologies that avoids technological determinism.

Nothing is Lost, Nothing is Created, Everything is Translated. The Material Mechanics Tale in Smart Working Practices

Marika Nesi Lammardo — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines the relationship between material engineers and management sciences from a socio-semiotics point of view. More precisely, the analysis proposed suggests a hypothesis of the link between flexibility, and resilience mechanical proprieties, and workforce management theories. For this purpose: 1) we investigate flexibility and resilience as ‘technical cores’ in the enunciative praxis; 2) we propose an intersemiotics translation model based on E. Goffman, M. Minsky, and U. Eco’s theories to clarify their conversion in managerial policies; 3) we show intersemiotics translation defines a semi-parabolic system aiming to report on a specific form of life. Along these lines, we discuss examples related to the Smart Working manufacturing system literature review.

Semioplastics: the Natures of Plastics

Nicola Zengiaro — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Since the creation of plastic material, it has become pervasive in our society, directing the attention of multiple fields of research toward itself. Although semiotics has identified some meaning-making effects of plastic, there seems to have been no systematic reflection on this element. Starting with the Plasticene Lexicon (Haram et. al 2020), a semantic map of terminologies that have arisen in the scientific field in relation to plastic will be presented. A number of new terms have emerged from this research to describe unique phenomena related to the presence of plastic materials in nature. The purpose is to show the attempt to unify a vocabulary to describe a new reality of ecological systems. Then, problems concerning how plastic is figurativized, especially in relation to the realm of the microphysical, will be indicated in semiotic terms. Indeed, the materiality of plastic dissolves and seems to be unable to be grasped as a figure of speech, leading that element to make sense in the form of concept and conceptual experience. Through analysis, it will be shown how the deciphering of microplastics takes place under the sign of the invisible, showing itself only from a microscopic analysis of matter.

Around the Material, Social, Technological and Political Dimensions of Particulate Pollution

Micol Rispoli — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So-called “fine dust” – in scientific jargon Particulate Matter (PM) – is heterogeneous in chemical composition, size and origin. Its concentration is higher in areas where more or less polluting human activities take place. As is well known, particulate matter has harmful effects on human health and the health of other living beings. To monitor the level of air pollution and establish courses of action for environmental health, governments and institutions generally rely on techno-scientific approaches to collect data. While accessible to scientists and technicians, such data are too abstract for citizens to become aware of the problem and adopt more responsible behaviour. Against this backdrop, some researchers have been promoting different approaches, problematising and opening up what we usually refer to as “air pollution” and its effects on human health to speculation. By highlighting its socio-material, technological and political dimensions, these researches attempt to facilitate a better approximation to the problem – even for those without scientific expertise and knowledge – and promote the formation of a “collective subjectivity”.

The Project of Materials

Dario Mangano — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Paolo Fabbri in Latin America. Strategies in Language

Neyla Graciela Pardo Abril — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Plateaus and Diagrams. Inside the Genocide Symbol

Paolo Sorrentino — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In the words of one of Hamas’ key leaders, Khalil al-Hayya, the barbaric attack of October 7 should not be limited to a confrontation, but should serve to change the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Using the idea of the (im)predictability of the plateau, our article reflects on the correlation between the actions of the East and the passions of the West, triggered by the progressive symbolic (and legal) affirmation of the genocide drama. The proposed path winds between monsters, violence, extreme spaces, genocides, massacres, individual experiences, legal definitions, political interactions, global symbols, local rubble. To conclude with a question: where is passion born? And again: is it possible to predict the future?

Paolo Fabbri, La svolta semiotica, nuova ed. accresciuta e aggiornata a cura di G. Marrone, Milano, La nave di Teseo, 2023

Franciscu Sedda — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Tiziana Migliore, La parola trasformatrice. Strutture, enunciazione, intersoggettività, Milano, Mimesis, 2023

Elisa Sanzeri — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000