Semiotics and Culture

Cultural phenomenon can be variously interpreted, depending upon the narrator and his experience of the signs interpreted (Wikipedia Manifesto). More than just being a transmission of a subject, cultural phenomenon also represents a performance of a person, a group, or a society. Society presents itself through fads and waves of behavior according to its developing to express its inner need to grow and develop into a whole and complete entity. The various barriers to this expression find symbolizing itself through images and literatures (Monaco 28). These levels of subjective abstraction are again culturally divided into modes of subjective expression, where individuals collectively find themselves coalescing together thru these disciplines: practical or pictorial, environmental or narrative, dramatic or musical (Monaco 28).

But to record is to preserve a physical image. Our physical images collected under books pamphlets, archives and libraries. Libraries are filled, knowledge bases are expanded, and collection are disseminated and shared inter-culturally. Catalysts of fermented minds are added which develop these records into hybrids works and developments. Cultures are expanded, new insight is gained and culture develops classical mindsets. For example, the semiotics philosophy of the medieval period is enhanced and developed into a full-blown science in the 21st century. Themes of Beethoven and Mozart take on new meanings thru works of Schoenberg and the Vienna School. Again, what was once part of the subjective axis of expression for one culture in transcended and developed by a later culture?

Records are the transmission of subjective experiences; the physical image of those experiences must be interpreted by those the lay claim to them. For ex ample Orson Welles Citizen Kane, becomes the inspiration for a whole era of moviemakers because of the mastery of Wells as Director (Wikipedia Citizen). Furthermore, it is well known that “film combines revolutionary cinematography” (Wikipedia Citizen). Perhaps it is hard to imagine how many persons were inspired by the imagination of Welles cinematic techniques; the techniques are records of these subjective experiences of Welles in relation to the figurative characters. We can understand how a cultural phenomenon may depicted in a movies such as Ten Commandments, Schindler’s List or Titanic, which embody deep and significant values of persons and relationships, even spanning over decades or centuries. We assume that a record is a physical image, which can become an artifact.

If we ask still a further question about the significance of what the artifact represents it is possible to assume that this type of representation is a cognitive grasp of a yet more deeper phenomenon in the person: it represents a subjective image or abstraction of the persons own subjectivity. So not only is an artifact a record of subjective experience, but also a symbolism of subjectivity.