Dr John CrossleyHSFC FOUNDATION SEMINAR

#6

Week 6 - Semiotics 3

SIGNS

Interpretation of 2D images

PHYSIOLOGY OF PERCEPTION

Icons always involve some sort of physical re-semplance. 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

Symbol/symbolic: a mode in which the signifier does not re-semble 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, alphabeti-cal 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

smelling like it) - being similar in possessing some of its qualities: e.g. a portrait, a cartoon, a scale-model, onomatopoeia, meta-phors, ‘realistic’ sounds in ‘pro-gramme music’, sound effects in radio drama, a dubbed film soundtrack, imitative gestures;

Index/indexical: a mode in which the signifier is not arbi-trary but is directly connected in some way (physically or caus-ally) to the signified - this link can be observed or inferred: e.g. ‘natural signs’ (smoke, thunder,

footprints, echoes, non-synthet-ic odours and flavours), medical symptoms (pain, a rash, pulse-rate), measuring instruments (weathercock, thermometer, clock, spirit-level), ‘signals’ (a knock on a door, a phone ring-ing), pointers (a pointing ‘index’ finger, a directional signpost), recordings (a photograph, a film, video or television shot, an audio-recorded voice), per-sonal ‘trademarks’ (handwrit-ing, catchphrase) and indexical words (‘that’, ‘this’, ‘here’, ‘there’).

TASKRead 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=fvwrelhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-HYj5cLfEI

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 neu-rotic 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 (liter-ally ‘birds’) - and a fourth from a younger generation - each flocking around and vying for varying degrees of affection and attention from the sole, emotionally-cold 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 aban-donment 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 un-leashed, 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.