Modernism: An Introduction to Significant Concepts & Art Movements

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Semiotics
This Means This, This Means That

Brief
This activity is designed to provide the student with an opportunity to parse out and reflect on the various meanings one can find when analyzing various semiotic systems, in this case Art, Entertainment and Advertising. In addition, this activity asks the student to become more attentive to both the interconnectedness and independence the visual art has with mass media and popular culture.

Resources

Internet, Newspapers, Magazines, Bus Stops, Television, Video Games, Billboards, etc.
(Everywhere!)

Modernism: An Introduction to Significant Concepts & Art Movements

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Guidelines
Please find one piece of advertising (must be visual), one piece of popular entertainment (must be visual) and one piece of visual art (must be visual). When you have sourced all three pieces of visual information, please answer the following questions, using what we learned about semiotics:
1 What is the signifier and what is being signified? How did you come to this decision?

1 Sources of Meaning: Are these signs natural or cultural? How did you come to this decision?

1 Ways of Meaning: Are these signs operating literally, analogically, or metaphorically? How did you come to this decision?

1 Structures of Meaning: Are the semiotic structures (Conceptual, Visual, Textual, Auditory, Material, Behavioral) used to communicate the meaning immediately detectable, deeply embedded in other structures and/or almost invisible? How did you come to this decision?

1 How is the context influencing the way in which you read the sign? Is the context fixed or is this sign liable to be placed into other contexts? How did you come to this decision?

How do these three signs, taken from different media, operate differently? How do they operate the same? What kind of overlaps are present? How did you come to this decision?