Author: Piotr Sadowski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350016152
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Lighting and shadows are used within a range of art forms to create aesthetic effects. Piotr Sadowski's study of light and shadow in Weimar cinema and contemporaneous visual arts is underpinned by the evolutionary semiotic theories of indexicality and iconicity. These theories explain the unique communicative and emotive power of light and shadow when used in contemporary indexical media including the shadow theatre, silhouette portraits, camera obscura, photography and film. In particular, Sadowski highlights the aesthetic and emotional significance of shadows. The 'cast shadow', as an indexical sign, maintains a physical connection with its near-present referent, such as a hidden person, stimulating a viewer's imagination and provoking responses including anxiety or curiosity. The 'cinematic shadow' plays a stylistic role, by enhancing image texture, depth of field, and tonal contrast of cinematic moments. Such enhancements are especially important in monochromatic films, and Sadowski interweaves the book with accounts of seminal Weimar cinema moments. Sadowski's book is distinctive for combining historical materials and theoretical approaches to develop a deeper understanding of Weimar cinema and other contemporary art forms. The Semiotics of Light and Shadows is an ideal resource for both scholars and students working in linguistics, semiotics, film, media, and visual arts.
The Semiotics of Light and Shadows
Author: Piotr Sadowski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350016152
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Lighting and shadows are used within a range of art forms to create aesthetic effects. Piotr Sadowski's study of light and shadow in Weimar cinema and contemporaneous visual arts is underpinned by the evolutionary semiotic theories of indexicality and iconicity. These theories explain the unique communicative and emotive power of light and shadow when used in contemporary indexical media including the shadow theatre, silhouette portraits, camera obscura, photography and film. In particular, Sadowski highlights the aesthetic and emotional significance of shadows. The 'cast shadow', as an indexical sign, maintains a physical connection with its near-present referent, such as a hidden person, stimulating a viewer's imagination and provoking responses including anxiety or curiosity. The 'cinematic shadow' plays a stylistic role, by enhancing image texture, depth of field, and tonal contrast of cinematic moments. Such enhancements are especially important in monochromatic films, and Sadowski interweaves the book with accounts of seminal Weimar cinema moments. Sadowski's book is distinctive for combining historical materials and theoretical approaches to develop a deeper understanding of Weimar cinema and other contemporary art forms. The Semiotics of Light and Shadows is an ideal resource for both scholars and students working in linguistics, semiotics, film, media, and visual arts.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350016152
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
Lighting and shadows are used within a range of art forms to create aesthetic effects. Piotr Sadowski's study of light and shadow in Weimar cinema and contemporaneous visual arts is underpinned by the evolutionary semiotic theories of indexicality and iconicity. These theories explain the unique communicative and emotive power of light and shadow when used in contemporary indexical media including the shadow theatre, silhouette portraits, camera obscura, photography and film. In particular, Sadowski highlights the aesthetic and emotional significance of shadows. The 'cast shadow', as an indexical sign, maintains a physical connection with its near-present referent, such as a hidden person, stimulating a viewer's imagination and provoking responses including anxiety or curiosity. The 'cinematic shadow' plays a stylistic role, by enhancing image texture, depth of field, and tonal contrast of cinematic moments. Such enhancements are especially important in monochromatic films, and Sadowski interweaves the book with accounts of seminal Weimar cinema moments. Sadowski's book is distinctive for combining historical materials and theoretical approaches to develop a deeper understanding of Weimar cinema and other contemporary art forms. The Semiotics of Light and Shadows is an ideal resource for both scholars and students working in linguistics, semiotics, film, media, and visual arts.
The Semiotics of Light and Shadows
Author: Piotr Sadowski
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781350016170
Category : Art, Modern
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
"Lighting and shadows are used within a range of art forms to create aesthetic effects. Piotr Sadowski's study of light and shadow in Weimar cinema and contemporaneous visual arts is underpinned by the evolutionary semiotic theories of indexicality and iconicity. These theories explain the unique communicative and emotive power of light and shadow when used in contemporary indexical media including the shadow theatre, silhouette portraits, camera obscura, photography and film. In particular, Sadowski highlights the aesthetic and emotional significance of shadows. The 'cast shadow', as an indexical sign, maintains a physical connection with its near-present referent, such as a hidden person, stimulating a viewer's imagination and provoking responses including anxiety or curiosity. The 'cinematic shadow' plays a stylistic role, by enhancing image texture, depth of field, and tonal contrast of cinematic moments. Such enhancements are especially important in monochromatic films, and Sadowski interweaves the book with accounts of seminal Weimar cinema moments. Sadowski's book is distinctive for combining historical materials and theoretical approaches to develop a deeper understanding of Weimar cinema and other contemporary art forms. The Semiotics of Light and Shadows is an ideal resource for both scholars and students working in linguistics, semiotics, film, media, and visual arts."--Bloomsbury Publishing
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781350016170
Category : Art, Modern
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Book Description
"Lighting and shadows are used within a range of art forms to create aesthetic effects. Piotr Sadowski's study of light and shadow in Weimar cinema and contemporaneous visual arts is underpinned by the evolutionary semiotic theories of indexicality and iconicity. These theories explain the unique communicative and emotive power of light and shadow when used in contemporary indexical media including the shadow theatre, silhouette portraits, camera obscura, photography and film. In particular, Sadowski highlights the aesthetic and emotional significance of shadows. The 'cast shadow', as an indexical sign, maintains a physical connection with its near-present referent, such as a hidden person, stimulating a viewer's imagination and provoking responses including anxiety or curiosity. The 'cinematic shadow' plays a stylistic role, by enhancing image texture, depth of field, and tonal contrast of cinematic moments. Such enhancements are especially important in monochromatic films, and Sadowski interweaves the book with accounts of seminal Weimar cinema moments. Sadowski's book is distinctive for combining historical materials and theoretical approaches to develop a deeper understanding of Weimar cinema and other contemporary art forms. The Semiotics of Light and Shadows is an ideal resource for both scholars and students working in linguistics, semiotics, film, media, and visual arts."--Bloomsbury Publishing
The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus
Author: Elina Pyy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474277233
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, better known as Augustus, was the first Roman emperor and is one of the most iconic figures in world history. Two thousand years after his death, Augustus remains a strong presence in modern culture. The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus examines the meanings and significances of Augustus in Western literary and popular culture, from the 1960s until the turn of the millennium. Drawing on the theoretical background of semiotics and classical reception studies, Elina Pyy investigates the representation of Augustus in the postmodern novels of Kurt Vonnegut and Christoph Ransmayr, as well as in the genre of historical fiction, and in screen representations from both sides of the Atlantic. Scrutinizing what Caesar Augustus stood for in the postmodern world, and the main factors that influenced (and still influence) the modern reader's interpretation of him, this book is grounded on the premise that the past, being a system of signs based on our culturally shared understanding of them, is continuously created and reconstructed by the modern audience. Arguing that the 'many faces of the emperor' can be considered to be reactions to contemporary cultural, socio-political or emotional needs, The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus shows how his character was recurrently utilized to explain and understand the ways in which the discourses of power, liberty, oppression and humanity operated in the postmodern world.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474277233
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, better known as Augustus, was the first Roman emperor and is one of the most iconic figures in world history. Two thousand years after his death, Augustus remains a strong presence in modern culture. The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus examines the meanings and significances of Augustus in Western literary and popular culture, from the 1960s until the turn of the millennium. Drawing on the theoretical background of semiotics and classical reception studies, Elina Pyy investigates the representation of Augustus in the postmodern novels of Kurt Vonnegut and Christoph Ransmayr, as well as in the genre of historical fiction, and in screen representations from both sides of the Atlantic. Scrutinizing what Caesar Augustus stood for in the postmodern world, and the main factors that influenced (and still influence) the modern reader's interpretation of him, this book is grounded on the premise that the past, being a system of signs based on our culturally shared understanding of them, is continuously created and reconstructed by the modern audience. Arguing that the 'many faces of the emperor' can be considered to be reactions to contemporary cultural, socio-political or emotional needs, The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus shows how his character was recurrently utilized to explain and understand the ways in which the discourses of power, liberty, oppression and humanity operated in the postmodern world.
The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games
Author: Gabriele Aroni
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350152323
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Video games are among the most popular media on the planet, and billions of people inhabit these virtual worlds on a daily basis. This book investigates the architecture of video games, the buildings, roads and cities in which gamers play out their roles. Examining both the aesthetic aspects and symbolic roles of video game architecture as they relate to gameplay, Gabriele Aroni tackles a number of questions, including: - How digital architecture relates to real architecture - Where the inspiration for digital gaming architecture comes from, and how it moves into new directions - How the design of virtual architecture influences gameplay and storytelling. Looking at how architecture in video games communicates and interacts with players, this book combines semiotics and architecture theory to display how architecture is used in a variety of situations, with different aims and results. Using case studies from NaissanceE, Assassin's Creed II and Final Fantasy XV, The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games discusses the techniques used to create successful virtual spaces and proposes a framework to analyse video game architecture, ultimately explaining how to employ architectural solutions in video games in a systematic and effective way.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350152323
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Video games are among the most popular media on the planet, and billions of people inhabit these virtual worlds on a daily basis. This book investigates the architecture of video games, the buildings, roads and cities in which gamers play out their roles. Examining both the aesthetic aspects and symbolic roles of video game architecture as they relate to gameplay, Gabriele Aroni tackles a number of questions, including: - How digital architecture relates to real architecture - Where the inspiration for digital gaming architecture comes from, and how it moves into new directions - How the design of virtual architecture influences gameplay and storytelling. Looking at how architecture in video games communicates and interacts with players, this book combines semiotics and architecture theory to display how architecture is used in a variety of situations, with different aims and results. Using case studies from NaissanceE, Assassin's Creed II and Final Fantasy XV, The Semiotics of Architecture in Video Games discusses the techniques used to create successful virtual spaces and proposes a framework to analyse video game architecture, ultimately explaining how to employ architectural solutions in video games in a systematic and effective way.
Pictorial Affects, Senses of Rupture
Author: Michael Wedel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110613557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
German film in the Wilhelmine and Weimar periods is regarded as marked by a strong sense of cultural conservatism and the aspiration to be recognized as an art form. This book takes an alternative approach to the history of German cinema from the emergence of the early feature film to the transition to sound by focusing on the poetics of popular genres such as the disaster film, melodrama, the musical and the war film, exploring their cultural reverberations and modes of audience address. Based on the assumption that popular cinema contributed immensely to the breakthrough of a modern audiovisual "culture of the senses" in Germany between 1910 and 1930, Pictorial Affects, Senses of Rupture offers close readings of a number of rarely analyzed films, including one of the first cinematic adaptations of the Titanic disaster from 1912 and the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930. Restoring the films' horizons of historicity by locating them at crucial points of intersection between social, cultural, technological and aesthetic discourses, this book argues for the prominent role popular German cinema’s own forms of discursivity have played within the historical formation of modernity.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110613557
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
German film in the Wilhelmine and Weimar periods is regarded as marked by a strong sense of cultural conservatism and the aspiration to be recognized as an art form. This book takes an alternative approach to the history of German cinema from the emergence of the early feature film to the transition to sound by focusing on the poetics of popular genres such as the disaster film, melodrama, the musical and the war film, exploring their cultural reverberations and modes of audience address. Based on the assumption that popular cinema contributed immensely to the breakthrough of a modern audiovisual "culture of the senses" in Germany between 1910 and 1930, Pictorial Affects, Senses of Rupture offers close readings of a number of rarely analyzed films, including one of the first cinematic adaptations of the Titanic disaster from 1912 and the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front from 1930. Restoring the films' horizons of historicity by locating them at crucial points of intersection between social, cultural, technological and aesthetic discourses, this book argues for the prominent role popular German cinema’s own forms of discursivity have played within the historical formation of modernity.
Semiotics of the Christian Imagination
Author: Domenico Pietropaolo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350064130
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The semiotics of the Christian imagination describes the repository of signs and the logic of signification through which a community of faith envisions spiritual truths. This book analyses various examples in text, images, music, art and scientific treatise of the imaginative semiotisation of the fall of Man and the Church's semiotic perception of the Divine plan for Redemption. The book includes a chapter detailing the theory of signs, based on a close reading of primary sources, and has nine further chapters on the meaning-making inherent in ideas of the Fall and Redemption of mankind. These are filtered through and given material representation by the semiotic paradigms of various cultural fields, including philology, verbal arts and science. Central to this practice - and to the book's message - are two themes of theological semiotics fundamental to man's understanding of himself in the larger scheme of things. Two of these include the theology of the Fall and a sacramental theory of signs. The theory is grounded in the doctrine of analogy, and this is the only reliable cognitive link between the immanence of the thinking subject and the transcendence that is the object of thought.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350064130
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
The semiotics of the Christian imagination describes the repository of signs and the logic of signification through which a community of faith envisions spiritual truths. This book analyses various examples in text, images, music, art and scientific treatise of the imaginative semiotisation of the fall of Man and the Church's semiotic perception of the Divine plan for Redemption. The book includes a chapter detailing the theory of signs, based on a close reading of primary sources, and has nine further chapters on the meaning-making inherent in ideas of the Fall and Redemption of mankind. These are filtered through and given material representation by the semiotic paradigms of various cultural fields, including philology, verbal arts and science. Central to this practice - and to the book's message - are two themes of theological semiotics fundamental to man's understanding of himself in the larger scheme of things. Two of these include the theology of the Fall and a sacramental theory of signs. The theory is grounded in the doctrine of analogy, and this is the only reliable cognitive link between the immanence of the thinking subject and the transcendence that is the object of thought.
The Social Semiotics of Tattoos
Author: Chris William Martin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350056499
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
Why do people put indelible marks on their bodies in an era characterized by constant cultural change? How do tattoos as semiotic resources convey meaning? What goes on behind the scenes in a tattoo studio? How do people negotiate the informal career of tattoo artist? The Social Semiotics of Tattoos is a study of tattoos and tattooing at a time when the practice is more artistic, culturally relevant, and common than ever before. By discussing shifts within the practices of tattooing over the past several decades, Martin chronicles the cultural turn in which tattooists have become known as tattoo artists, the tattoo gun turns into the tattoo machine, and standardized tattoo designs are replaced by highly expressive and unique forms of communication with a language of its own. Revealing the full range of meaning-making involved in the visual, written and spoken elements of the act, this volume frames tattoos and tattooing as powerful cultural expressions, symbols, and indexes and by doing so sheds the last hints of tattooing as a deviant practice. Based on a year of full-time ethnographic study of a tattoo studio/art gallery as well as in-depth interviews with tattoo artists and enthusiasts, The Social Semiotics of Tattoos will be of interest to academic researchers of semiotics as well as tattoo industry professional and artists.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350056499
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
Why do people put indelible marks on their bodies in an era characterized by constant cultural change? How do tattoos as semiotic resources convey meaning? What goes on behind the scenes in a tattoo studio? How do people negotiate the informal career of tattoo artist? The Social Semiotics of Tattoos is a study of tattoos and tattooing at a time when the practice is more artistic, culturally relevant, and common than ever before. By discussing shifts within the practices of tattooing over the past several decades, Martin chronicles the cultural turn in which tattooists have become known as tattoo artists, the tattoo gun turns into the tattoo machine, and standardized tattoo designs are replaced by highly expressive and unique forms of communication with a language of its own. Revealing the full range of meaning-making involved in the visual, written and spoken elements of the act, this volume frames tattoos and tattooing as powerful cultural expressions, symbols, and indexes and by doing so sheds the last hints of tattooing as a deviant practice. Based on a year of full-time ethnographic study of a tattoo studio/art gallery as well as in-depth interviews with tattoo artists and enthusiasts, The Social Semiotics of Tattoos will be of interest to academic researchers of semiotics as well as tattoo industry professional and artists.
Computational Semiotics
Author: Jean-Guy Meunier
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350166634
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Can semiotics and computers be compatible? Can computation advance semiotics by enhancing the scientific basis of the theory of signs? Coupling semiotics, a philosophical and phenomenological tradition concerned with theories of signs, with computation, a formal discipline, may seem controversial and paradoxical. Computational Semiotics tackles these controversies head-on and attempts to bridge this gap. Showing how semiotics can build the same type of conceptual, formal, and computational models as other scientific projects, this book opens up a rich domain of inquiry toward the formal understanding of semiotic artifacts and processes. Examining how pairing semiotics with computation can bring more methodological rigor and logical consistency to the epistemic quest for the forms and functions of meaning, without compromising the important interpretive dynamics of semiotics, this book offers a new cutting-edge, model-driven theory to the field.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350166634
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
Can semiotics and computers be compatible? Can computation advance semiotics by enhancing the scientific basis of the theory of signs? Coupling semiotics, a philosophical and phenomenological tradition concerned with theories of signs, with computation, a formal discipline, may seem controversial and paradoxical. Computational Semiotics tackles these controversies head-on and attempts to bridge this gap. Showing how semiotics can build the same type of conceptual, formal, and computational models as other scientific projects, this book opens up a rich domain of inquiry toward the formal understanding of semiotic artifacts and processes. Examining how pairing semiotics with computation can bring more methodological rigor and logical consistency to the epistemic quest for the forms and functions of meaning, without compromising the important interpretive dynamics of semiotics, this book offers a new cutting-edge, model-driven theory to the field.
The Social Semiotics of Populism
Author: Sebastián Moreno Barreneche
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350205400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
The concept of 'populism' is currently used by scholars, the media and political actors to refer to multiple and disparate manifestations and phenomena from across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. As a result, it defies neat definition, as scholarship on the topic has shown over the last 50 years. In this book, Sebastián Moreno Barreneche approaches populism from a semiotic perspective and argues that it constitutes a specific social discourse grounded on a distinctive narrative structure that is brought to life by political actors that are labelled 'populist'. Conceiving of populism as a mode of semiotic production that is based on a conception of the social space as divided into two groups, 'the People' and 'the Other', this book uses semiotic theory to make sense of this political phenomenon. Exploring how the categories of 'the People' and 'the Other' are discursively constructed by populist political actors through the use of semiotic resources, the ways in which meaning emerges through the oppositions between imagined collective actors is explained. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and South America, The Social Semiotics of Populism presents a systematic semiotic approach to this multifaceted political concept and bridges semiotic theory and populism studies in an original manner.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350205400
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
The concept of 'populism' is currently used by scholars, the media and political actors to refer to multiple and disparate manifestations and phenomena from across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. As a result, it defies neat definition, as scholarship on the topic has shown over the last 50 years. In this book, Sebastián Moreno Barreneche approaches populism from a semiotic perspective and argues that it constitutes a specific social discourse grounded on a distinctive narrative structure that is brought to life by political actors that are labelled 'populist'. Conceiving of populism as a mode of semiotic production that is based on a conception of the social space as divided into two groups, 'the People' and 'the Other', this book uses semiotic theory to make sense of this political phenomenon. Exploring how the categories of 'the People' and 'the Other' are discursively constructed by populist political actors through the use of semiotic resources, the ways in which meaning emerges through the oppositions between imagined collective actors is explained. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and South America, The Social Semiotics of Populism presents a systematic semiotic approach to this multifaceted political concept and bridges semiotic theory and populism studies in an original manner.
Film Noir and the Arts of Lighting
Author: Patrick Keating
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197881027X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
More than any other set of films from the classical era, the Hollywood film noir is known for its lighting: the cast shadows, the blinking street signs, the eyes sparkling in the darkness. Each effect is rich in symbolism, evoking a world of danger and doppelgangers. But what happens if we set aside the symbolism? This book offers a new account of film noir lighting, grounded in a larger theory of Hollywood cinematography as emotionally engaging storytelling. Above all, noir lighting is dynamic, switching from darkness to brightness and back again as characters change, locations shift, and fates unfold. Richly illustrated, Film Noir and the Arts of Lighting features in-depth analyses of eleven classic movies: The Asphalt Jungle, Sorry, Wrong Number, Odds against Tomorrow, The Letter, I Wake Up Screaming, Phantom Lady, Strangers on a Train, Sweet Smell of Success, Gaslight, Secret beyond the Door, and Touch of Evil.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197881027X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
More than any other set of films from the classical era, the Hollywood film noir is known for its lighting: the cast shadows, the blinking street signs, the eyes sparkling in the darkness. Each effect is rich in symbolism, evoking a world of danger and doppelgangers. But what happens if we set aside the symbolism? This book offers a new account of film noir lighting, grounded in a larger theory of Hollywood cinematography as emotionally engaging storytelling. Above all, noir lighting is dynamic, switching from darkness to brightness and back again as characters change, locations shift, and fates unfold. Richly illustrated, Film Noir and the Arts of Lighting features in-depth analyses of eleven classic movies: The Asphalt Jungle, Sorry, Wrong Number, Odds against Tomorrow, The Letter, I Wake Up Screaming, Phantom Lady, Strangers on a Train, Sweet Smell of Success, Gaslight, Secret beyond the Door, and Touch of Evil.