PROJECT 2: SYMBOL SET

A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signi-fies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between other-wise very different concepts and experiences. All com-munication is achieved though the use of symbols.

What does this represent? How do we know?

What does it actually depict?

This is not a pipe.

Symbols are a type of sign; signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odors, flavors, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. A sign is something which stands for something other than itself.

*This image comes from a text by Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the founding theorists of Semiotics, the study of sign processes and meaningful communication.

“Tree”

Signified

concept

Sign

Signifier

sound

{

Buddhist SwastikaFrom 2553 years ago to the

present, this symbol signified auspiciousness and

good fortune

Nazi HakenkreuzFrom Feb 24, 1920thru May 23, 1945Represents a fascist dictatorship and White Supremacy

Symbols/Signs are unstable; as culture shifts and changes, the mutually agreed meaning can slip or evenreverse.

Sumerian symbols

Mayan symbols

Wing-Dings

Astrological Symbols

Ancient Norse Symbols

Emoticons

Emoticons

Cuniform

The I Ching

Imaginary Language in Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus

Project 2 Descriptionmake some shapes... play with stroke, reflect, shear, distort and transform tools

pick up to 5 shapes (minimum 2):

make 40 variations on those shapes:

Variations can be really simple: