Is photography indexical, iconic or symbolic… While a specific photograph in a specific context can be any or or all of these - or used as such - I would state that it is in the first instance always indexical - and it is this that differentiates it from painting and the reason for its power. As Susan Buck-Morss points out: ‘To see a photograph as purely symbolic, rather than a trace of the real, is a reductive visual practise.’

To put it another way one can refer to semiotics to articulate differences between the photograph and the drawing. And one can turn to such theories to draw distinctions between the analog and digital photography - if digital photography is still photography… (but of course this is another question).

Or one could turn to Transparency theory - another framework from which to work uypwards in articulating a difference between the photograph and painting…

How would you personally discuss a piece of art work, or a TV series for that matter… you must have recourse to some abstract means of argument? Do you regard the photograph as no different to the painting: if so why, and if not, how would you relate such information?

‘While we need not accept the postmodernist stance that there is no external reality beyond sign systems, studying semiotics can assist us to become more aware of the mediating role of signs and the roles played by ourselves and other in constructings social relaities. It can make us less likely to take reality for granted as something which is wholly independent of human interpretation.’ (Daniel Chandler).

One could apply Karl’s argument to asthetics - I am sure you form arguments about this and that piece of art and by doing so you are, no matter how unaware you are of it (or indeed I for that matter), employing theory, or a strand of theory.

Well, thats my two-pence worth!

Best, Sean.

I don’t doubt that I’m doing semiotics without knowing it, since the definition is so broad. What I want to hear is some power that gives in analysis. All I’ve read above is, “oh, is powerful and useful.” Okay, so show me something specific.

95% of the world population, at least. Karl, you are far more sophisticated in recognizing why people see what they see in images.

Leslie’s work, such as in the HK series or involving Sesame Street critters, depend hugely on our understanding of images in our culture. The same could be said, say, of the Guernica itself. When you view these and think about them, I claim that you are essentially doing semiotics, whether you choose to recognize it as that or not. Call it just informed artistic understanding if you like, but it didn’t come from nowhere.

I disagree with your analogy. Physics is based on a core of mathematically based analysis that can be used with power in many sub-disciplines. Semiotics in its different branches seems permeated with the same vague notions posing as obvious truth. As Gibbon wrote, the paths of error are various and infinite.

Sean, Steve and Angela, if you find semiotics so powerful, use it to tell me something about an artwork on Art & Perception that makes me reach an insight I never had before. And please, let’s leave Magritte out of it because he presents the “toy problem.”