The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.
The object of study in semiotics is not the signs but rather a general theory of signification; the goal of each “audit” is to build a model demonstrating how meaning is produced and received within a category or cultural territory. Signs on their own, therefore, only become truly revelatory and useful once we’ve sorted them into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.
“WAY OF LIFE” NORM: I can’t even imagine a life in which I’m not always drinking coffee.
“WAY OF LIFE” FORMS: Humorous depictions of coffee-driven people. Hyperbolic expressions of coffee love. “In the New Year I will… drink just as much coffee.” “My blood type is Dunkin’.” “I don’t drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.”