Café Bustelo social
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.
“SOCIAL DRINKING” NORM: Coffee is a kind of “glue” that helps bind people together.
“SOCIAL DRINKING” FORMS: Signifiers of social togetherness. Family, friends, romantic partners Cups touching, as proxies for hands/bodies touching in friendship or other forms of intimacy. The social ritual of making someone a cup of coffee — or buying one for them. Out and about, extroverted, having fun tonality. “Café Bustelo estuvo aquí”; “Born social”