SEMIOVOX 2Q2024

Broadcast by Josh Glenn, Posted June 29, 2024

I’m cofounder of the semiotics-fueled branding consultancy SEMIOVOX, editor of the consultancy’s eponymous website, and I’m the “convenor” of SEMIOFEST SESSIONS. Here’s a round-up of what we’ve been doing for the past three months…

Also see: SEMIOVOX 2022 | SEMIOVOX 2023 | SEMIOVOX 1Q2024.

SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

SEMIOVOX’s methodology provides insight and inspiration — to brand and organization strategy, marketing, design, innovation, and consumer insights teams, as well as to their agency partners — regarding the unspoken local/global “codes” that help shape perceptions of and guide behavior within product categories and/or sociocultural territories.

During 2Q2024, our projects included (but were not limited to) the following.

BRITISH-NESS CODES. Via the UK strategic insight agency Craft, we continued to analyze codes of British-ness — as surfaced from British scripted TV series and movies. As a control, we also surfaced a set of codes from non-British scripted shows. (It was fun to collaborate with Ramona Lyons, who analyzed non-scripted and children’s series and movies.) Content creation and marketing optimization.

CIVIL WAR & OLD WEST CODES. Via Labbrand Paris, Ramona Lyons and I collaborated on an audit of Civil War and Old West codes — on behalf of an action-adventure videogame franchise. This involved analyzing many Civil War-, Reconstruction Era-, Western-, and Revisionist Western-themed movies and shows. (Semiovox’s sister agency, Consumer Eyes, conducted consumer research.) Content creation.

Sleepy Owl: “Hooting and rooting for our Boys in Blue!” (Not the client.)

MULTI-SENSORIALITY. As previously noted, during 2023 we conducted a global study of Multisensorial Experience codes on behalf of a multinational beverage company. (Semiovox’s sister agency, Consumer Eyes, conducted consumer research.) As our report has circulated within the company, we’ve been invited to continue consulting around how to optimize communications globally. Marketing and pack optimization.

TEACHING & SPEAKING

On May 23rd, I presented at SEMIOFEST — a biannual conference of commercial semioticians — in Porto (Portugal). This year’s theme was “liminality.”

Slide from Josh’s presentation, “Liminality in Fantasy Narratives,” presented at Semiofest Porto on May 23rd, 2024. Click for closer view.

My Porto talk offered an analysis of how liminality operates structurally (vis-à-vis the “G-schema” I’ve developed) within fantasy narratives — as exemplified by the original Star Wars movie… and hypothesized that every narrative may, in fact, be a fantasy narrative.

Shown above, Semiofest’s Chris Arning and Lucia Laurent-Neva with stickers donated by Rob Walker and E.

It was delightful to spend a little time with my colleagues from around the world, including the following contributors to this website: Martha Arango (Sweden), Chris Arning (England), Maciej Biedzinski (Poland), Myriam Bouabid (Tunisia; she spoke on “Sea Skin: Liminal Spaces, Frontiers, and Enunciation”), Mariane Cara (Brazil; she spoke on “The Museum of the Portuguese Language: Liminality, Transitional Challenges and Re-adaptations”), Natasha Delliston (England; she spoke on the topic of applied biosemiotics), Vladimir Djurovic (China), Malcolm Evans (Wales; he spoke on the topic of applied biosemiotics), Peter Glassen (Switzerland), Paulina Goch-Kenawy (Poland), Samuel Grange (France), Aiyana Gunjan (India), Emily Hayes (England), Yogi Hendlin (USA; he spoke on the topic of applied biosemiotics), Sarah Johnson (Canada), Lucia Laurent-Neva (England), Charles Leech (Canada), William Liu (China; he spoke on “Liminal Thinking of the Chinese — Manifestation of the Eight Diagrams, Yin/Yang System”), Sónia Marques (Portugal), Thierry Mortier (Sweden; he spoke on “Is There a Limit to the Liminal?”), Rahul Murdeshwar (India; he spoke on “Liminality and Cultural Innovation in the Semiotics of Juri Lotman and the Tartu Moscow School”), Maria Papanthymou (Greece / Russia), Vijay Parthasarathy (USA; he spoke on “Designing Your Unique Operating Philosophy”), Gabriela Pedranti (Spain), Colette Sensier (England, she spoke on the topic of applied biosemiotics), Hamsini Shivakumar (India; she spoke on “Effective Hybridization & Semiospheric Borders”), Gianlluca Simi (Brazil; he spoke on “On the Edge of Meaning: How Can Semioticians Navigate the Black Hole of AI-generated ‘Anti-content’?”), Ximena Tobi (Argentina; she spoke on “Communication for Cultural Change Towards Energy Transition”), and Alfredo Troncoso and Adelina Vaca (Mexico; they spoke on “Day of the Dead-ish”). Plus: semio friends who haven’t (yet) contributed to this website, as well as folks whom I look forward to getting to know….

Sónia and Susanna, photo by Martha Arango

Semiofest is always a provocative, uplifting, and fun event; I’m grateful to my colleagues Sónia Marques and Susanna Franek, and to their team, for organizing Semiofest Porto.

From a RISD MID student’s final presentation

During the Spring semester, I was a guest thesis advisor for five RISD MID (Master of Industrial Design) students whom I’d taught in the Fall. I enjoyed the process! And in May, I attended a dozen or so final presentations — my own advisees, plus most of my other students from the Fall. I look forward to teaching in RISD’s MID program again this coming Fall.

SEMIOFEST SESSIONS

I’m cofounder of and “convenor” for SEMIOFEST SESSIONS , a monthly-ish series of online get-togethers — put on under the aegis of Semiofest — intended not only to share best practices among, but to nurture collegiality and friendship within the global semio community. Here’s the 2Q2024 lineup:

APRIL: SEMIOTICS & POLITICS. In a world (and branding landscape) becoming more ideologically polarised, how can applied semiotics meaningfully engage with political issues? In this session, three experienced semioticians — Roman Esqueda, Anastasia Karklina Gabriel, and Raphael Llorca — shared their perspectives on election-campaign communications, how brands mediate nationhood, and how activists can make use of cultural-insights work. Chris Arning was the session host.

JUNE: POST-PORTO LIMINALITY (I). The theme of Semiofest Porto, in May, was LIMINALITY. The conference was a great success… but we all wanted more! So Sónia Marques invited Jerry Mathew, Alice Sweitzer, and Shion Yokoo to chat with us about: Bridging Cyber Liminality and Ancient Wisdom, The Semiotics of Protest and Demonstration in Berlin’s Consumer Culture, and Liminality and Theatricality in Performances. This was the first of two liminality-themed post-Porto sessions.

In May we took a break, because many of us convened at Semiofest Porto. We’re planning sessions now for the Summer and Fall.

SEMIOVOX.COM

I’m the editor here at SEMIOVOX, our consultancy’s eponymous website. Here’s what we published during 2Q2024.

MAKING SENSE WITH… is a series of Q&As dedicated to understanding what makes semioticians tick. I’ve asked my commercial-semiotics colleagues from around the world to answer a set of leading questions. Here’s the 2Q2024 lineup:

Coming up in 3Q2024:

DECODER is a 25-part series — the contributors to which are commercial semioticians from around the world — that explores fictional semiotician-esque action as depicted in books, movies, TV shows, etc. Here’s the 2Q2024 lineup:

Antje Weißenborn (Germany) on BABYLON BERLIN | Ximena Tobi (Argentina) on SIX FEET UNDER | Mariane Cara (Brazil) on ROPE | Maria Papanthymou (Greece) on MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS | Chirag Mediratta (India) on BLEACH | Dimitar Trendafilov (Bulgaria) on THE MATRIX | Martha Arango (Sweden) on ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE | Becks Collins (UK) on THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | Iván Islas (Mexico) on THE NAME OF THE ROSE.

Coming up in 2Q2024:

Paulina Goch-Kenawy (POLAND) on THE SENSE OF AN ENDING | Eugene Gorny (THAILAND) on TBD.

SEMIOVOX continues to offer glimpses into various audits we’ve done via installments in the long-running series CODE-X. Series installments from 1Q2024 include:

Also see: SEMIOVOX updates from 2022 | 2023 | 1Q2024.

MIT PRESS: RADIUM AGE

I’m the founding editor of the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE proto-sf reissue series.

In August and September, we’ll reissue two titles: Edward Shanks’ THE PEOPLE OF THE RUINS (with a new introduction by Paul March-Russell) and Francis Stevens’ THE HEADS OF CERBERUS AND OTHER STORIES (edited and introduced by Lisa Yaszek).

During 2Q2024, I worked with the MIT Press team to get two of our 2025 titles — J.D. Beresford’s THE HAMPDENSHIRE WONDER (with a new introduction by Ted Chiang) and John Taine’s THE GREATEST ADVENTURE (with a new introduction by S.L. Huang) — copy-edited, proofed, and ready to go to press.

The series’ other two 2025 titles — Marietta Shaginyan’s MESS-MEND: YANKEES IN PETROGRAD (translated into English and introduced by Jill Roese), and a not-yet-titled collection of superhuman-themed stories and excerpts (edited and introduced by yours truly) — also moved closer to the production stream.

More RADIUM AGE series updates: 2022 | 2023 | 1Q2024 | 2Q2024.

HILOBROW

HILOBROW is SEMIOVOX’s sister website. Here are a few semio- and cultural analysis-related series and posts from 2Q2024.

I’ve continued to add new installments in SCHEMATIZING, a series via which I’m attempting to depict the intellectual and emotional highs and lows of developing a semiotic schema.

SEMIOPUNK is an irregular series dedicated to surfacing examples (and predecessors) of the sf subgenre that HILOBROW was the first to name “semiopunk.” Here’s a sampling of the 2Q2024 lineup:

More HILOBROW updates: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 1Q2024 | 2Q2024.

On to 3Q2024…

Tags: Josh Glenn, Semiovox

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