What makes a semiotician tick? SEMIOVOX’s Josh Glenn has invited his fellow practitioners in the field of commercial semiotics, from around the world, to answer a few revealing questions.

Chon Buri (Thailand)…

SEMIOVOX

When you were a child/teen, how did your future fascination with symbols, cultural patterns, interpreting “texts,” and getting beneath the surface of daily life manifest itself?

EUGENE GORNY

I grew up in the Soviet Union, in a society saturated with ideology and propaganda. Everywhere slogans were glorifying the proletariat and collectivism, calling us to work and fight for a bright future. The enemies of the bright future were the capitalists. They were portrayed as unpleasant, mustachioed fat cats in top hats, puffing cigars, and threatening us with the atomic bomb. The victory of communism was inevitable, yet consistently deferred — akin to the second coming of Christ in Christianity.

The attitude of ordinary people to communist ideology was ambivalent: they believed and didn’t believe at the same time. Soviets dutifully echoed slogans and displayed loyalty to the party when called upon (at Komsomol meetings, May Day demonstrations, etc.), yet their conduct was largely shaped by unwritten rules of behavior, such as conformism, reliance on informal networks, resilience and adaptability as well as by universal human needs such as the desire to be happy. Orwell called this feature of totalitarian society doublethink. Another name for it is hypocrisy or cynicism.

While giving lip service to the official ideology, in reality, most people ignored it in most situations, many laughed at it (the genre of “anti-Soviet jokes” became very popular during Brezhnev’s “era of stagnation”); some tried to oppose it (“dissidents”). Thus, ideology and its signs were consciously or unconsciously perceived as an instrument of manipulation and deception, as a substitution of illusion for reality. Life found refuge in the non-sign (sex, drugs, meditation) or gave rise to alternative systems of signs (“informal culture”).

SEMIOVOX

Describe your first encounter(s) with the theory and practice of semiotics.

EUGENE GORNY

I first learned about semiotics from the publications of the University of Tartu, which I found in my university library. These were issues of Sign Systems Studies, the oldest academic journal on semiotics in the world (founded in 1964). On its cover was the word “Semiotics” written in Greek. The journal published articles by the members of Moscow-Tartu School, a community of academics (primarily linguists and literary scholars) who coalesced around Yuri Lotman. These slim volumes impressed me tremendously. They were decisively different in content and tone from everything I had read in textbooks and heard in lectures. In “Semiotics” there were no references to “the classics of Marxism-Leninism” and no interpretation of culture as an arena of class struggle. It proclaimed scientificity, eliminating the opposition between the humanities and exact sciences, and a systematic approach.

The Tartu “Semiotics” was characterized by incredible thematic diversity and pluralism of approaches. The topics were grouped into the following categories: Myth, folklore, religion; Poetics, analysis of texts; Semiotics of culture, art, music, film, history, behavior, mirror, dialogue, city, space, etc.; General questions of semiotic description; Publications and reviews: Discussion. The topics of some articles were strikingly unusual, for example, “The description of the tones of the Indian music”; “Slaughter of cats in Paris or Some problems of symbolic anthropology”; “I, ∞ and 0 as text generators and as states of consciousness”; “Preliminary communication about a semiotic study of speech under the influence of mescaline”.

I immediately felt the desire to go study in Tartu. My supervisor would not let me go; I was considered a promising researcher of Old Russian hagiography. But I was lucky: soon I was scandalously expelled from the university. I had a drunken fight with a visiting associate professor from the Caucasus, standing up for a girl he was harassing. He reported me to the dean’s office and I was expelled, despite a campaign in my defense by some professors. I wanted to join the army, but I was sent to a psychiatric hospital, where I was recognized as unfit for service. When I left the asylum, I packed my things, took a train, and went to Tartu to enroll. My application was successful, and my dream came true. Here, in this Estonian Castalia, I was accepted to the order of intellectuals, encountered many remarkable men and women, studied with Lotman, and, by chance, was one of the six who carried his coffin at his funeral.

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

EUGENE GORNY

I started to make a living in semiotics, lecturing at the University of Tartu after graduation. I managed to read two courses — “Semiotics of Persuasion” and “Interpretation and Understanding of Cultural Phenomena” — and conducted several seminars on the philosophy of language, propaganda, advertising, meditation, and altered states of consciousness. At the same time, I started working as a journalist and publishing articles and interviews in the Russian-language press in Tallinn. One of my notes displeased Igor A. Chernov, the head of the newly formed semiotics department. As a result, I left both semiotics and academia and pursued other endeavors and projects. 

The return to semiotics happened about ten years later. At that time, I was living in London and writing my Ph.D. thesis at Goldsmiths. One day I received an e-mail from Greg Rowland. He said he had read my 1994 article “What is Semiotics?” — an extended version of my final lecture at the University of Tartu — and laughed a lot. He had printed out my definition of semiotics and hung it above his desk.¹ He asked if I would be willing to sell the high ideals of academic semiotics for good money from “corporate pigs.” I replied: why not?

The first project was about taste and gum. I outlined codes, symbols and values, sketched a strategy for building a brand image, and in the Addendum section, I proposed to produce black gum for goths and blood-flavored gum for vampires (to reach niche audiences). The next project was about hair and naturalness. Greg sent me a brief and a case of different shampoos to semiotically analyze the packaging. I used these shampoos to wash myself and give them away to friends for a long time. These projects were followed by many more, with Greg and others.

The topics varied. Some had never been studied by academic semiotics (e.g., bodily odors, sweat, toilet hygiene, animal food). Others dealt with rather abstract topics and required broad coverage of cultural and historical material (the idea of femininity, standards of beauty, optimism and happiness, eternal youth and immortality). Any project included a “text analysis” (cultural phenomena, brand communications, advertising, packaging design) and a section of recommendations or “inspiration”. The aspiration “not only to explain but also to change the world” (Marx) is one of the fundamental differences between commercial semiotics and academic semiotics. Different projects required different sets of research methods. Sometimes it was necessary to master in a few days entire thematic areas that were previously unfamiliar. You could let your imagination run wild in the recommendations. It was fun.

¹ “Semiotics is that which is called semiotics by the people who call themselves semioticians.”

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

EUGENE GORNY

• A tendency to see hidden meanings in “simple” things
• A desire to understand the factors that determine people’s behavior
• An interest in culture in all its diverse manifestations

SEMIOVOX

What three books about semiotics have you found the most useful and enlightening in your own work?

EUGENE GORNY

• Lotman’s The Structure of the Artistic Text. In this and other works of his structuralist period, Lotman brilliantly shows that the meaning of a text (both in the narrow and the broad, semiotic sense) is defined by a set of relations between its elements and levels. In other words, meaning is a relational system of similarities and differences, oppositions and parallelisms found in the text itself. Commercial semioticians pay much attention to cultural codes and connotations, i.e., to extra-textual and inter-textual relations, often seemingly forgetting about intra-textual relations. Meanwhile, in the immanent approach, which asserts that structure itself is meaning, there is certainly its own truth and beauty.

• Symbol and Consciousness: Metaphysical Considerations on Consciousness, Symbolism and Language by [Russian philosophers and semioticians] Alexander Piatigorsky and Merab Mamardashvili. A rare example of uncompromising philosophizing, that is, thinking based on thinking itself, and nothing else. Perhaps the most incomprehensible book I have ever read, and precisely for this reason, one that has had a profound and lasting impact on me.

• Propaganda (1928) by [American PR pioneer] Edward Bernays. An enduring source of inspiration for governments, corporations, and commercial semioticians (and a source of horror for everyone else). The first paragraph: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

SEMIOVOX

When someone asks you to describe what you do, what is your “elevator pitch”? How do you persuade a skeptical client to take a chance on using this tool?

EUGENE GORNY

I attempted to answer this question in my article “What is Semiotics?” Usually, I answer that semiotics is something like psychoanalysis, only not of a person, but of culture (or different cultures). In both cases, the object of study is the hidden factors (traumas, desires, associations) that determine visible manifestations (ways of involuntary reaction in typical situations). From this point of view, culture is a set of mental and behavioral stereotypes that allow one to conserve energy and act automatically, as well as a collection of texts that contain algorithms and examples of such automatic thinking and behavior. (But it’s not all so gloomy, smile! Culture also includes ways of de-automatization through the ambiguity, unpredictability, and inexhaustibility of symbols.)

I don’t have to convince clients, since, as a rule, I don’t deal with them directly — the agency handles that.

SEMIOVOX

What specific sorts of semiotics-driven projects do you find to be the most enjoyable and rewarding?

EUGENE GORNY

I like projects the most where the problem that needs to be solved is clearly formulated. For example: “After launching a new advertising campaign, sales of product X increased in all countries except Y, where they dropped sharply. What caused this and how can it be fixed?” Or: “What color palette should be used for puppy packaging, which one for adult dogs, and which one for elderly dogs?” When there is a specific question, it can be given a specific answer.

On the other hand, I enjoy projects where you explore broad cultural themes and either create a typology of variations, trace diachronic changes, or compare different symbolic systems related to this theme. Such a broad view allows you to see patterns that usually go unnoticed.

The simplest but quite enjoyable projects are those that require selecting the best option for a concept or design from those proposed and explaining why.

The key to a successful project is a sensible and clear brief.

SEMIOVOX

What frustrates you about how semiotics is practiced and/or perceived, right now?

EUGENE GORNY

I don’t much enjoy projects with a rigid answer template (up to the design of slides). Checking boxes in pre-assigned cells is quite boring.

Sometimes the client is not satisfied with the research results, because they contradict their presumptions. In this case, it is unclear why they are turning to experts if they already know everything in advance.

I would be glad if semiotics were more often used to expose the mechanisms of ideological manipulation (as Barthes did in his Mythologies), as an instrument of resistance and liberation.

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

EUGENE GORNY

My attitude toward Saussure is neutral-positive. Peirce’s contribution to semiotics is significant, but much of his legacy seems archaic.

SEMIOVOX

What advice would you give to a young person interested in this sort of work?

EUGENE GORNY

Enjoy the opportunity to learn something new at someone else’s expense.

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