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.

Tallinn…

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?

SHION YOKOO

Retrospectively, I can say that as a child I didn’t cope well with normative everyday life. Rather than getting involved, for example, I preferred to watch other children play; I was an onlooker. Later, I become fascinated with language, specifically with Kanji — ideograms used in the Japanese writing system, each of which represents a word or idea. Another form of language via which I learned to express myself was dancing ballet. All of these may have influenced my current interest in semiotics.

SEMIOVOX

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

SHION YOKOO

An introductory course to semiotics was compulsory in my BA studies in Dance. Back then, I was not so fond of it because the lectures gave me the impression that semiotics was about iconology — and that there should be right or wrong answers. However, as I continued to study the subject, the opposite turned out the case.

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

SHION YOKOO

I studied semiotics to develop my artistic activities with the help of its theories and methods. Now, it is indispensable to my creative efforts. As a practitioner of performing arts, semiotics has provided me with a toolkit to conceptually approach fundamentals in my work.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

SHION YOKOO

Each of us has the potential to be a good semiotician — regardless of background or profession.

SEMIOVOX

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

SHION YOKOO

• Juri Lotman’s Kultuurisemiootika (Semiotics of Culture). It provides a broad and insightful perspective on various cultural phenomena.
• [German Theatre Studies scholar] Erika Fischer-Lichte’s The Semiotics of Theatre. Meaning-making in a performative context is thoroughly theorised.
• Jakob von Uexküll’s A Stroll through the Worlds of Animals and Men: A Picture Book of Invisible Worlds. This explained the concept of Umwelt. Even though my focus is not on biosemiotics, Uexküll’s monograph had a great influence on me.

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?

SHION YOKOO

I don’t have clients — but I do sometimes need to describe to others what I do. I say: “I am trying to comprehend how people think and communicate, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

SEMIOVOX

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

SHION YOKOO

For creating and performing a piece of performing art, it is essential to think through the meaning-making involved… since performance is a way of communicating with the audience.

SEMIOVOX

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

SHION YOKOO

In universities, semiotics is only taught under the aegis of different fields of study. Surely it has a field of its own.

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

SHION YOKOO

Both. Peirce does semiotics and Saussure does la semiologie.

SEMIOVOX

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

SHION YOKOO

Wherever you choose to apply semiotics — whether for brand positioning or the performing arts — that is the right place.

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