Abstract
In this paper we summarize observations bridging the declared aspirations of pictorial semiotics and its real achievements. Pictorial semiotics is here understood as the general study of pictures as signs and it constituted a fundamental step beyond the art historical captivation with individual images. In the first part of our contribution we present a review of the most important methods that have been proposed as an answer to deal with several pictorial problems (multiple instances, segmentation, non-figurative meaning). In the second part, we offer some positive and on-going implementations designed to remedy the shortcomings observed. What is suggested is the proof of concept that human researchers need the assistance of computing methodologies. However, computers can only do their job once an adequate phenomenology of human experience is fed into the process.
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© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
- A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
- New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
- Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
- Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
- Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
- Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
- Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
- Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
- Regular Articles
- Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
- Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
- The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
- Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
- Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
- Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
- Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
- Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
- Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
- Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
- The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
- Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
- Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
- The semiotic web of the research proposal
- Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
- A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
- New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
- Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
- Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
- Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
- Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
- Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
- Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
- Regular Articles
- Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
- Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
- The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
- Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
- Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
- Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
- Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
- Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
- Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
- Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
- The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
- Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
- Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
- The semiotic web of the research proposal
- Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY