Semiotics

Graduate / Professional

The foundational goal of Semiotics has been to reconstruct how meaning emerges in objects and situations, how it circulates within and across different cultural environments, and how it influences and is influenced by the cultural context. To renew semiotics’ main tasks, this reiteration of the seminar will explore the process of “making meaning” of some of the current AI-powered apps and tools. Specifically, we will analyze the ways these apps and tools engage users in a set of operations that determine their positions, freedom, and trust. These operations, which often look like ‘conversations’, function as discursive interface in Human/Machine interactions. Through this exploration, we will outline the foundation of Semiotics of AI in connection with General Semiotics. The seminar will engage participants in a weekly discussion about case studies, in which we will seek to uncover how these apps and tools become “meaningful,” in the double sense of having meaning and giving meaning. Students from Film and Media Studies and the School of Architecture have priority: they are asked to express their choice by August 25. Students from other departments are asked to send the instructor up to ten lines with the reasons why they want to attend the seminar by August 26. The seminar is aimed at bolstering a dialogue that crosses cultures and disciplines. W 4pm-5:55pm