Semiotic Slavery
Semiotic Slavery
is a salivation of signs
it is not just something
standing for something
to someone
in some capacity.
it is the sum of a structural lock down
neurologically; predestined or infested.
post-age stamped beyond exploration,
it is the gluttonous consumption of set form.
as an inscription on a tomb
or the branding on cattle’s skin
semiotic slavery is a strategic tome
beyond the structure lies
an ace space in random pace
semiotic slavery unshackled is
shift squinting stint into squifting schnift
where apples and pears can be compared
composting pairs beyond a fixated puzzles’ lair
where there is a delinked scion
there where reference is brought about in flux
there where beauty in chaos is appreciated without a clue
—animasuri’10—
a spin-off of “The Andre Orphanphorn Series”
A daily visual instance—rather overlooked than contemplated on—creating the contradiction of an abstract still life:
Citations, and the process of citing, are at the pinnacle as supreme examples of (mechanical) reproduction. They are insatiably appropriated and, in themselves, never improve. They do not improve the user—besides perhaps the ever so fragile aura of being perceived as well-read. It should however be reminded that with digital and digitized resources and applied mechanical searches and recall functionality anyone can be construed as well-read. One can quickly search, find and appropriate the suitable citation creating the customized cloak of literacy.
Citations simply reflect a fire, ones brightly burning and only casting a shadow through the utterance of the one citing them.
They act as unstable magic spells of the information age. On a good day they potentially improve the social (or communal) image of its user (or of the context the citation is used within) on a bad day they might only somewhat improve (or drug by means of authoritarian impressiveness) the receiver or, if over-used as canned-lingo, incite revolt, or at least irritation, in the listener/reader. They are static yet perpetually mobile as they are infinitely recycled and shuffled from one (in)appropriate context to the next across media and across space-time.
They are the museum pieces of the literary. They are recycled with the hope no one realizes how cliché they have become whilst actually already being cliché in the simple nature of the mechanics of citing: lack of original thought.
Nevertheless picking the appropriate citation, albeit a fringe activity seen from an artistic point of view, is a creative process. There are even citations which actually hint of how they might function (substitute “art” with “a citation”):
art never improves, but … the material of art is never quite the same.
The actual referencing to the source of this citation traces back the process of reproduction:
Eliot, T.S. (1984) Tradition and the Individual Talent in Frank Kermode (ed.)
Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot. London: Faber in Sanders, Julie. (2006). Adaptation and appropriation. New York: Routledge. p. 1. … and now in here…
the peephole
the public exposé
the new media pillory
disclosed
exposed
featured
reported
ooooooh!
—animasuri’11—
