I’m the founder and (with Adelina Vaca) convenor of Semiofest’s series of informal online “sessions.” These events are intended not only to share best practices among, but to nurture collegiality and friendship within the global semio community.

Coming up on 24th April (at 2 pm UK time)…

SEMIOTIC TATTOOS

Tattoos can be considered “meaning-making” tools that assist us in managing our personal narratives. For this unusually revealing, even intimate show-and-tell session, Josh Glenn has invited Aarushi Chadha (India), Whitney Dunlap-Fowler (USA), Su Luo (Taiwan), Max Matus (Mexico), Alexandra Ncube (England), and Sundari Sheldon (USA) to discuss the meaning — personal, political, social, cultural — of the symbols that they’ve had inked into their own flesh. 

Get tickets (suggested donations only) at the link above.

Our sessionists:

AARUSHI CHADHA is an Indian semiotician-in-training with a background in English Literature and Film Studies. She works at Leapfrog Strategy Consulting, where she conducts semiotic and cultural analysis for client-commissioned projects and contributes to brand strategy development. 

WHITNEY DUNLAP-FOWLER is a semiotician and independent brand strategist specializing in cultural insights and semiotics to help clients build culturally intelligent brands. With 13+ years of brand building experience, she has been able to partner with a variety of brands and develop a particular specialty for the beauty, luxury and apparel categories.

SU LUO is a cultural strategist and market researcher specializing in semiotics, cultural analysis, and qualitative research. Su currently operates as an independent consultant, leveraging years of agency experience partnering with brands to bridge the gap between cultural nuances and global strategic frameworks across the Greater China market.

MAX MATUS is a Zapotec indigenous scholar. He is the director of the Cultural Studies Department at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte where he also coordinates Xquenda_lab, a laboratory for the co-design of indigenous digital technologies to empower Pluriverses. He does semiotic consultancy for Semiosfera consultancy and anthropology consultancy for ADM Insights & Strategy.

ALEXANDRA NCUBE is the Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Curator at ATOM FUTURES. With expertise in semiotics, cultural analysis and brand strategy, she guides brands, organisations and people in answering future-facing questions, building brand strategies and curating bespoke marketing activations. She is also the co-creator of the Atom Tarot.

SUNDARI SHELDON is a NYC-born cultural strategist and semiotician, based between New York and the Bay Area. With five years across agency and freelance work, she connects the dots between what people do and what it means. Right now she’s mostly in tech and AI, but her sweet spot is the weird cultural stuff.

Session host: JOSH GLENN is cofounder of the consultancy Semiovox, editor of the websites HILOBROW and SEMIOVOX, founding editor of the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE sci-fi reissue series, and a co-organizer of Semiofest Sessions. His latest book is Before Superman: Superhumans of the Radium Age.

SEMIOFEST SESSIONS: R/D/E | BINARIES | SEMIOTICS & UX | BODY SEMIOTICS | AI & SEMIOTICS | SEMIOTICS & CINEMA | FICTIONAL DECODERS | ON COLOUR | & more.

Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET | TATTOO YOU (semioticians’ tattoos).