Culture Code-X (Culture)

Owning the Excessive

Thin Description by Semiovox, Posted June 21, 2022

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Valfré is a LA-based women’s lifestyle brand founded by Mexican-born artist, Ilse Valfré.

The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.

The object of study in semiotics is not the signs but rather a general theory of signification; the goal of each “audit” is to build a model demonstrating how meaning is produced and received within a category or cultural territory. Signs on their own, therefore, only become truly revelatory and useful once we’ve sorted them into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.

Queer Chicanx collage artist and photographer Ruben Guadalupe Marquez, better known as Broobs

“OWNING THE EXCESSIVE” NORM: A stylish, self-conscious take on garishness.

Artist Raúl de Nieves was born in 1983 in Michoacán, Mexico and lives and works in New York. De Nieves, who works in sculpture and performance, attributes his art practice to his childhood education in Mexico, where he was taught to sew and crochet.

“OWNING THE EXCESSIVE” FORMS: Mexican brands, designers, illustrators and artists have learnt how to indulge their love of color and organic forms. An onslaught on the senses — but with an affectionate-ironic wink.

From a 2020 study of “Mexican-ness” codes — as perceived in US culture.

Tags: CODE-X, Mexico