OUTSIDE Magazine feature on endurance athletes
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.
“DIRT DON’T HURT” NORM: Damaging and dirtying your body is evidence of your character, toughness, stick-to-it-iveness.
“DIRT DON’T HURT” FORMS: Dirt, blood, grease worn proudly — as evidence that you’ve been through a harrowing ordeal. A photo of bloody fingers, or a mud-spattered face, tells a whole story.