Marketing Code-X

Unattached

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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.

Shane: “I gotta be going on.” Joey: “Why, Shane?” Shane: “A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can’t break the mold.”

UNATTACHED” NORM: Free from… everything! Inventing your own value system, choosing your own fate.

Lawmen: Bass Reeves. “You returned to the wild, Bass. But most prefer the comfort of the master’s leash.”

UNATTACHED” FORMS: Loner, typically. Dramatizations of liberation — jail breaks, rebellions. Reluctant to be tied down. Roaming. Freed, in some cases, from the constraints of narrative arc (i.e., they are the protagonist of a picaresque). The negative side of being unattached is a yearning for companionship, for someone who has your back. Name changes symbolizing a self-chosen identity: e.g., Minty Ross chooses “Harriet Tubman” as her “freedom name.” The character “Nobody” in Dead Man. Nowhere to be, no home anywhere — e.g., “PIKE: I’d like to make one good score and back off. DUTCH: Back off to what?” — The Wild Bunch

From a 2024 study of the PREDATOR (defined as: rebellious and unorthodox, rewriting the rules to suit yourself) territory within the American West space — as surfaced from movies, TV shows, and videogames. Semiovox collaborated with Ramona Lyons.

Tags: American West, CODE-X