What makes a semiotician tick? SEMIOVOX’s Josh Glenn has invited his fellow practitioners in the field of commercial semiotics, from around the world, to answer a few revealing questions.

Tartu…

SEMIOVOX

When you were a child/teen, how did your future fascination with symbols, cultural patterns, interpreting “texts,” and getting beneath the surface of daily life manifest itself?

ALEC KOZICKI

As a kid, I was curious to try to understand the deeper meaning of… everything. Throughout grade school I attended a program that taught outside-the-box thinking; some of the classroom exercises consisted of interpreting visual metaphors through creative writing. As I was finishing up my Master’s degree in semiotics, I realized that this early program had oriented me towards the abstraction of language and texts.

SEMIOVOX

Describe your first encounter(s) with the theory and practice of semiotics.

ALEC KOZICKI

I encountered semiotics as an undergraduate, and still vividly recall the mental image that I formed, at the time, of a door opening… only to reveal another door beyond it. I was fascinated that signs are everywhere, and infinite, surrounding our subjective existence — and they they go well beyond our subjective understanding. Nothing else I studied at the time offered this feeling of “depth.” I also realized, the more I studied theories of semiotics, that it’s something I’d already been doing for a long time….

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

ALEC KOZICKI

I’m just finishing up my PhD program at the University of Tartu, and I’ve already begun to work with clients. In 2023, I started my own semiotic consultancy, Semiozic. I’ve discovered that I really enjoy working with creatives — marketing folks, for example. The work I’ve done as a scholar gives me insight into the ambiguity between user and environment, for example, and I like learning more about the creative process.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

ALEC KOZICKI

The attributes that come to mind are: creative, playful, transparent, honest, and grounded.

By “grounded” I mean this: The semiotician will discover infinite existential potentialities, in the course of their work, and they must take care not to be swept away. Keep your eye on the project’s goal.

SEMIOVOX

What three books about semiotics have you found the most useful and enlightening in your own work?

ALEC KOZICKI

• [Egyptian-American semiotician] Farouk Y. Seif’s De-sign in the Transmodern world is crucial to my PhD thesis, which constructs a transdisciplinary approach to give insight on how we, as creators and users, are living within technology. Not only semioticians but anyone who wants to experience more of the mechanisms of paradoxical thinking within reality should explore this book. And Seif’s lectures too, which are on YouTube.
• Jakob von Uexküll’s A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning. This book established the grounds for what we now pursue as biosemiotics. Uexküll’s umwelt theory has helped us understand meaning-making processes beyond the merely human perspective, and his writing also brought together many schools of thought throughout the decades.
• Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. I enjoy all of Hesse’s stories, which are written in a way that sweeps the reader out of their own reality into a realm of imagination and fantasy. This book in particular ought to be examined in-depth from a semiotic lens, especially via Lotman’s theory of the semiosphere….

SEMIOVOX

When someone asks you to describe what you do, what is your “elevator pitch”? How do you persuade a skeptical client to take a chance on using this tool?

ALEC KOZICKI

I try to tailor my pitch to each client, in order to establish a dialogue — rather than making a speech. Yes, it’s possible to define in a general way what semiotic consulting entails… but I try and utilize the signs that exist within the present moment, to have my interlocutor see and feel the uniqueness of what semiotic modeling can offer.

SEMIOVOX

What specific sorts of semiotics-driven projects do you find to be the most enjoyable and rewarding?

ALEC KOZICKI

I love to learn about new processes and out-of-the-box thinking. I am particularly interested in tapping into imaginative and creative processes, which is why whenever possible I like to do this work in a team environment — putting our minds together. Academia can be lonesome at times!

SEMIOVOX

What frustrates you about how semiotics is practiced and/or perceived, right now?

ALEC KOZICKI

There’s rarely a defined role for someone who does what a semiotician does at a typical company or organization. I can understand why this is: When you hire a semiotician for a project, it’s like picking a blank tile in Scrabble. The semiotician can adapt and transform in order to help you achieve whatever your goal may be. But in which particular department of a company does the “blank tile” fit? It’s hard to say.

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

ALEC KOZICKI

Both scholars have merit for the development of semiotics, but I find myself thinking more in terms of Peirce’s semiotics on a daily basis.

SEMIOVOX

What advice would you give to a young person interested in this sort of work?

ALEC KOZICKI

• Explore how you visualize signification.
• Keep in mind that semiosis is something that every living organism has access to, and the act of interpretation is grounded on our biological and ecological systems.
• Learn from various semioticians that come from different cultural systems. This will help you tap into the ambiguity of theory that can be applied to a kaleidoscopic lens for resonating with the signs in existence.

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