I’m coordinator 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 June 27th (at 2 pm UK time)…

ART & SEMIOTICS

Art offers a profound, rich vehicle for decoding a culture’s emotional landscape and symbolic layers. Session host Aiyana Gunjan, an artist and commercial semiotician, has invited Seema Khanwalkar and Thierry Mortier to “read” classic and contemporary art works — demonstrating how these works navigate cultural tensions and deconstruct taken-for-granted norms and forms. The sessionists will also offer expert advice on how art, viewed through the lens of semiotics, can offer inspiration and insights for branding.

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

Our sessionists:

• SEEMA KHANWALKAR is an adjunct instructor at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, where she teaches Semiotics, Semantics and Design, Cultural Anthropology, Design Ethnography, and more. For 25 years she has consulted to Indian companies on branding and communication strategies.

• THIERRY MORTIER is a Belgian-born, Stockholm-based visual artist and a freelance semiotic researcher consulting on how to make semiotic insights actionable. He has been a recurring speaker at the Semiofest conferences and sessions and at The Summer School of Semiotics Tartu. His main research focus is to approach semiotics diagrammatically, i.e. can it be drawn?

Session host: AIYANA GUNJAN is a semiotician, contemporary artist, and calligrapher based in New Delhi, India. She explores cultural symbolism and meaning through the visual language of art, bridging creative and commercial contexts.

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.