A series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — our commercial semiotician colleagues, from around the world — whose “output” we admire.

Chon Buri…

SEMIOVOX

What types of media do you consume most often during a typical day or week?

EUGENE GORNY

From most to least: interactions with AI — the Internet — movies and videos — music — books. There was a time when this order was reversed: books first, then music, then films. I still remember a world without AI — and before that, one without the internet.

SEMIOVOX

What are your reading habits?

EUGENE GORNY

I usually read several books in parallel but finish very few of them. Most books seem too long to me. I read at home or in situations where I have to wait — in hospital queues, on public transport, or at the market while my girlfriend shops for her restaurant. (The last book I read in the meat section — surrounded by chickens and pigs, dismembered and neatly sorted by body part — was Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Shakespeare.) Occasionally, when I give myself a weekend off, I read in a lounge chair by the pool — although, in those moments, I usually prefer watching the clouds to looking at my Kindle.

SEMIOVOX

What fictional work (old or new) would you recommend to those trying to understand the modern world?

EUGENE GORNY

Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales. Shalamov writes about Stalinist labor camps, but what he describes goes far beyond history. He shows what happens to human beings under inhuman conditions. Some turn out to be less than human — ready to torment others, betray, lie, or kill for a cigarette and a bowl of soup, or even eat human flesh to survive. Others remain human even on the brink of death from hunger, cold, violence and despair — though they lose illusions, especially about human nature. For people who live within the soft shell of civilization, surrounded by signs, comforts, and social rules, reading Shalamov is like stepping into an ice-cold bath — not in the fashionable, wellness sense, but in the raw, breath-stealing way. It shocks the system, clears the mental fog, and forces you to feel what’s real.

More generally, I’ve come to prefer reality over fiction — and among fictional works, those that convey lived experience in such a way that it becomes my own. Literature, at its core, is a tool for transmitting experience, but some writers do it better than others. What I love most are descriptions of nature and weather, bodily and psychological states, streams of consciousness, and inner speech.

I have many favorite authors, but if I had to name just three, I’d say: Leo Tolstoy, Stephen King, and Karl Ove Knausgård. How do all these writers help us understand the modern world? Each in their own way — but all of them deepen our understanding of the world, of others, and of ourselves. And “modernity” is a relative concept: from the standpoint of the here and now, everything is both timely and timeless.

SEMIOVOX

What nonfiction or journalistic work would you recommend to those trying to understand the modern world?

EUGENE GORNY

My recent discovery is the work of Byung-Chul Han, a contemporary German philosopher of Korean descent. Ironically, I first heard about him from ChatGPT — which suggested that I might be familiar with his ideas, since some of mine seemed to echo his. I wasn’t — but once I started reading, I couldn’t stop.

Many of Han’s insights felt instantly familiar, while others revealed what I had sensed but never quite articulated. A few key themes:

• The shift from a disciplinary society based on external control to a performance society, where we voluntarily exploit ourselves in the name of productivity, self-improvement, and efficiency.
• The tyranny of positivity: modern life excludes negativity — pain, doubt, anger — pushing it underground. Negation is liberation: Just Say No.
• Transparency as a form of control: we are expected to be open, communicative, available. But a human being has the right to silence, solitude, and invisibility.
• Online identity (and identity generally) as a form of slavery. Freedom lies in having no fixed identity at all — or as many as you like.

Han’s more recent work outlines a positive counter-program centered around meditation, stillness, and non-productivity. The vita contemplativa, in this view, is not only a way of life but a form of resistance. Sometimes, the most radical act is simply to be — without meaning, without doing anything.

I find this especially meaningful. Having spent much of my life immersed in language, culture, and semiotics, I’ve always felt that the realm of signs is only a small part of a much larger reality. The same goes for productivity. There is life beyond signs — and beyond doing.

MEDIA DIET: GIANLLUCA SIMI (Brazil) | HIBATO BEN AHMED (France) | MARIE LENA TUPOT (USA) | EUGENE GORNY (Thailand) | YOGI HENDLIN (Netherlands / USA) | INKA CROSSWAITE (Germany / South Africa) | SÓNIA MARQUES (Portugal) | ĽUDMILA LACKOVÁ BENNETT (Czechia) | BRIAN KHUMALO (USA / South Africa) | JIAKUN WANG (Shanghai) | FRANCISCO HAUSS (China / Mexico) | ASHLEY MAURITZEN (England) | STEFANIA GOGNA (Italy) | BECKS COLLINS (England) | ANTJE WEISSENBORN (Germany) | MARIANE CARA (Brazil) | VICTORIA GERSTMAN (Scotland) | MALCOLM EVANS (Wales) | COCO WU (Singapore / China) | JOSH GLENN (USA) | JENNIFER VASILACHE (Switzerland) | ANDREA BASUNTI (England) | SARAH JOHNSON (Canada) | PAULINA GOCH-KENAWY (Poland) | MARTHA ARANGO (Sweden).

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.