Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts: Papers on General and Spatial Semiotics 1527540340, 9781527540347

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Part I. General Semiotics
I.1. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
I.1.1. On the Semiology of Sign Means
I.1.2. F. de Saussure: A Hundred Years Later
I.2. THEORY OF SIGN
I.2.1. The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means
I.2.2. To the Theory of Sign
I.3. DIVERSITY OF SEMIOTIC MEANS
I.3.1. On the Diversity and Connections of Semiotic Means
I.3.2. Shifted Comprehension and Psycho-semiotic Distinctions of Its Means
I.3.3. “Alphabet” and “Palette” as Two Principles of Sense Distinction
I.4. HUMAN IN SEMIOSPHERE
I.4.1. “Animal Symholicum” in the Cultural and Natural Semiospheres
Part II. Semiotics of Space
II.1. SPATIAL SEMIOTICS AS AN AUTONOMOUS DISCIPLINE
II.1.1. Spatial Semiotics as a Branch of Semiotic Studies
II.1.2. Aesthetics and Art Theory as Grounds for Spatial Semiotics
II.1.3. On the Anticipation of Spatial Semiotics in the Cultural Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer
II.2. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AS A SPECIFIC WAY OF SENSE EXPRESSION
II.2.1. Spatial Structures and Sense
II.2.2. Spatial Semiosis and Time
II.2.3. Spatial Semiosis in Culture
II.3. SPATIAL CODES
II.3.1. Toward Semiotics of Spatial Codes
II.3.2. The Semiotization of Space and Dynamic Codes
II.3.3. On Demarcation Code
II.3.4. Perceptographic Code in Visual Culture
II.3.5. On Synesthetic Codes
II.4. SPATIAL TEXTS
II.4.1. On Structural Peculiarities of Spatial Texts
II.4.2. Particular Qualities of Semantics and Pragmatics of Spatial Texts
II.5. CATEGORIES OF SPATIAL SEMIOTICS
II.5.1. On Semiotized Spaces
II.5.2. Form as a Category of Spatial Semiotics
II.5.3. Place and Form in Spatial Grammar
II.5.4. Borders as a Category of Spatial Grammar
II.5.5. On the Semiology of Colours
II.6. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AND MODELLING
II.6.1. On Spatial Modelling
II.6.2. On Semiotics of Pictorial Means
II.6.3. Structural Similarity and Coding in Pictorial Representation
II.7. SPATIAL THINKING
II.7.1. The Languages of Architects’ Thinking
II.7.2. On the Borders in Space and in Thinking
II.8. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS IN OBJECT ENVIRONMENT
II.8.1. Semiotics of Object Environment and Personal Space
II.8.2. On Semiotic Aspects of Technics
II.8.3. On Semiotics of Chess Space
II.8.4. On the Semiotization and Resemiotization of City Space
II.9. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS IN ARTS
II.9.1. How is Semiotics of Art Possible?
II.9.2. Space of Depiction and Visual Codes
II.9.3. Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts
II.9.4. “The Natural Codes” in Arts
II.9.5. On Visual Synesthetic Codes in Painting
II.9.6. On Visual-spatial Codes in Architecture
II.9.7. Constructivism and Spatial Semiotics
II.9.8. Artist, Viewer and Strategies of Vision
Pictures
Bibliography
Index of author’s papers presented in the book
Index of Names

Citation preview

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts: Papers on General and Spatial Semiotics

By

Leonid Tchertov

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts: Papers on General and Spatial Semiotics By Leonid T chertov This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Leonid T chertov All rights for this book reserved. No part ofthis book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior pennission ofthe copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-4034-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4034-7

CONTENTS

Preface

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XIV

PART I. General Semiotics 1.1.

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

On the Sem iology of Sign Means .............................................................. 4

I. Semiotics: Semiography. Semiology and Semiosophy .................... 4

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Semiotics and Henneneutics ............................................................ 5 "Small" and "Big" Semiospheres . . ................................................... 8 Semiology of Sign Means............................................................... 10 Semiology of Sign Means and Inter-subject Understanding .......... 12 Concluding Remarks ...................................................................... 14

16 I. The Duality of Relations between Linguistics and Semiology ...... 16

F. de Saussure : A Hundred Years Later ............................................... 2. 3. 4.

1.2.

A View of Semiology from the Side of Linguistics ...................... 17 A View of Semiology from the Side of Non-linguistic Semiotic Studies ............................................................................ 18 On Relations between Verbal Languages and Other Semiotic Systems ................................................................. 23

THEORY OF SIGN

26 I. The Problem of Synthesis ................................................................ 26

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means ....... 2.

The Sign Means as a Special Level of Information Connection ...... 27 The Sign Mediation of Human Activity ........................................... 28 4. The "Plane of Content" (PC) of a Sign............................................. 30 5. The "Plane of Expression" (PE) of a Sign........................................ 32 6. The Semantic Relations between the Components of Both Planes .. 34 7. The "Sign Prism" ............................................................................. 34 8. The Invariability of the "Sign Prism" .............................................. 36 9. The "Sign Prism" as an Integral ModeL......................................... 37 3.

Contents

VI

To the Theory of Sign

1.3.

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40

DIVERSITY OF SEMIOTIC MEANS

On the Diversity and Connections of Semiotic Means

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44

Introduction 44 1. Infonnation Connection and Serniosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 1.1. The Concept of Infonnation Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 1.2. Proto-information and Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 1.3. The Concept of Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 1.4. Levels of Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2. The Signal-indexical Level of Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.1. Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.2. Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.3. Peculiarity of the Signal-indexical Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 52 3. The Sign Level of Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.1. Differences of Signs from Signals and Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.2. Meaning and Sense of the Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3.3. Distinctions of Signs by Semiotic Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 3.4. Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 4. Semiotic Systems and Their Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 59 4.1. On the Variety of Semiotic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 4.2. Differences of Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4.3. Structural Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 4.4. Functional Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 5. Connections between Semiotic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5.1. Complexes of Semiotic Systems Oriented to Diverse Infonnation Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5.2. Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5.3. Types of Connection between Semiotic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Shifted Comprehension and Psycho-semiotic Distinctions of Its Means

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

.........................................................................

72

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Psychological Levels of Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Types of Shifted Comprehension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Relations to Peirce's Types of Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Combinations of the Shifting Ways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Connections between the Levels of Comprehension and Cognitive Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Communicative Codes of Lover Cognitive Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

VI!

Psycho-semiotic Distinctions of Codes Combinations of Diverse Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10. Conclusion 8.

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9.

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84 87 90

"Alphabet" and "Palette" as Two Principles of Sense Distinction . . . . . . 91

14.

HUMAN IN SEMIOSPHERE

"Animal Symholicum" in the Cultural and Natural Semiospheres.... 102 1. Semiospheres of Culture and of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 1.1. Homo Vitruvianus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 1.2. Semiosphere of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 1.3. Semiosphere of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 2. Information Flows in Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.1. Types of Connections between Subjects of Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.2. Variety of Semiotic Connections in Different Cultures . . . . . . .. 109 3. Humans in two Semiospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 3.1. Humans in Natural and Cultural Semiospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 3.2. Interaction of Natural and Cultural Semiotic Systems III 3.3. Artificial Transformations of Natural Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 34. On the "Semiotic Profile" of a Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 3.5. Humans in the Technosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 . . . . . . . . .

PART II. Semiotics of Space

II. 1. SPATIAL SEMIOTICS AS AN AUTONOMOUS DISCIPLINE Spatial Semiotics as a Branch of Semiotic Studies..............................

1.

On the Relations between General and Spatial Semiotics 1.1. A particular View on General Semiotics 1.2. On the Emergence of Spatial Semiotics Specific Properties of Spatial Semiosis 2.1. Differences between Spatial and Temporal Semiosis 2.2. Specific Categories of Spatial Semiotics 2.3. Relations between the Categories of Spatial Semiotics 24. On "Universal" and "Partial" Grammars in Spatial Semiotics Spatial Codes and their Diversity 3.1. Spatial Codes 3.2. Diversity of Spatial Codes on the Substance of Expression 3.3. Semantic Specifics of Spatial Codes (Diversity by Psychical Substance of Contents)

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3.

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120 120 120 122 123 123 125 127 130 131 131 132 134

Contents

V111

Peculiarities of Syntactic Constructions 136 Types of Relations between the Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 4. Spatial Texts and their Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 4.1. Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 4.2. Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 4.3. Combination of Spatial Texts in Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 4.3. An Example of a Heterogeneous Architectural Text . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Conclusion 145 3.4.

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3.5.

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Aesthetics and Art Theory as Grounds for Spatial Semiotics . . . . . . . . . . 147 On the Anticipation of Spatial Semiotics in the Cultural Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AS A SPECIFIC WAY OF SENSE EXPRESSION

IL2.

Spatial Structures and Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Spatial Semiosis and Time

1. 2.

3.

....................................................................

Spatial Semiosis in Culture

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 11.3.

161

On Spatial and Temporal Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Spatial Semiosis in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 2.1. Peculiarities of Temporal Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 2.2. Presentation of the Spatial Text in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Time in Spatial Semiosis and Semiotic Means of its Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 3.1. Time Represented in Semiotized Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 3.2. Semiotic Means of Time Representation in Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 ...................................................................

The Problem of the Particularity of Spatial Semiosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Semiotization of Space and the Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Genetic, Functional and Structural Peculiarities of Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatial Semiosis as Part of the Semiosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatial Semiotics as an Autonomous Branch of Sign Theory . . . . . .

177 177 179 181 184 186

SPATIAL CODES

Toward Semiotics of Spatial Codes

1. 2.

......................................................

On Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Architectonic Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

188 188 189

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts 3. 4.

Object-functional Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social-symbolic Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Semiotization of Space and Dynamic Codes

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

IX

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193 194

197

The Specifics of the Semiotization of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 The Object-spatial Dualism of Visual Perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 The Spatial Units ofPE in Dynamic Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Dynamic Meanings ofPC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 The Levels of Connection between the Units ofPE and PC . . . . . . . . . 201

On Demarcation Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Perceptographic Code in Visual Culture

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

On Synesthetic Codes

1. 2. 11.4.

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Visual Culture and Perceptual Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perceptography as a Communicative Version of Perceptual Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Specific Features of Perceptographic Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perceptography as an Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perceptography and External Optical Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............................................................................

Synesthetic Codes as Subjectof Interdisciplinary Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . Visual Synesthetic Codes as a Semiotic Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

207 207 209 214 217 221 223

225 225 228

SPATIAL TEXTS

On Structural Peculiarities of Spatial Texts

........................................

1. The 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Concept of the Spatial Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semio-topological Peculiarities of Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Semio-topology of Written Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semio-topology of Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two Ways of Text Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Texts of Behaviour Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Particular Qualities of Semantics and Pragmatics of Spatial Texts

..

1. 2.

Semantic Peculiarities of Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pragmatic Peculiarities of Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

234 234 236 236 237 239 240

243 243 246

Contents

x

115 CATEGORIES OF SPATIAL SEMIOTICS On Semiotized Spaces

............................................................................

250

Introduction: Space as a Semiotic SubjecL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 1. Autonomous Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 1.1. Space and Spatial Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 1.2. Autonomous Spaces and Modes of Their Existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 2. Anthropomorphic Spaces and Their Variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 2.1. Anthropomorphic Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 2.2. Anthropomorphic Features in Ideal Models of Space . . . . . . . . . . 254 2.3. Anthropomorphic Spaces in Human Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 3. Semiotization of Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 3.1. On the Natural Conditions of the Space Semiotization . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 3.2. The Cultural Level of Space Semiotization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 3.3. Serniotization of Space as General Conditions and as Concrete Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 3.4. Semiotization of Space as an Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 4. Structural Peculiarities of the Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 4.1. Autonomy and Separation of Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 4.2. Anthropomorphic Properties of Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 4.3. Semio-topological Properties of Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 5. Semiotized Spaces and Spatial Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 5.1. Relations between Spaces and Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 5.2. Pre-semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 5.3. Carcass and Basis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 6. Semiotized Spaces and Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 6.1. Mono- and Poly-semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 6.2. Conjoined Semiotization of the Architectural Space by Diverse Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 7. Relations between Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 7.1. Similarity and Differences of Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 7.2. Structural Relations between the Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 7.3. Functional Relations between Semiotized Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Conclusion

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Form as a Category of Spatial Semiotics

.............................................

282

283

1. On the Category of Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 2. Relations with Other Categories of Spatial Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 3. Semiotic Functions of Forms in Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 4. Ways of Reception and Comprehension of Forms in Diverse Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 5. Morphology. Morphogenetics and Syntax in Spatial Codes . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

Xl

and Form in Spatial Grammar 292 I. Meaningful Place and its Species ... ... ... ... .. .................................. 292

Place

...................................................

2. Mutual Relations between Place and Form Categories ................. 293 3. Meaningful Connections of Places and of Forms ........................... 295 4. Disposition and Distribution ............................................................ 297 5. Place and Form in Semiotic Systems .............................................. 298 Borders as a Category of Spatial Grammar .............................................300

304 I. On the Subject of Colour Semiology .............................................. 304

On the Semiology of Colours

................................................................

2. On the Differences in Colour Codes and their "Psychic Substance" 305 3. On Semantic Functions of Colours in Diverse Codes ..................... 308 4. On the Syntactics of Colour Texts ................................................... 309 5. On Colour Texts in Paintings .......................................................... 312 IL6. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AND MODELLING

316 I. Modelling in the Human Activity .................................................. 316

On Spatial Modelling

............................................................................

1.1. On the Concept of a Model .................................................. 316 1.2. Modelling as an Activity ...................................................... 317 1.3. Modelling and Semiotic Means............................................. 319 1.3.1. Models and Signs........................................................... 319 1.3.2. On the Modelling Functions o/Semiotic Systems and Texts ....320 1.3.3. Semiosis and Mimesis in Modelling .............................. 322 2. Spatial Modelling .......................................................................... 324 2.1. Spaces and Spatial Modelling .............................................. 324 2.1.1. On Spatial Modelling .................................................... 324 2.1.2. Spatial Relations and Autonomic Spaces ...................... 324 2.2. Spatial Models ..................................................................... 325 2.2.1. Spatial and Non-spatial Models .................................... 325 2.2.2. On the Spatial Models a/Space .................................... 326 2.2.3. On the Spatial Models a/Non-spatial Objects .............. 326 2.3. The Models of Space ........................................................... 327 2.3.1. On the Verbal andDerivedModels a/Space ................ 327 2.3.2. On the Visual Models 0/ Space ..................................... 328 2.4. Semiotic Means of Spatial Modelling .................................. 329 2.4.1. Spatial Codes as Modelling Systems ............................. 329 2.4.2. Spatial Texts as External Models .................................. 330 2.4.3. Spatial Means a/Modelling and Verbal Language ....... 331 3. Spatial Modelling by Means of Depictions ................................... 332

Contents

Xl!

3.1. Depictions as Spatial Models 332 3.2. Depictions as Spatial Texts .................................................. 333 3.3. Perceptographic Code as a System of Norms Correlating Depicted and Depicting Spaces ............................................. 335 3.4. Connections Between the Levels of Spatial Modelling in the Depiction ..................................................................... 337 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On Semiotics of Pictorial Means ..........................................................

339

Structural Similarity and Coding in Pictorial Representation

343

..........

1. Differences between the Depicting and Depicted Spaces .............. 343 2. The Structural Peculiarities of the Depicting Space ...................... 344 3. On Structural Peculiarities of Depicted Space .............................. 347 4. Structural Similarity and Dissimilarity of the Both Spaces............ 347 5. Projection and Prospection as Relations between the Depicting and Depicted Spaces ............................................. 350 6. Modelling and Coding as two Sides of the Linear Perspective ..... 352 7. Comparison of the Picture and the Map ........................................ 353 8. Conclusion 356 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IL7. SPATIAL THINKING The Languages of Architects' Thinking

..............................................

358

1. Verbal and Non-verbal Means of Thinking ................................... 358 2. Specificity of Spatial Thinking ...................................................... 359 3. Spatial Codes as Means of Architectural Thinking ....................... 361 4. Infralogical Syntax and Semantics of Architectural Thinking ...... 364 5. Pragmatics of Architectural Thinking ........................................... 366 On the Borders in Space and in Thinking

.......................................... 369

IL8. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS IN OBJECT ENVIRONMENT Semioticsof Object Environment and Personal Space On Semiotic Aspects of Technics

..........................

..........................................................

374

377

1. A Synthesis of Causal and Teleological Series in Technics .......... 377 2. Technical Tools as Mediators of Intersubjective Relations ........... 379 3. Technical Tools as Semiotic Means .............................................. 380

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

On Semiotics of Chess Space

X111

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On the Semiotization and Resemiotization of City Space

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

385 389

IL9. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS IN ARTS How is Semiotics of Art Possible ? ........................................................ Space of Depiction and Visual Codes

398

.................................................. 404

408 I. On the Application of Visual-spatial Codes in Arts ...................... 408

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts ..................................................

2. On the Means of Perceptographic Code in Pictorial Arts .............. 410 3. Participation of Diverse Codes in Depictions ................................ 415 4. Cooperation of Codes in the Formation and Interpretation of Depiction ................................................................................ 420 5. Relations between Semiotic Systems in Depiction ....................... 425 6. Relations of Spatial Codes to Verbal Language ........................... 428 7. Changes of Spatial Codes in Art History ...................................... 431 "The Natural Codes" in Arts ................................................................ On Visual Synesthetic Codes in Painting

438

............................................ 444

448 I. Semiotization of Space and its Diverse Ways ............................... 448

On Visual-spatial Codes in Architecture .............................................

2. Connections between the Spatial Codes ........................................ 450 3. The Spatial Codes in Architecture ................................................. 453 4. Architectural Piece as a Heterogeneous Spatial Text .................... 456 Constructivism and Spatial Semiotics .................................................

458

Artist, Viewer and Strategies of Vision................................................

471

1. The Productive and the Reproductive in the Vision of Artist and Viewer .................................................................... 471 2. Differences of Vision Strategies ................................................... 474 Bibliography

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Index of author's papers presented in the book Index of Names

................................. 502

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

507

PREFACE

The papers collected in this book have been thought of and written over the past three decades. Most of them were published in diverse times and places and can be read as independent works. Several papers are being published here for the first time. In spite of these differences, they add up into a series, where a holistic conception is presented. The main part of this conception is related to spatial semiotics and its application to the analysis of visual arts. However, the articles, which have as their subject the topics of general semiotics, are no less essential for it. The point is that the introduced notions of spatial semiotics become justi­ fied on condition that the general semiotic concepts considered in the book are accepted as well. Both parts of the book, the papers on general and on spatial semiotics are connected with each other: the notions of spatial se­ miotics are based on more general concepts, and the latter are fonned so that they can be applied to an analysis of the spatial semiosis and of art pIeces. These main two parts are divided into subsections, where the papers that are thematically close to each other are placed. The first part begins with the paper "On Semiology of Sign Means", where some methodological problems of general semiotics are discussed. A combination of two seemingly incompatible ideas is considered here: a wide understanding of semiotics and a narrow understanding of sign. Whereas the concept of sign is related here only to the conventional means of human activity created in culture, the sphere of semiotics is understood more widely and extends to signal and indexical means of mediated in­ fonnation connections between biosystems in nature and in some devices in the sphere of technics. So, the semiotics of sign means of human activi­ ty differs from wider general semiotics that also studies natural signals and indexes. A variety of semiotic studies pennits one to pick out in them not only diverse areas, but also at least three levels of generalization. These are distinguished in the paper: a semiographical level, where descriptions of definite signs and sign systems are perfonned, a semiological level, where the concepts used for such descriptions are researched, and a semiosophi­ cal level, where some philosophical reasons for choosing these concepts are discussed.

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

xv

The general concept of semiology preserves its initial sense suggested by F. de Saussure, although both: the principle of sign arbitrarity and the principle of signifiers' linearity suggested by the Swiss linguist turn out not to be universal. This gives grounds to distinguish between "Saussure­ an" and "non-Saussurean" semiology, as is performed in the paper "F. de Saussure: A Hundred Years Later". The papers of the next subsection are dedicated to the theory of signs understood in a narrow sense-as the means of human activity. The signs are considered as the elements of a mechanism of communication between its subjects regarding represented objects. Entering in the system of sub­ ject-object and inter-subject relations, these means are structured in a way that can be represented with the help of a spatial model-a "sign prism". This model demonstrates not only invariant aspects of a significative way of infonnation connection, but also a possibility to integrate a number of other models (various "sign triangles", "dyads", etc.) as parts of a united system. The third subsection of Part I contains the papers where a variety of semiotic means are considered. In the paper "On Diversity and Connection of Semiotic Means", the sign level of information mediation is matched with signals and natural indexes belonging to another level of semiosis. All of them are covered by the concept of semeions and are able to be units of semiotic systems, which also belong to diverse levels and can in­ teract with each other in different ways. In the next paper of the subsection, the shifted understanding of repre­ sented objects via conventional signs is considered as a particular case of shifted comprehension, which is also possible at other mental levels. There is also shifted recognition, perception and sensation, which are mediated by certain pictorial and indexical means and participate in codes of the lower levels of semiosis. These codes can interact and form together vari­ ous complex semiotic constructions The diversity of semiotic means is related not only to units of various codes, but also to their structural organization-as it is shown in the paper "Alphabet and Palette as Two Principles of Sense Distinction". Even the division of semiotic means into discrete units is not a universal principle and coexists with another principle of syntagmatic and paradigmatic or­ ganization of sense discriminating elements. Another such "principle of palette" takes place, for example, when a multitude of colours continuous­ ly flowing into each other participate together in the creation of a complex sense. The last paper of Part I

"Animal Symbolicum ... "

considers a human as

a being, which at the same time is included into two semiospheres-the

Preface

XVI

sphere of natural signals and indexes, which are available to people as to living organisms, and the sphere of arbitrary signs and symbols that are created by a human in culture. Semiotics that includes as its subject both natural signal-indexical and cultural sign levels of serniosis has an oppor­ tunity to research the complex interaction of these levels in human behav­ iour and mental activity. Part II using the general semiotic concepts considered in Part I, is ded­ icated to different aspects of spatial semiotics. Its first subsection begins with an article, in which this branch of semiotic studies is considered as a whole. Several of its roots in aesthetics and art theory, as well as in the philosophy of symbolic forms by Ernst Cassirer are discussed specially in two other articles of this subsection. The features of spatial serniosis are discussed in the papers of the next subdivision of Part II. A connection of space with sense in dependence of the way of its inclusion in human activity is considered in the first of them. A subject of the second paper is the relations of the spatial semiosis with time: the ways of its temporal being and the ways of time representation by spatial constructions. The pecuiliarity of spatial semiosis and its specif­ ic role in the semiosphere of culture is discussed in the last article of the subdivision. The third section of Part II is dedicated to a number of specific and in­ sufficiently explored spatial codes. In its first two papers, a group of dy­ namic spatial codes is considered, which differ not only in that their ex­ pression plane is formed by spatial objects, but also in that their content plane consists of motor images of movements and subject-object or inter­ subject actions. Several other little studied spatial codes, where the content plane is also formed mainly by infralogical images of diverse kinds and levels, are considered in the next papers of this subdivision Among them, the perceptographic codes mediating communication via depictions and a complex of synesthetic codes using as expressive means of spatial arts are discussed in this section. The results of applying spatial codes-the texts extended in space and their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic specificity-are discussed in the papers of the next section II.4. In particular, their non-one-dimensionality, isotropy and anisotropy, discreteness and continuity as well as some other semio-topological features are considered there. The next section contains the papers dedicated to special categories of the spatial semiosis. In the article "On Semiotized Spaces", such an essen­ tial for the spatial semiotics category as space is researched from a semiot­ ic perspective. Diverse ways of anthropomorphic spaces that are different­ ly structured and interpreted in human activity are considered as a for-

Signs, Codes, Spaces, and Arts

XVI!

mation of spatial relations, which have various types of autonomy, can be separated and interact with each other. In a similar semiotic vein, several other specific categories of spatial semiotics are explored in the next pa­ pers: spatial form, place and border The features of such specific means of visual-spatial semiosis as colour are also described in an individual paper of this subdivision. The relations of spatial semiosis to modelling and to pictorial means of representation are discussed in section II.6. Spatial modelling in general and its participation in the means of depiction are the subject of the paper "On Spatial Modelling". The next two articles continue the research into the question of the relations of the modelling and of the coding in the pic­ torial means of objects' representation. There is, together with external modelling via pictures or some similar means of representation, internal modelling in mental images and process­ es of thinking. Specific spatial thinking and the using of spatial codes in it are considered in section II.7. The last two sections of the book are dedicated to using of spatial se­ miotic means in diverse areas of the semiosphere. Objects' environment, city space, the sphere of technics and the features of a game space in chess are considered in section II.8. Last but not least is the subdivision, where the means of spatial semio­ sis in arts are considered. In a certain sense, this subject is the goal that most of the research placed before this section is approaching, and the examples from the field of arts were often used in the previous sections of the book. It is essential that a semiotic exploration of arts is considered here not as a direct projection of some linguistic or logic concepts into another sphere, but is prepared by research of spatial semiosis and its spe­ cial means. Only on this ground, one can expect to receive a satisfactory description of spatial arts in a semiotic perspective. Precisely these issues are discussed in the paper "How Semiotics of Art is Possible?". Taking as an answer to this question a thesis that semiot­ ics of arts should be based on the research of spatial codes, one has to rec­ ognize it as logical that the subjects of the next papers are various aspects of these codes' participation in the pictorial arts and in architecture. The diversity of these semiotic systems, their interactions in art pieces, their development and changes of their relations in art history as well as in dif­ ferent strategies of viewers are discussed in the papers of this section. In particular, the following question is considered, how are the codes, which have natural roots-synesthetic, architectonic, perceptographic and oth­ ers-involved in the sphere of arts and become important expressive and depictive means in it.

Preface

XVlll

The papers presented in the book mainly aimed toward the semiologi­ cal studies of the concepts as theoretical instruments of research. At the same time, the descriptions of partial codes and their semiotic means should be recognized as semiographic studies, and some philosophical reasoning about the subject and methods of semiotic studies shall be relat­ ed to the field of semiosophy-using the terms introduced here. A sharp division between these three levels is not carried out in the book, and they can coexist in the same article. However, as far as the succession of papers is concerned, it is intended that they move mainly from general to more specialized topics, and the first papers are related to the semiological level more than the latter ones. As the papers collected in the book were written and published as indi­ vidual works, they contain some repeated theses that are important in their various contexts. Some of these repeats have been removed (this is indi­ cated by an ellipsis in angle brackets). However, several of them have been saved, because they have various senses in different contexts. At the same time, as parts of a united conception, the articles have numerous ref­ erences to each other (in parentheses). The papers have been re-edited, and changes and additions have been made to some of them The author expresses his gratitude firstly to his late teachers-to the architect

and

artist Prof

Vladimir

Vassilkovsky

from

Higher

Art­

Industrial School, who helped to develop the creative spatial thinking of his students, and to the philosopher Prof Moissey Kagan from St Peters­ burg State University, who helped to develop system categorical thinking at the level of logical concepts. The author's gratitude is also extended to his colleagues, who discussed his experiences to reflect the artistic spatial thinking in theoretic categories at the semiotic seminar of Prof. Sergey Chebanov at St Petersburg State University and at the conferences of the International Association for Semiotics of Space (IASSp). Special thanks also to the honorary president of IASSp Prof Pierre Pellegrino (Geneva), who supported the author's projects and made a number of valuable com­ ments to them. The author is also grateful to Lubov' Belkina, Varvara Golubeva and Sofia Verba for their help in the translation of his papers into English as well to Alex Monaghan for the professional proofreading of the book

PART I GENERAL SEMIOTICS

1.1. METHODOLOGICAL P ROBLEMS

1. 1 . 1 . ON SEMIOLOGY OF SIGN MEANS

1. Semiotics: Semiography, Semiology and Semiosophy Semiotics is now understood as the entire sphere of knowledge about signs including their partial descriptions, general theories explaining the nature of the sign connection, as well as the philosophical foundation of these theories. This heterogeneity in the field of semiotic research allows one to distinguish within semiotic studies at least three levels of generali­ zation: "serniographical", "semiological" and "serniosophical".

Semiography

would include all descriptions of single semiotic units,

constructions built from them and rules of their formation and interpreta­ tion. Such descriptions can take a normative [onn or be properly descrip­ tive investigations of what nonns are used in definite areas of semiotic practices. Serniographical research is often perfonned within the frames of other spheres of knowledge, such as grammars of distinct languages, her­ aldry, numismatics, hieroglyphics, systems of musical or mathematical notation, descriptions of etiquette, meaningful behaviour, etc. Moreover, they can even be realized apart from any relation to semiotics. On a higher level of generalization, descriptions of specific signs and sign systems are superseded by explanations of what the sign way of con­ nection is, how it is built, on what conditions something can perform the functions of a sign, what the structure of a "sign situation" is, etc. This level of semiotics can be conveniently called by the term

semiology, which

in this case is no longer its synonym but rather a tenn denoting its theoret­ ical part separate from semiography as the more descriptive part of semiot­ ics (cf. the difference between "descriptive" and "pure" semiotics in Mor­ ris, 1971a: 24). Semiology generalizes the partial semiographical studies and identifies universal properties common for various semiotic means; it constructs theoretical models describing the structural organization and functioning of these means. The semiological level also includes a com­ parative analysis of organizing sign systems of various types and investi­ gations of possible forms of their interaction when heterogeneous sign constructions are built.

On Semiology of Sign Means

5

Any semiological theory has explicit or implicit premises related to definite philosophical views on its subject and research methods. These views form a field which can be generally described as the sphere of

osophy.

semi­

It includes, first of all, various versions of the philosophy of lan­

guage, sign, name etc. Various aspects of other divisions of philosophy­ ontology, epistemology, logics, philosophy of culture, etc., which are em­ ployed as bases of semiology-are also "semiosophical" in character. Un­ like semiography or semiology, semiosophy is not restricted to the sphere of scientific knowledge and may contain elements of specific ideologies as systems of values. Neither semiography nor semiosophy necessarily claims to be a sphere of knowledge directly related to semiotics. This relation is quite often re­ vealed only to a view directed from some centre, from the standpoint of semiology, whence both semiography and semiosophy are seen in the se­ miotic perspective. In this interpretation, semiology is extracted from se­ miotics as its "core" around which semiotic studies are concentrated. In this system of relations semiology, on the one hand, is crystallized in relations to semiosophic discourse as a more concrete theory of signs. On the other hand, it is developed as the result of generalizing the "semio­ graphical" material in respect to various "-graphies"-descriptions of signs in such disciplines as linguistics, ethnography, history of culture, art, etc. Proposed by F. de Saussure as a result of linguistic generalization, the tenn "semiology" preserves here the intention to consider semiology as a discipline that "would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them" and to separate it from more special descriptions of definite sign systems like national languages, systems of notations, symbolic rites, po­ lite formulas, military signals etc. (Saussure, 1960: 16).

2. Semiotics and Henneneutics Semiotics has much in common with henneneutics. Both of them study signs and texts, their connections with meanings and senses, and their rela­ tions with its creators and interpreters. Nevertheless, they are non­ coincident spheres of knowledge as they have different aims. The purpose of henneneutics is the interpretation of diverse objects as texts expressing a certain sense treated by the given interpreters, often in the definite condi­ tions. This purpose is common for both theological and philological her­ meneutics, and philosophical henneneutics is developed according to the purpose of the "decoding" of the world like the text as welL The broader the subject of hermeneutic researches is, the more this research needs a general theory of connections between senses and signs used for their ex-

1. 1 . 1 .

6

pression, and the closer it approaches to semiotics (as, for example, in: Meier, 1757). The subject of semiotics is just the uniform norms of correlation be­ tween significant constructions and some unifying ways of interpreting them. Semiotics describes as its subject not particular senses of certain texts, but the nonns of interpreting them and general conditions of sign connection. It is, therefore, the "nomothetic" discipline (using the term of Rickert, 1896). This purpose to research general conditions of sense forming and un­ derstanding differs semiotics from and even opposes it to henneneutics, which always preserves the aim of identifying the specific qualities of concrete texts and the individual acts of interpreting them and is, thereby, the "idiographic" discipline (in the same terms). Taking no notice of spe­ cific contexts, semiotics on its various levels makes generalizations and identifies more or less uniform ways of sign fonnation and construing. While hermeneutics sticks to its individualizing disposition even when it has to rise to the level of philosophical generalizations, semiotics, on the contrary, preserves its generalizing disposition even when it deals with specific norms of partial sign systems on the level of semiography and, especially, when it investigates the general principles of creating signs and their meanings on the level of semiology. Identifying systems of such norms and rules, the semiotic scholar endeavours to find reproducible signs and symbols as regular units of semiotic systems-languages or codes whereby meanings are expressed. As results of applying such sys­ tems, semioticians also consider specific texts, treated in the same general­ izing spirit including verbal and any other sign constructions, where the identification of more or less unifonn rules of structuring and interpreta­ tion is possible. This generalizing orientation of semiotics, as has already been men­ tioned, is the common property for all its levels. It is clear for the semio­ sophic studies of the grounds of the sign theory. In particular, such a uni­ fying approach is appropriate for logical semantics, where signs are con­ sidered only as the means of representation, aside from their communica­ tive functions. For example, the concept of sign by G. Frege connects it

("Sinn") which differs not only from an object it ("Bedeutung"), but also from subjective images of this object ("Vorstellungen"); unlike various images arising in minds of different

with a constant meaning denotes

people, the meaning of sign is a unifying and invariant way of representa­ tion, independent of the subjects it uses (see: Frege, 1962: 41-42). In a similar way, the semiotics of Ch. S. Peirce, which was also formed on the grounds of logics, considers the sign as a member of triadic relation,

On Semiology of Sign Means

7

where it functions as a "representamen" of an object for an "interpretant" (see: Peirce, 1931: §§ 541, 564). The representative function of sign is also not connected at that with perfonning of communicative function. Unlike the logical concept connecting the sign mainly with the repre­ sentative function, its linguistic models to a greater degree consider the communicative function of signs. At the same time, semiology, developed on the grounds of linguistics, is also oriented generatively, considering its task to be a research of a stable "sign function" between semiotic "fonns" of expression and contents, independent of a changeable "substance", and therefore regards signs of language as constant units, where the connec­ tions between signified ("signifie") and signifier ("significant") are unifying norms preserved in diverse individual acts of speaking (Saussure, 1960: 14, 113). The tendency to generalization is obvious enough for semiology in all its versions, though they were directed to the research of general principles of sign connection (Peircean semiotics), to the organization of sign sys­ tems (Saussurean semiology and Hjelmslevian glossematics), or to the clearing of relations between diverse semiotic systems (as in the studies of many latter semioticians: R. Barthes, E. Benveniste, U. Eco, Yu. Lotman, and others). At last, semiographical investigations also keep a semiotic way of vi­ sion directed to the identification of some reproducible

conditions,

on

which something functions as a sign. Like semiology, semiography studies more or less unifonn norms of creating and interpreting certain concrete types of signs and symbols, rather than their specific treating in any par­ ticular cases. Multifonn branches of semiography are occupied with iden­ tifying of systematic relations between signs and their meanings, between the "plane of expression" and the "plane of content", even if these invari­ ant relations are limited with the frames of particular sign systems.

An

important difference between semiotics and henneneutics is con­

nected also with their diverse relations with the subject of understanding. Henneneutics, grown as an "art of understanding", is directed to revealing the ways that the sense for a subject is presented. From the point of view of henneneutics, the researches of some objective "mechanisms" of con­ structing and reconstructing of senses via signs looks like some supporting investigations for the clarification of individual ways of subjective inter­ pretation. The semiotic approach is essentially different: semiotics intends to reveal just the objective "mechanisms", by which the construction, communication and understanding of senses via the signs can be per­ formed independently of whether the subject conceptualizes these mecha­ nisms or uses them only subconsciously. The objective conditions of sign

1. 1 . 1 .

8

connection is a more important topic of researches for semiotics than the subjective ways of the sense interpretation, and the means providing the processes of communication and understanding are also more interesting than the results of these processes in certain cases.

3. "Small" and "Big" Semiospheres The versions of semiology appearing on diverse grounds differ not on­ ly in their purpose to identify some general conditions of sign connection, but also in how broadly they consider this connection to be, and what way they see these conditions. Various versions of the semiotic theory define­ these limits in a different ways. If the sign theory of logical semantics is limited by the signs used in rational thinking (see, for example, Camap, 1946: 13-14), semiology in its Saussurean project should research

of signs within society"

"the life

more brightly (Saussure, 1960: 16). Considering

the verbal language as a model, this project of semiology was aimed to extend the linguistic concepts to research of other sign systems. F. de Saussure has supposed that "linguistics can become the master-pattern for all branches of semiology although language is only one particular semio­ logical system" (Ibidem: 68). Such a "linguocentric" approach was devel­ oped by Louis Hjelmslev, who has suggested considering a large number of disciplines, including, on the one hand, logistics and mathematics, and on the other hand, the study of literature, ar� and music, from a common point of view, whence they all look as "concentrated around a linguistical­ ly defined setting of problems" (Hjelmslev, 1961: 108). The sphere enveloping such a semiological project approaches the realm of "symbolic

[OnTIS"

researched by Ernst Cassirer, whose concep­

tion has the task to reform Kantian "criticism of pure rationality" to a "criticism of culture", and who considered the human to be not only an

"animal rationale",

but more brightly, as an

"animal symbolicum"

(Cassi­

rer, 1923-1929, 1944). The sphere of Cassirer's "symbolic forms" is close in its scope to Yuri Lotrnan's concept of the "serniosphere", which is also broader than the sphere, outlined by logical semantics or linguistics and includes all means of human communication, generalized in culture (see Lotman, 1984). This concept of the semiosphere outlines roughly the same subjec� which was also supposed by Umberto Eco, who connects the lim­ its of semiology with the sphere of communicative means supported by certain cultural conventions (Eco, 1976: 19). "Urnberto Eco's semiotic threshold", however, is also crossed by some other semiotic conceptions-first of all, by the general theory of signs suggested by Ch. Peirce and developed by Ch. Morris, which despite its

On Semiology of Sign Means

9

logical roots assumes as its subject a much larger sphere including biolog­ ical processes (see, particularly, Morris, 1971a: 67, 83). According to Winfried Nbth "Peirce's semiosphere certainly includes the whole bio­ sphere" (Nbth, 2001: 16; see also: Nbth, 2000: 57). Such a bright treatment of semiotics allows one to include into its sub­ ject so-called "natural signs"-phenomena which are not created deliber­ ately to express someone's ideas but are nevertheless able to point out some peculiarities of a presented situation due to naturally arising regulari­ ties (considered by E. Husserl as the opposition between

"Anzeichens",

"Ausdrucke"

and

the two ways of explaining the concept "sign"; see Husserl,

1984: 30 ff). Investigations of signals and natural indexes used in infor­ mation processes within and between living beings constitute such do­ mains as "phytosemiotics",

"zoosemiotics",

"biosemiotics" and even

"phisicosemiotics" (see, particularly, Krampen, 1981; Sebeok, 1972, 1999; Nbth, 2001). There are thus the reasons to understand the concept of the "semiosphere" in a broader sense spreading it at least to the realm of the living beings (see Hoffmeyer, 1996). Despite the evident divergence, Lotrnan's and Hoffmeyer's concep­ tions of the semiosphere can be coordinated with each other-as a "small" sphere of human communicative means developed in culture and a "big" sphere of infonnation connections, while also admitting any other ways and including mediators of natural processes and of technical vehicles. One can speak from the sufficiently general point of view about the

ology of nature

as well as about the

semiology of culture.

semi­

Moreover, the

speech can go on about their mutual interaction in case of the human as an

"animal symbolicum",

who is involved into both of these spheres and

thereby has specific problems with their interdependence (see more de­ tailed on this bellow, 1.4). These problems cannot even be formulated within the frames of only one of these two semiological directions. At the same time the "small" semiosphere cannot be "dissolved' in a "big" one, because the sign means intentionally created in a culture for communication between members of a group and for the representation of objects of their activities cannot be reduced to naturally grown signals and indexes. These "natural semiotic means' are not the "sign means" in this sense. Semiology as a scholarly discipline may not ignore the principal difference between these types of mediators, and at the same time, it can­ not ignore many common properties of infonnation means functioning in the "small" and "big" semiospheres. Considering both the resemblance and difference of infonnation medi­ ators of various types, semiology may be divided into a "general" domain, which is occupied with the initial principles of such mediating in the com-

1. 1 . 1 .

10

parison of various means of information connection within both the "big" and "small" semiospheres, and at least one "partial" branch, which special­ izes in the research of sign means deliberately created in human activities.

4. Semiology of Sign Means "Semiology a/sign means "

builds conceptual models of sign connec­

tion, which is produced and reproduced in culture and mediates both sub­ ject-object and inter-subject relations. As these sign means differ from semiotic means of other types, like natural signals and indexes, this name is not tautological. "Semiology of sign means" may be distinguished frorn"general semiology" and from other "partial" serniologic branches in virtue of specific genetic, functional, and structural properties of its sub­ ject The sign means differ from other ways of infonnation connection first of all by their

genesis.

Unlike the naturally formed signals and indexes in

bio-systems, they arise in culture as means of human activity that are de­ liberately produced, reproduced and applied in acts of communication between subjects to represent objects of their cognition, evaluation or transfonnation. Interpretation of signs as consciously used means of ac­ tivity allows, in particular, an understanding of the characteristic arbitrary nature of its various aspects-the arbitrary connection between the sign and its meaning, the arbitrary selection of sign vehicles and their combina­ tion in sign constructions, the arbitrary use of signs in specific contexts, the arbitrary reaction to signs, etc. The sign means created in human activity also differ from the natural bearers of infonnation also by their functions. Unlike signals or indexes arising in nature at various levels of biologic processes, signs are able not only to

present an

object within the current context, but also to

objects missing in the current situation and

express thoughts

represent

about them,

independently of how distant they could be in time or space. Thereby the sign means give a possibility to make the results of learning, evaluation or projection the material of communication and,

vice versa,

to involve

communication means into any of these acts. A combination of

communicative and representative functions is an es­

sential peculiarity of the sign means, which performs both of them in vir­ tue of the same mechanism. A basic element of this mechanism is a neces­ sary reference of meanings constructed and reconstructed in the communi­ cative acts for the objects of other ways of activity. Whether an object exists in reality or not, whether it is presented in the situation of meaning

On Semiology of Sign Means

11

expression, or has nothing to do with it; meanings expressed by signs have always the intention to relate a thought to a certain object Corresponding­ ly, signs which express these meanings always have an object correlation which is the property of signs themselves rather than the context in which they are used. The context and specific referents of signs may vary, but the ability of a sign to relate a thought to some referent is its inherent property. So, the sign connection perfonned through a special "mechanism" of relations fonns a specific

structure.

This structure is constituted as a net of

connections between different components of sign situation, where one subject of activity can express to another subject a thought about an object represented by the sign constructed according to a definite scheme con­ nected with a scheme of thought formation by a code accepted in the cul­ ture. These two types of schemes are reproducible and invariant members of the "expression" and "contents" planes, respectively, and are connected by the relation of

signification

(cf the "form of expression" and "form of

content" of 1. Hjelmslev, who considers them to be two "functives" of relation identified with itself as "sign function"; see Hjelmslev,

1961: 48).

The relation of signification is a key element in the whole structure of sign

semantic relations to­ reference between the sign vehicle and the object it denotes, of expression between ideas of object and of its sign in the mind of a sender, and of interpretation between corresponding ideas in the connection and should be included in the class of gether with relations of

mind of the recipient. The complete structure of the "mechanism" of sign connection can be represented by a spatial model of "sign prism", which shows the way these semantic relations are included into the structure of human activity and allows a combination of the models of diverse aspects of sign connection developed in logical, linguistic and other fonns of signs study (for more details of this, see 1.2.1). Semiology of sign means is not reduced to the theory of the sign mechanism. The concept of sign means also includes, beside proper signs, all sign systems (of codes and languages) and the sign constructions (texts). Accordingly, there are reasons to consider within the frames of the

sign systems (of codes and lan­ sign constructions (texts), as well as the general "small semiosphere , which considers the mutual connection

semiology of sign means the theory of guages), the theory of theory of the

"

and interaction of cooes functioning in culture and the texts created and interpreted by them. Such a theory of the semiosphere can also be consid­ ered as

semiology of culture

researching the ways of cooperation between

various kinds of sign means to form diverse forms of culture (myth, ritual, religion, art, science, technique, social life, etc.).

1. 1 . 1 .

12

5. Semiology of Sign Means and Inter-subject

Understanding Semiology of sign means, separated from general semiology as well as from other "partial" semiological branches, may be interpreted as a theory explaining how and on what conditions

understanding between subjects is

possible. Such a theory is based on a presupposition, which could be for­ mulated via the "semiosophical" thesis: "Understanding between the peo­ ple is possible". This optimistic presupposition is not obvious in the world where misunderstanding accompanies almost all joint actions and under­ standing seems to be an unachievable goal. Nevertheless, the reasons for its acceptance seem more convincing than those for its negations. If any minimal understanding between subjects were impossible, any cooperation aimed to achieve common goals would also be impossible. It is true, equally, for particular agreements between friends or colleagues as well as for the general existence of culture as a system of knowledge, values or skills, common for different members of a collective and concentrated in the collective memory of the society as a united subject. And vice

versa,

if

any common projects were performed, planned buildings were built, trains carne to destination areas, books were edited, etc., then this fact make it evident that a minimal understanding among the creators of these results took a place. If a certain understanding is a condition of any mutual activity of peo­ ple at all, it is a more necessary item for inter-subject communication, in particular. Indeed, a communicative act could not get this property without understanding it to be its result-it would only turn into a huge number of strange sounds or motions. Understanding, in a semiological sense, relates not only to the cases of mutual agreement and cooperation, but also to the cases of opposition and conflicts. Even the opponents should have something in common relating to the object that they are struggling over, and be agreed at least that the conflict has a place; moreover, they should have a common language to express the disagreement. A duel cannot take place if an opponent does not understand that he was challenged. Focusing its attention on the sign means of understanding, semiology takes the mechanism of the sign forming and functioning out of the ways of using it by participants of the communication process. Individual differ­ ences in the degree of mastering this means, the readiness to apply them in some way in various situations, etc., are not taken into consideration by semiology, which only pays attention to the capacity of diverse subjects to unifonnly use the same system of meaning expression.

On Semiology of Sign Means

13

The signs, sign systems and sign constructions are treated in semiology of the sign means as products of joint activity of the subjects communi­ cating in connection with certain common objects. This concerted work of communicating people includes some unifying ways of the mental treat­ ment of objects involved in cognitive, nonnative or projective fonns of activity. The unifonn modelling of these objects is perfonned by reproduc­ ible meanings of signs. Considering communication between subjects as a joint activity, in which any of them can construct and reconstruct meanings on the basis of the same "standard" semiotic means, semiology thereby treats signs and sign systems not only as external mediators between communicating sub­ jects but also as means required for the internal processes of

sense­

creation. The conscious expression of senses using signs includes acts of con­ structing these senses by unifonn meanings. In its turn, any sense-creation by the signs is at the same time an initial stage of sense-expression, irre­ spective of whether it is continued in external acts of communication or just stays at the level of "internal speech" or its analogies in non-verbal semiotic systems. Therefore, sense-creation on the one hand and sense­ expression on the other hand are treated by semiology of sign means as two sides (internal and external) of the same sign-mediated activity. In a semiology which accepts such supposition, the process of communication between the subjects would be seen as the usage of a system of means, which allows on one hand the "transmitter" of a message to

constrnct a

sense expressed in the texts by unifying meanings, and on the other hand to

reconstrnct

this sense by the "receiver" of the texts using the same

meanings of signs. A joint activity of the "transmitter" and "receiver" of texts constructing and reconstructing senses using a common system of semiotic means is usually metaphorically called the "transmission" of messages. Such a use of words is admissible until it begins to be under­ stood literally: as a transfer of any object independent of acts of construc­ tion or reconstruction. Whereas the signs and the meanings belong to a semiotic system of "language" and have a universal character, the texts and the senses, which are constructed by these language units, belong to "speech" and can ex­ press certain individual intentions (cf. Saussure,

1960: 19). An understand­

ing of these individual senses supposes the knowledge not only of the gen­ eral rules of the semiotic system, but also of a concrete context and some individual conditions of generation of a certain text. Such an understand­ ing is possible for a receiver, who is involved into the same context and knows these special conditions; in other cases, it becomes a matter of her-

1. 1 . 1 .

14

rneneutics a s a n "art of understanding". However, the interpretation of sense in both of these cases is based on the grounds given by the semiotic system with its common units of expression and of contents. The usage of this common system of codes, like Saussurean "language", is a necessary minimal condition of understanding, even if it is not enough for a com­ plete one. Semiology studies these necessary minimal conditions of understand­ ing. From its point of view, understanding looks like a correct reconstruc­ tion of a sense based on the rules of a pertinent code with its standard sign units and their unifonn meanings. Such a reconstruction does not include non-semiotic conditions of understanding-psychological, sociological, ideological or other grounds whereon one subject may be or may not be ready to understand the internal intentions of the other one. Semiotic con­ ditions are responsible only for the correct "delivery" of a message to the mind of the receiving subject rather than the subsequent acts he perfonns using it. This correct reconstruction of a meaning may be juxtaposed to its de­ construction or to its borderline case-destruction-understood as a de­ fonned reconstruction, which is not based on the rules of the code where­ on the text is built and therefore causing a shift in meaning or even chang­ ing the text. Diversions of the correct interpretations are interesting for semiology so as to find out, in a situation of incomplete understanding, what is missing that would create the semiotic conditions for understand­ ing. Constructively oriented semiotics can accept as an object of its analy­ sis a de constructed text if the research recreates a system of rules to which it is correlated, i.e. the code whereby new meanings could be correctly reconstructed.

6.

Concluding Remarks

The semiology of sign means unlike other semiotic branches limits its topic by its ways of infonnation connection, which are created in culture and used in human activity. These means differ from signals and indexes generated in nature by the necessary correlation of at least three semiotic functions. They serve together as jects for a subject,

(2) the

(I)

the means of representation of ob­

means of the internal mental activity of this sub­

ject, and (3) the means of communication between the diverse subjects. Such superposition of meditative functions in the complex of subject­ object, inter-subjective and intra-subjective relations is a proper quality of sign means created and used in human activity. Due to this quality, these means can serve for the construction and reconstruction of senses. So they

On Semiology of Sign Means

15

becomes the means of expression and understanding available for different people. This peculiarity gives the reasons to consider semiology of sign means as a theory, which researches the conditions of sense expression and the correct understanding of a message by diverse subjects. Such a theory ad­ mits, in the real process of interpretation complete understanding is hard to achieve and the correct reconstruction of sense is usually accompanied to a greater or lesser extent by its destruction and misunderstanding of texts. Overcoming these difficulties is the task of hermeneutics as an art of un­ derstanding, which intends to reveal specific features of texts and their senses taking into account the individual peculiarities of a sender and a receiver. Unlike henneneutics, the semiology of sign means is interested in the general rules of construction and reconstruction of texts and their senses. It treats the application of semiotic systems, common for the mem­ bers of a communicative process, as a necessary initial condition of its success. Thus, the semiology of sign means can be treated as a theory of general conditions, which must necessarily have a place in order for hu­ man understanding to be possible.

1. 1 .2. F. DE SAUSSURE:

A HUNDRED YEARS LATER

1. The Duality of Relations between Linguistics and Semiology More than a hundred years ago, in 1916, "Course in general linguis­ tics" (hereafter Course) by F. de Saussure appeared. The ambiguous gene­ sis of this book, compiled according to the synopses of students after the death of their teacher, did not prevent it from becoming one of the most influential books in its sphere. This book, firstly, laid the foundations of structural linguistics, secondly, initiated the development of semiology as a linguistically oriented version of the general theory of sign systems, and thirdly, generated a problem of relation between both of them (cp. Ben­ veniste, I 974a). This problem is a subject of the consideration presented below. The ideas expressed in the Course of de Saussure contain the possibil­ ity of looking at these relations in two ways. On the one hand, linguistics is considered in the book as one of the parts included in semiology togeth­ er with other parts dealing with other sign systems. Semiology is under­ stood as a domain that is methodologically necessary for a linguistic basis. "If we manage for the first time to find for linguistics a place among sci­ ences, then this is only because we linked it with semiology" (Saussure, 1977 54). On the other hand, linguistics is considered as the most complete do­ main that researches the most important, widespread and at the same time the most characteristic of semiological systems. Therefore, linguistics can serve as a pattern ("patron general") for semiology research in other sign systems, which more or less approach languages (Ibid: 101). If the last thesis is accepted, some structural and functional analogies of these systems with systems of verbal language are studied, but any of their special features, which are absent in the language, remain out the scope of attention. On the contrary, if the first thesis is adopted, these spe-

F. de Saussure: A Hlllldred Years Later

17

cial properties of the non-linguistic semiotic systems are an equally correct subject of semiotic studies, together with features of the verbal languages. This duality is in both basic principles, which are discussed in the Course together with the idea of semiology. The first of them-the princi­ ple of sign arbitrarity-is supposed as an initial thesis for the entirety of semiology. There is a note written by de Saussure in 1 894: Semiology is the science of signs that studies what happens when a person tries to convey his thought with the help of means that are inevitably con­ ditional (Saussure, 1990: 196). At the same time, de Saussure clearly understood the limitation of this principle and its relation to the characteristics of the verbal language. He notes that even a "whimsical fashion" cannot fail to take into account the natural proportions of the huruan body, and only language is completely based on arbitrary agreements (Ibid: 94). The Course contains the thesis that even if future semiology includes in its subject the systems of signs, which are not completely arbitrary (for example, in a pantomime), then still "the main subject of its consideration will be a set of systems based on the arbitrariness of the sign" (Saussure, 1977: 101). The same duality exists in the interpretation ofthe principle of linearity of signifiers-the second thesis that "the signifier, being by nature per­ ceived by hearing, unfolds only in time and is characterized by signs bor­ rowed from time : a) it has an extension, b) this extension has one dimen­ sion and is a line" (Saussure, 1977: 103). According to de Saussure, this second principle is no less important than the first one, because "the whole mechanism of the language depends on it" (Ibid.). Here also, on the one hand, de Saussure clearly opposes the organization of a verbal language turned to hearing and signifier that are visually perceived and can be com­ bined in several dimensions-such as, for example, marine signals or even writing that as a system of signs is foreign to language (Saussure, 1977: 62, 103). On the other hand, this thesis can also be interpreted as the prin­ ciple of all semiology: it is understood in this case as a science that studies such sign systems, with the help of which the chains of successive signs of any nature are built (The last interpretation of semiology can be found in the book published half a century after de Saussure; see Martynov, 1 966)

2. A View of Semiology from the Side of Linguistics Although linguistics is defined by de Saussure as a part of semiology, its principles are not deduced from the latter. Conversely, the linguist pro­ jects the principles of language formulated by him to the whole of semiol-

18

1.1 .2.

ogy, because language is understood as the most characteristic model for its subject. In the works of de Saussure followers, such a linguocentric view on the relationship between linguistics and semiology is manifested perhaps even more sharply. In Louis Hjelmslev's works, the conceptual apparatus of structural linguistics developed by him is projected onto the entirety of semiology, which differs from his glossematics only by way of a broader subject, but not in its method. From such linguocentric position, Hjelmslev proposes to establish a common point of view for a large number of disciplines, from the study of literature, art, and music, and general history, all the way to logistics and mathematics, so that from this conunon point of view these sciences are concentrated arOlllld a linguistically defined setting of prob­ lems (Hjelmslev, 1961: 108). Linguistics is treated here as a core of semiology, as the science of the initial semiotic system, in relation to which other sign systems have a de­ rivative character. Either they have a less complex structure, reproducing some functions of the verbal language, such as the code of road signs, or they are built on the language, such as the sign systems of literature. With this approach, all non-verbal sign systems are automatically treated as sec­ ondary and local with respect to the basic and universal system of the ver­ bal language. In this case, semiotics does not introduce anything new, but borrows some of its concepts and models from linguistics. The conceptual apparatus of linguistics gives the researcher such "optics" with which he can see only its likeness with a non-linguistic subject. According to 1. 1. Revzin: "the subject of semiotics is any object that lends itself to the means of a linguistic description" (cited by Lotman, 1984: 5). However, if the linguistic principles simply extend to the whole sphere of semiology, then the latter is no longer the basis for linguistics; on the contrary, linguistics would serve as the basis for all sign theory. It was this conclusion that R. Barthes made, "turning" de Saussure's formula: instead of considering linguistics as a part of semiology, it is necessary, on the contrary, to treat semiology as one of the parts of linguistics, although understood in some extended sense (Barthes, 2000: 248-249).

3. A View of Semiology from the Side of Non-linguistic Semiotic Studies Another view is possible from outside linguistics-from the side of general semiology developed independently of the theory of verbal langu-

F. de Saussure: A Hlllldred Years Later

19

age. Only in this case, semiology can serve as a methodological ground for linguistics, which was looked for in sign theory by F. de Saussure. But then the approach to non-verbal semiotic systems as incomplete languages and the mechanical extension of the principles of linguistics are already unjustified. In particular, both principles suggested in the Course by de Saussure­ the arbitrariness of signs in semantics and the linear sequence of signifiers in syntax-are not relevant for many non-linguistic semiotic systems. From this external point of view, a "Saussurean" and a "non-Saussurean" semiology are distinguished. If we call "Saussurean" the semiology which accepts these principles, then a semiotic doctrine that does not accept at least one of them would rightfully be called a "non-Saussurean" semiolo­ gy. This would be similar to mathematics, where the theories rejecting at least one postulate of Euclid's theory are called "non-Euclidean" geome­ tries. Such a "non-Saussurean" character is typical for semiology of spatial codes that have "motivated" connections between planes of expression and contents and also nonlinear ways of the units' ordering in syntactic con­ structions. These codes can regulate not only other types of connections between semiotic llllits and represented objects'-iconic similarity and indexical dependence, fixed by categories of the sign theory of eh. S. Peirce, but they also have other types of their relations to the psychical levels of communicated subjects. Together with verbalized logical con­ cepts on upper levels of the mind, content represented by means of the spatial codes can also include some ideas of "infralogical" (in Jean Pia­ get's terms) levels-perceptual images commllllicated by means of a per­ ceptographic code, diverse images of movements constructed by means of object-functional, architectonic or demarcation codes, etc. The second principle of Saussurean semiology is also not relevant for many spatial codes. Except for alphabetic writing that is especially created to reprcxluce the linear order of spoken language in space, syntactic con­ structions of properly spatial texts (in architectural buildings, in an ob­ ject's environment, in pictures etc.) are built as a rule in two or three di­ mensions. These dimensions are often connected with different meanings, and such spatial texts thereby have an anisotropic structure. They can dif­ fer from verbal syntactic constructions also by their reversibility, continui­ ty, various ways of symmetry and other structural properties that can be a subject of "semio-topology" as a specific part of spatial grammar (see be­ low, 11. 1 . 1 .2.4). Whereas the "whole mechanism" of the verbal language depend on the temporal channel of communication and the successive al­ ternation of signs in it, all mechanisms of the spatial semiosis correlate

20

1.1 .2.

with the possibilities of the spatial channel and by the simultaneous per­ ception of meaningful spatial configurations. In such a way, the semiotics of space has an essentially non­ Saussurean character. Its particular features are manifested in all three dimensions of serniosis-sernantics, syntactics and pragmatics. Its seman­ tics is not submitted to the first principle of Saussurean semiology-to the principle of sign arbitrarity. Although it preserves a value for several spa­ tial codes-as it is in cases of alphabetic writing or of [onnal calcula­ tions-the arbitrarity of semiotic means is in general non-typical for spa­ tial codes. This fact was pointed out by de Saussure himself, as well as the fact that the second principle of linearity from his semiology is also not relevant for many spatial carriers of meaning that can be combined at once in several dimensions (Saussure,

1977: 103).

Already two-dimensional

tables are related to constructions of such a "non-Saussurean" type, be­ cause the layout of meaningful units in two dimensions together is essen­ tial for them. The more meaningful architectural forms (which are dis­ cussed by de Saussure as well when illustrating the differentiation of syn­ tagmatic and associative relations), enveloped simultaneously in three di­ mensions, do not correspond to the principle of linearity. Non-linearity of syntagmatic constructions in spatial semiosis not only quantitatively increases a number of dimensions of their ordering, but also creates possibilities for their qualitative difference-for the anisotropy of their structures. In particular, in the same architectonic code, the syntag­ matic constructions ordered in the vertical and horizontal directions prin­ cipally differ. While vertically built forms are contraposed to each other as the indexes of the carrying and carried parts of a building, a "support" and a "load", the semiotic functions of horizontally built forms are on the con­ trary identified and interpreted, for example, as successions of pillars or beams. Irreversibility of sign successions is not necessary for the spatial semi­ osis either. Unlike successively ordered written texts, the spatial ones pre­ sented, for example, by architectural buildings can be considered in a dif­ ferent succession while preserving their meanings and senses. The special relation of the spatial semiosis to time is also connected with some of their pragmatic features, touching on the communicative process between interpreters. Although de Saussure did not also formulate a special pragmatic principle together with the above-mentioned semantic and syntactic principles, his reasoning is founded on a model of a speech act, which supposes a synchronous co-presence of addresser and addressee in a common process of speaking

/ listening

(see Saussure,

1977: 50).

In

spatial semiosis, this uniting process can be divided into parts of text crea-

F. de Saussure: A Hlllldred Years Later

21

tion by authors and perception by viewers in different temporal moments, which can be distanced in arbitrarily defined time. These acts can occur in different contexts and even by the changed semiotic means. In this case, the opposition of synchrony and diachrony, so important for de Saussure, is also weakened. Thus, neither the semantic principle of sign arbitrarity, nor the syntactic principle of linearity given in the Course of de Saussure nor the implicitly supposed the pragmatic principle of the communicative process's synchrony is typical for spatial semiotics. In comparison, verbal language and similar semiotic systems, where the principles of Saussurean semiology are relevant, are oriented on the development in time. Thereby, the semiology described in the Course of de Saussure looks as a semiotics of time. More exactly, it is a semiotic theory of such systems that regulate formation and interpretation of meaningful temporal relations between successive carriers of meanings: alternating sounds of speech or similarly ordered units of other semiotic systems. So, the semiotic of space as an autonomous branch of sign theory can­ not be described by a mechanical projection on the meaningful spatial ob­ jects of theoretical models, elaborated in linguistics or in temporal oriented semiology. There are, certainly, various semiotic systems with signifiers envelop­ ing together both in space and in time: gesticulation, facial expressions, meaningful touching, etc. In such cases, both temporal and spatial semio­ sis are combined, and at least the second principle of Saussurean semiolo­ gy can be applied to their temporal components. This fac� however, does not give grounds for the negation of differences between spatial and tem­ poral semiosis, nor between the two branches of semiotics studying each of them. This gives, rather, the reasons for the singling out of the third branch of the semiotic studies that researches the spatial-temporal means of representation and sense expression in various ways of significant be­ haviour-such as mimics, kinesic signs of the "body language", meaning­ ful approximations and distancing, etc. (see, in particular, Birdwhistell, 1952; Hall, 1 966; Kreidlin, 2002). The relations between these branches and general semiotics can be shown with help of the Scheme 1.1 .2-1. It is clear that the theoretical dividing of these three branches of semiotic stud­ ies does not prevent to means, which are researched by them, to interact between each other in semiotic practice. These branches can be developed in parallel in the frame of uniting semiotic science on the condition that they have a common conceptual apparatus. The contribution made by de Saussure remains important in this general apparatus: the distinction between the expression plan and the con­ tent plan, the signifier and signified, the semiotic system and its actualiza-

22

1.1 .2.

tion in texts, syntagrnatics and paradigrnatics, synchrony and diachrony, etc. The system of structural and holistic thinking, aimed at analysing en­ tire semiotic systems rather than individual signs, remains actual for gen­ eral semiology as well as for all their partial branches.

General semiotics

Temporal semiotics

Spatial-temporal semiotics

Spatial semiotics

Scheme 1 . 1 .2-1. Relations between general semiotics and its three branches that are oriented to the temporal, spatial and spatial-temporal channels of information cOImection.

The term "semiology" introduced by de Saussure can be interpreted not as an alternative to the term "semiotics", but together with it-as a name of a theoretical level of researches, where the principles of the for­ mation and using of semiotic means are clarified and can be compared with each other. Understood in this way, "semiology" preserves its initial sense, and is opposed to "semiography" as to descriptions of concrete kinds of signs, their constructions and semiotic systems that regulate their formation (see above, 1. 1 . 1 . 1). Semiography includes all special disciplines studying particular types of semiotic means-a grammar of a verbal language, heraldry, road signs, etc. In such a conceptual system, the linguistics of one language or another must also be related to the field of semiography. Unlike them, semiology is a united discipline that rises to a higher level of generalization and al­ ready deals not with the definite signs and their meanings, but with the concepts used for the descriptions of semiotic means and with the concep­ tual models that a researcher can use for this. Therefore, it is not signs themselves, but a theoretical apparatus of concepts for their research that is the subject of semiology in this sense. Semiology understood in this way could be identical to semiotics only on the condition that the latter is lim­ ited to studying the general principles of semiosis, and does not analyze its specific manifestations. However, this is not true, and many semiotic stud­ ies are dedicated to certain texts and their interpretations, and should be related therefore to the sphere of semiography, in the terms used.

F. de Saussure: A Hlllldred Years Later

23

It is obvious that a number of transition stages can be distinguished be­ tween the concrete semiographic studies of signs or grammar of particular languages and general semiology. For example, the study of a language group (Slavic, Germanic or Romance linguistics), comparative-historical linguistics, and general linguistics can be considered as the steps to gener­ alization on the way from semiography to semiology.

4. On Relations between Verbal Languages and Other Semiotic Systems If semiotics is not reduced to linguistics, and an essential difference be­ tween semiotic systems of diverse types is taken into account, the relations between verbal and non-verbal systems already look differently. The latter are no longer described as only secondary systems derived from verbal languages and carrying out its several fllllctions. Many of non-verbal se­ miotic systems have semantic, syntactic and pragmatic features that are absent in the verbal languages. An example of other semantic possibilities is music, which belongs to the same temporal semiosis as the spoken language and can even be creat­ ed by the same voice in the case of singing. Nevertheless, the semiotic means of music and language are different, in that the same singing words and melody are non-identical. Even if they are syntactically and pragmati­ cally coordinated, they essentially diverge semantically, because their in­ terpretation is performed at different levels of the psyche, and they are intended for various "psychical addresses". Therefore, in the joint action of verbal and musical semiotic means, each of them performs its own functions and cannot be changed by another one. Examples of other syntactic possibilities are have already been dis­ cussed: non-linearity, reversibility, anisotropy and other features that dif­ fer spatial semiosis from verbal language and similar semiotic systems. The same means of the spatial semiosis also have other pragmatic pos­ sibilities, than languages that regulate speech streams in time. In this rela­ tion., the possibilities of writing in its diverse forms are indicative. Writing preserves and transmits-by means of spatial semiosis-verbal messages ordered in time. These spatial means can be likened to verbal construc­ tions, to be, as F. de Saussure said, their pictures, built as one-dimensional and irreversible chains of signs, etc. However, all this "mimicry" of the spatial semiosis under the temporal one is necessary only because writing has an ability of spatial semiosis to continue in time, and not disappear immediately at the time of the utterance, which is inevitable for the tem­ poral semiosis.

24

1.1 .2.

The meaningful objects, typical for spatial semiosis, have usually such particular means as spatial [OnTIS, places, borders, etc. that are described by the special categories of spatial semiotics (see below, II. 5). Thus, a clearer distinction between the possibilities of diverse semiotic systems and their differences from the verbal language system allows us, a hundred years after the appearance of the Course of de Saussure, to ap­ proach solutions to the tasks formulated by him. The place of linguistics among other areas of semiotic studies and the limits of using it as a model for the whole of semiology today is becoming more definite.

1.2. THEORY OF SIGN

1.2. 1 . THE SIGN PRISM: A SPATIAL MODEL OF SIGNIFICATIVE SEMIOTIC MEANS

1. The Problem of Synthesis The problem of synthesizing diverse conceptions of the sign. raised by the founders of semiotics, cannot be considered as completely solved. Conceived by its creators as a unifying system of knowledge about sign means of communication, up to now semiotics has presented itself rather as a "round table", where, as J. Pele puts it, representatives of various scholarly disciplines encounter one another to debate their notions about signs. Apart from some well-known divergences between the two main versions of the theory of signs-the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce and Charles Morris and the semiology of F. de Saussure. also important is the divergence between representatives of psychological versus antipsycho­ logical orientation in the study of signs. Resolutely put forward in the log­ ical investigations of G. Frege and E. Husserl and supported later by dif­ ferent schools of structural linguistics (L. Hjelmslev, A Martinet, R Barthes, 1. Bloomfield, and others), antipsychologism disregards some aspects of sign functioning, without which any integral comprehension of the mechanism of the sign connection is not possible. It is sufficient to refer to the study of sign activity in the schools of psychology of J Piaget and 1. S. Vygotsky in order to make clear the need to take into considera­ tion psychological aspects of sign communication in any theory of signs, which lay claim to universality. However, the opposite extremity, assum­ ing that comprehending the gist of signs is possible only in the framing of a psychological theory of activity, not of linguistics or semiotics, also seems poorly grounded. Meanwhile, the chances for synthesizing diverse approaches towards the understanding of sign connection and for their unifying into a single framework are far from being exhausted. Some notions, at first seemingly mutually exclusive, turn out to be quite compatible descriptions of differ­ ent aspects of the whole picture, once viewed from a more general setting.

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

27

In this paper, a spatial model of the sign connection is suggested as an instrument of integration of diverse approaches (for a more detailed dis­ cussion on the place of the sign concept between other semiotic categories see Tchertov, 1993; 2017 as well as chapters 1 . 1 . 1 and 1.3.1 in this book).

2. The Sign Means as a Special Level of Infonnation Connection The underlying basis of the model proposed has been laid down by a conception of signs as some specific means of human activity, mediating at once between intersubject and subject-object information connections. The sign mode of connection is regarded here as a special form of infor­ mation transaction, based on the norms of encoding and decoding, as worked out within the culture. The signs interpreted in such a way are some artificially introduced conventional means of communication; they satisfy to the conditions of sign notion in the semiology of F. de Saussure and coincide with the con­ ception of a symbol in the semiotics of Ch. Peirce and Ch. Morris. How­ ever, the term "symbol" is generally known to be used not only for desig­ nating conventional signs but also for referring to some more complex means ofrepresentation that oppose rather than to identify with the signs. F or instance, such a comprehension of the concept of symbol is character­ istic for the aesthetics of Kant, Hegel, German Romantics, and many oth­ ers (see, in particular: Pochat, 1983; Smensen, 1 963). The "symbol" in this sense may hardly be substituted for some other term. Therefore it seems sound to save the notion of a symbol for expressing such non-sign or su­ per-sign means of representation. As for the two other types of infor­ mation vehicles, singled out in Ch. Peirce's semiotics "indices" and "icon­ ic signs", Peirce himself even considered them as two different stages of the sign's degeneration. Thus, Peirce's line of thought would not be essen­ tially altered by some change in the system of terms, if we were to start treating these information vehicles not as signs but as index-signal vehi­ cles or iconic models. Within such a framework of notions, sign means appear not only as some independent type but as a specific level of information connection. Whereas the building up of iconic models is possible already at the level of mechanical processes, like the print of a palm on clay, and signal­ indexical connection is innate even to the most primitive animals, the sign means to a higher level. It is within the reach of only the thinking and con­ sciously operating humans, who are subjects of activity using such means that were worked out in the culture and mastered by individuals.

28

1.2. 1 .

In comparison with the signal-indexical level of infonnation connec­ tion, the sign level of that connection assumes a more complex mechanism at work. For its description, it is not enough to use the classical scheme alone from C. Shannon's theory of communication, which draws an in­ fonnation chain leading from the "source" of a message to the "receiver" of it through the "channel" of communication and the system of encoding and decoding. Quite appropriately for the representation of the signal-indexical level of connection, the scheme does not embrace such an essential component of sign communication as an object, represented by a sign. But referencing to the denotat is a necessary condition of being a sign. This object (deno­ ta!, or referent), in general, is no longer involved directly in the infor­ mation chain itself, connecting two communicative subjects. The whole mechanism of sign connection is exactly aimed at making possible a trans­ fer of a message about such an object that does not have direct contact with the members of the information chain and goes far beyond the pre­ sent situation or even does not exist in reality at all. However, irrespective of where the denoted object is located or whether it exists somewhere or not, the pointing out of an absent object of signs is an essential and neces­ sary feature of signs, which differentiates them from signal-indexical me­ diators. The relations between the object referenced by a sign and the thought about it urges the addition of yet another dimension to the scheme of sign connection that no longer fits into the one-dimensional scheme of the information chain between the sender and the receiver of a message.

3. The Sign Mediation of Human Activity The distinction between these two dimensions related to the object ref­ erencing and the communicative orientation of signs, corresponds with the non-coincidence of two infonnation flows in human activity that are formed in subject-object and inter-subject relations. What makes the sign means particular is their constant partaking in both these information flows. Just as their participation in subject-object mediation is needed, so is their mediation in the acts of inter-subject communication, or, at least, their capability for such mediation. Wedging any of them into the system of either inter-subject or subject­ object relations in the capacity of artificially introduced mediators, the signs make two corresponding types of infonnation flows converge. Ow­ ing to such a joining, a individual's experience of the cognition, appraisal, and transfonnation of objects may be passed on from one subject to anoth­ er and accumulated within the culture's collective memory. Conversely,

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

29

thanks to this juxtaposition, the knowledge, value system and ways of transforming objects are to become the legacy of a individual via the same sIgn means. The involvement of the signs in subject-object and inter-subject rela­ tions at once determines not only the functions but also the structure of the sign mechanism. Underlying this structure is a basic "cellule" of human activity, whose components are, at least, two communicating subjects and the object of their cognition, appraisal or transformation (see Kagan, 1988: 131). Yet another central component of this "cellule" is the means of this activity. That role may be played by either some technical tools, applied to substance and energy transfonnations of the object, or specific "infonna­ tional", or, as Lev Vygotsky used to name them, "psychological" tools, exerting influence on the minds of communicating subjects. These "infor­ mational tools" or the "instruments of communication", are provided for by the sign means of connection. Like any technical tools, within the structure of the described "cell" of activity, they hold the position of the intennediate member, which coincides with neither the object of activity nor its subjects but, as appropriate to the means, mediates between their relations. Such means of activity manifests a characteristic ambivalence: they may, on the one hand, be acquired by a subject to such a degree that he starts perceiving them as a continuation of himself; on the other hand, they may be alienated from a subject, whether merging with the objects which are opposed to the subject, or coming up as an object of acquiring.

Subject­ Sender of Message

Subject­ Receiver of Message

Scheme I.2.1-1 . The sign mediation of subject-object and inter-subject relations

30

1.2. 1 .

Graphically, the structure of such an elementary "cell" of activity, in the case where a sign turns out to be in the capacity of its means, may be shown in Scheme 1.2. 1-1 . It is not difficult to see that this scheme of the "cellule" of sign activity reproduces the classical "triangle" due to K. BUhler and other investigators (see BUhler, 1934: 25; Gardiner, 1932: 7; Schaff, 1963: 265).

4. The "Plane of Content" (PC) of a Sign This elementary scheme of sign mediation, however, merely outlines but does not yet explicate the mechanism of sign connection, still lacking some components without which this mechanism could not operate. Lim­ ited to the above scheme's components, one cannot yet explain how the sign connection allows the idea of an object expressed by a sender through signs to be reconstructed in the mind of an addressee. Yet it remains un­ clear why different subjects relate the given sign with the same content and direct their thoughts precisely towards the very object the sign de­ notes. Moreover, it is still vague why the same subject should, on corning across the sign given, attribute to it the same sense and how the under­ standing of the sign differs from a casual association. The point is that if even we, following A Schaff, were to call the relationship of the sign to any of the other three components of K. BUhler's scheme a "meaning" of the sign, then comprehending a mechanism that allowed the "transferring" of an idea from one mind to another would not have yet been reached. For the connection of mental images with the given sign to assume a necessary character for different subjects, the involvement of yet another component, not fixed on the Scheme 1.2.1-1 as an independent unit, is needed. Meanwhile, a similar component occurs in many versions of the theory of signs, though treated in them in different ways and devoid of a generally adopted terminological usage. The role of such a component is played, for instance, by the notion of "sense" ("Sinn") in G. Frege's con­ ception, the notion of "meaning" ("Bedeutung") in E. Husserl's system, "significatum" in Ch. Morris', the "form of content" in 1. Hjelmslev, and so forth. Viewed as a part of the whole mechanism, this component pre­ sents itself as nothing but a mode of interpreting the sign, adopted within the given culture, that is, as a code-a prescribed nonn of its comprehen­ sion. Just as the mode of operating technical tools within a culture, the mode of comprehending the signs, as assimilated by individuals, is shap­ ing into a skill to have become the property of the mental system of these individuals. As distinct from material carriers of signs, the way of their comprehension cannot exist beyond the mental sphere of the subjects

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

31

which are using it. However, once it is generally adopted, the way of com­ prehension is not reducible any more to the mental states of a particular subject. As long as there exist several subjects in possession of this mode, this mode seems for any of them to be some external objective entity-a unit of the culture. This unit is already independent from such circum­ stances as the degree to which a particular subject has acquired it and whether he has used the code-prescribed norm of comprehension under the situation given or has deviated from it. In this duality of semantic meaning (a signified), which for one thing does not exist beyond the mind of the single subjects involved but, at the same time, is independent from any of them taken separately, one may recognize the abovementioned ambivalence of any tools of activity: it may be acquired by concrete subjects but, at the same time, is still capable of alienating any of them. From the sign means as materialized in an external carrier, the mode of comprehension, imprinted in the signified, differs only in that it is operating within the very mental sphere of a subject, becoming an interiorized element of it. According to Lew Vygotsky, the generality of the meaning as a unit of thinking is derivative from the general usage of it as an unit of communication (see Vygotsky, 1982: 1 8-19). That is why the signified combines in itself both the function of a more or less general category of the cognition of objects and the function of a unified means, as needed for the mutual understanding between subjects. Thus, a signified turns out to be the very same bridging element that is gluing the object and the ideas of different subj ects about it into a single complex.

Scheme 1.2. 1-2. The plan of content (PC) ofa sign

32

1.2. 1 .

Taken together, all these components set up a system which may be considered as the "plan of content" of a sign (admitting the application to a single sign of the term, usually applied to the text as a whole). The scheme of the plane of content (PC) has an already familiar structure of an elemen­ tary "cellule" of activity, directed to the common object and mediated via some means to have been worked out within the culture. Such a mediator in this case is the generally adopted way of comprehending-the signified (see Scheme 1.2. 1-2). 5. The "Plane of Expression" (PE) of a Sign Just as the application of the general scheme of mediating the sense­ generation mechanism allows for the splitting of the concept of "meaning" into a number of components, which make up the PC, the application of the same scheme to sign-generation also allows for the splitting of the concept of "sign" into similar components of the "plane of expression" (PE). That the original concept of the "sign" is decomposable into a whole family of concepts is evident already from the well-known divergence in the views of the founders of sign theory on the essence of the fundamental concept of the "sign". In Ch. Morris' view, the sign is a material sign­ vehicle, i.e. an outward material mediator of communication, whereas F. de Saussure treats as the "signifying" side of the double-sided notion of the sign (signijiant), not this external carrier of the message, but its sensed image in the mind of a subject Either component of sign communication is equally needed to make such communication happen. Obviously not identical to each other, they cannot be grasped within a single concept of the "sign". That is why A.A. Leoni' ev, for instance, introduced two concepts of the sign, "sign-I " and "sign-2", in order to make this distinction quite explicit (see Leont'ev, 1975 1 20). But the differentiation of components of the PE may be continued. Since the functions of the sender and the receiver in the process of sign communication are not identical, one also needs to distinguish between their corresponding types of sensed images. For the sender, this is a preimage of the required sign to have been generated in the mind before the sign is fonned and used, whereas for the receiver, it is a perceived im­ age of the already existing sign vehicle. Both of these types of sensuous images have a common basis-a scheme of sign, in accordance with which, in one case, an external fonn of the sign is produced, whereas in the other, it is to be reproduced and rec­ ognized. Such a scheme of sign is something more than an individual skill

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

33

of a concrete subject. This comes up as a cultural nonn, ascribed by the code, that single individuals get accustomed to, as a mode of activity set up from the outside. The universal character of this norm obliges the re­ ceiver in the process of perceiving some material carrier, to pick up out of the collection of properties only those which the sender has imparted to this mediator and which are needed to recognize in this material carrier a sign of the type given. Keeping in mind such a cultural norm that allows for the construction and recognition of the sign forms, theoreticians speak about the signs of language as distinct from the signs of speech, or from a concrete "sign-type" or "sign-pattern", or reserving for it, as in the present article, the term of "the significant" (see Camap, 1946: 59; Lewis, 1943: 36; Vartazaryan, 1973: 46). So, in the structure of the PE, one may observe the same scheme of the elementary "cellule" of the subject's activity, with respect to a common object through the means adopted in culture. Though, with respect to the PC, the PE as a whole remains throughout a complex of communication means, and within this complex the roles of its constituents are divided. F or instance, a material carrier of the sign within the framework of the very PE now plays the role of an object under formation for the subject­ sender along the role of an object to be recognized by the subject-receiver Just as within the structure of the PC, in the PE the cultural norm takes on the functions of the means of activity, but now this is not a norm of com­ prehending the content, but one of generating and of recognizing the form of a sign, i.e. not a significat but a significant (see Scheme 1.2.1-3).

Preimage of the Sign in the Mind of Subject­ Sender

Scheme 1.2. 1-3. The plan of expression (PE) of a sign

Perceptive Image of the Sign in the Mind of

34

1.2. 1 .

6.

The Semantic Relations between the Components of the Both Planes

Between the PC and the PE of the sign, a specific system of relations is built up that does not coincide with neither communicative nor any other pragmatic functions of signs. This system [OnTIS a special dimension, a semantic one. Considering the PE and the PC as two "horizontal" plans, the relations between them corne up now as "vertical" lines, coupling iso­ functional components of the PE and the Pc. Among them are two "sub­ ject-generated" lines. One of them is induced by the relation of externali­ zation between the thought or feeling expressed by the subject-sender, and his image of the corresponding sign. Another line is forrued by the inverse relation of interpretation between the percept of the sign and its sense in the mind of the subject-receiver of the message decoded. The very same system also includes an "object-generated" line, induced by the relation of denoting between the material carrier and the object it denotes. Both the "subject-generated" and "object-generated" lines are tied together via the central line which may be named "instrumental". This line is induced by the relation of signification between the corresponding components of the PE and the Pc. Just like its constituents, this relation of signification is not reducible to either the psychics of single subjects or to some relation be­ tween two objects: the material carrier of the sign and its denotat. Thus the relation of signification turns out to be the very "instrument" that is the core of the sign mechanism. 7.

The "Sign Prism"

Based on the analysis of the components of the PE and the PC, along with the semantic relations between them, the whole complex of basic elements, partaking in the organization of the sign connection, may be depicted in the forru of a spatial model shown in Scheme 1.2.1-4. Built up by the elements which are necessary and sufficient for organ­ izing the sign mode of communication, the "sign prism" presented on the below scheme exposes a system of relations between them, that is, a struc­ ture of this special mechanism which makes such a mode possible. The "sign prism" model is thus complete with respect to the sign mode of communication in the sense that, in order to become a carrier of a sign message, some event or thing should get involved into this system of the model's relations. As such a single sign (cf. : the "sinsign" and "sign­ token" of Peirce, the "sign-instance" of Lewis, the "sign-event" of Carnap,

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

35

F The Mental Image of the Denoted

A The Mental Image Of the Denoted

Object in the Mind of the SUbj ect­ Receiver

Obj ect in the Mind of the Subj ect-Sender

Denoted Obj ect (Referent)

The Sensuous Image of the Sign by the Subj ect-Sender

E The Sensuous Image of the Sign by the Subj ect­

B

Receiver

The Single Sign

Scheme I.2. 1-4. The spatial model of the significative way of semiosis (the " sign prism")

36

1.2. 1 .

and so forth), any event or thing may come up that is capable of holding the position of the element "D" in the system of relations (see Scheme I.2.1-4). In other words, any event or thing becomes a single sign if the follow­ ing conditions are satisfied: (1) It conveys a mental image (A) within the mind of a subject-sender, directed towards some real or imaginary object (e), which external­ izes the mental image of the sign (B); (2) The image of an object, the image of a sign and their interconnec­ tion are established in compliance with the model, as given by the code's corresponding units: a signifying (G), a significant (H), and the relation of signification(HG); (3) The same code's units also detennine some nonn of the fonnation of the images of a sign and its denotat within the mind of a subject­ receiver: the significant (H) provides a scheme for selecting rele­ vant features out of some material sign-vehicle in the process of building its perceived image (E), while the signifying (G) deter­ mines some norm of reconstructing the mental image (F) thereby, the latter may be also directed towards the denoted object(C}

8. The Invariability of the "Sign Prism" As a system of necessary and sufficient elements of the sign mecha­ nism, the above scheme is reproduced under any circumstances of the sign connection. This mechanism' s structure persists up to any possible varia­ tions of its constituent elements. The fact of its invariability may be checked out by some tentative attempts to eliminate one or more compo­ nents out of the "sign prism" scheme. For instance, it may seem that it would not be difficult to remove from it the object-referent (vertex "C" at Scheme 1.2.1-4) that the sign denotes. However, the point is that the whole mechanism of the sign connection may be considered as a way of getting rid of the need to react only to the stimuli under some actual situation presented and of having a possibility to transfer thoughts about some object, which may not be presented, and which might not even exist. But that is exactly owing to the fact that the "sign prism" mechanism is at work, its structure is not dependent on the presence or the absence of the object represented. The position of the ref­ erent of a sign is always reserved, irrespective of whether it is actually occupied by some concrete object or not, as long as it is the object of the reference-ability of the sign preserved, which is dependent on the object relativeness of the thought, by a sign expressed.

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

37

The apparent ease of eliminating other components out of the whole system of the "sign prism" turns out to be just as illusory. That is to say, by attempting to eliminate its components of the "subject" line of one or other subject, it is yet impossible to escape from the distinction between the two functions-those of a sender and those of a receiver of a message and, therefore, from the edges AB and EF in the "sign prism" scheme­ irrespective of whether these functions are being performed by different individuals or the same one. Moreover, in default of any external material mediator, when the sign representation is proceeding only in the mind of a subject, one may speak about the process being of the sign character only to the degree that it is unfolding as a process of auto-communication. In this internal dialogue not only are the distinctions between the functions of a "sender" and of a "receiver" preserved, but the function of a sign mediator still remains. But in this case the external sign is replaced with some internal substitute, such as the initial stages of articulation, which serve as the "substance of ex­ pression" in the processes of inner speech. Whatever the transformation of possible components making up the "vertices" in the "sign prism" model in the cases of inter-subject commu­ nication or of auto-communication, two components, forming the central "instrumental" line, are invariant under any circumstances of the usage of the given sign. Involved into this line, the significat, the significant and the relation of signifying that connects them are no longer dependent on whether they are used by one or other subject on the occasion of one or other object in the acts of outer or inner speech. They are related to the general system of sign means-the code, the language, but not to concrete acts of their usage in speech. They just give a scheme, along which various subjects are forming their images of signs and its meanings, but do not get involved directly in the infonnation chain leading from the sender to the receiver. These com­ ponents only make up this invariable "skeleton", around which various infonnation chains can be constructed. The existence of this "skeleton", along with a stable system of relations between the variable components of the sign process unfolding, may serve as a criterion for one or other infor­ mation means being a sign. 9.

The "Sign Prism" as an Integral Model

The spatial model of the "sign prism" embraces quite a few simpler schemes making up diverse "semantic triangles". So, in the triangles ACD and FCD it is easy to recognize the instances of the "triangle" of Ch. Og-

38

1.2. 1 .

den and A Richards that contains, along with the sign ("sym bol"), the object denoted by the sign ("referent") and the thought of the subject about it ("reference"). The triangle CDG is an instance of G. Frege's triangle which differs from Ch. Ogden and A Richards' one essentially only in handling the sense ("Sinn") as the objectivized, subject-independent sig­ nificat instead of the mental image within the subject's mind. Another variant of the "semantic triangle", the triads DGA and DGF, contain the elements singled out by Ch. Morris as the "sign-vehicle", "designatum" and "interpretant". The "sign prism" scheme also embraces the basic "diad" of the com­ ponents making up the bilateral "sign", as suggested in the semiology of de Saussure : the coupling of an acoustic image ("signijicmt") with a con­ cept ("signijie"). They are implemented by the two "subject" lines, AB and EF. Moreover, the "sign prism" comprises the components of L. Hjehnslev's version of the "semantic diad" as a result of replacing the psychological elements of Saussure' s diad with an objective interdepend­ ence of the "fonn of expression" and "fonn of content", as ascribed by the code. To such an "anti-psychological" version of the diad, the components of the skeletal "instrumental" line GH correspond. The choice of any of similar schemes is quite justified within the con­ text of a corresponding investigation task. Diverse scientific disciplines single out from the integral mechanism of the sign connection those as­ pects which relate to their subject area. Thus, for instance, out of the com­ plex of semantic relations between components of the PE and the PC, log­ ical semantics considers only those fitting Frege's "triangle" (CDG). This specialization may be continued: while the "theory of reference" deals with the relation CD, the "theory of meaning", as detached from it, focuses on the relation eG. Distinct from logical semantics, semantics within the framework of structural linguistics concentrates on the relations of the "instrumental" line GH. These relations between the "form of content" and the "form of expression" make up the core of the sign means of language, which is the subject matter of linguistics. Linguistic semantics essentially differs in this respect from psycholog­ ical semantics, which, on the contrary, focuses on the relations of "sub­ j ect" lines AB and EF. All these aspects of semantic relations, however, are unacceptable in the epistemological analysis of the role of signs in cognitive processes, which is concerned most of all not with the "vertical" semantic relations between components of the PE and the PC but the "horizontal" relations between the subjects and objects of their cognition. This distinction is not

The Sign Prism: A Spatial Model of Significative Semiotic Means

39

quite discernible in the schemes of "semantic triangles", whereas the squares ABCD and CDEF clearly show this. But the epistemological analysis does not exhaust the investigations in the "horizontal" planes of the sign mechanism . No less important than the subject-object connections for sign means is also another direction­ intersubjective relations. Both, taken separately, may be described using the classical scheme from C. Shannon's communication theory, consider­ ing them as a "source", "receiver", "communication channel" and the de­ vices for coding and decoding. In the scheme of "the sign prism", such an information chain between two communicating subjects is made up by the "A-B-D-E-F" diagram. However, as has already been stated, for the sign mode of information transfer, distinct from signal-indexical meditation, the gluing of subject­ object and inter-subject relations in a single complex is also important. This complex is best demonstrated by K. BUhler's "triangle", which in the "sign prism" scheme is stretched out in the pyramid DACF. Thus, many well-known models of sign mediating are not alternative but rather quite compatible fragments of an integral mechanism . As long as a choice of one or other aspect of this mechanism and abstracting from other sides of it remains just a methodological tool, letting one concentrate on a certain investigation task, it is quite justified, like, say, the coexist­ ence of drawings of diverse facades of the same building or its plans. And only the intention to reduce all the study of sign connections to one of these fragments would lead to the deformation of a whole picture. One example of a similar reduction is the conceptions of behaviourists, who are striving to exclude from the investigation everything related to the subjective side of the sign processes, and to consider just the components of the "object" line. An inverse instance of such a reduction is the ideas of Neo-Kantianism on the inadmissibility of an exit into the sphere of objects and the necessity to take into consideration only the subjective side of pro­ cesses. In all such cases, the whole picture of semiosis is not only being put into the background but is being changed in principle for some of its fragments. So, the "sign prism" model, as suggested above, may well turn out to be a useful instrument in the investigation that allows for the preservation of the comprehension of the sign mechanism as a whole and shows visibly its overall structure.

1.2.2. To THE THEORY OF SIGN

The theory of sign is a system of statements, due to which the sense of the word "sign" is revealed. Its task is to find out the conditions under which something acquires a sign function. The description of these condi­ tions requires an explanation of the mechanism due to which the sign con­ nection is performed. That needs an explication of the relations in which something should enter in order to acquire sign functions. The elements of the mechanism are considered here independently without applying them to such concepts as, for example, "subject" or "means" of activity. The visual-spatial model of the "sign prism" is also not used here; although it helps to obtain an intuitive grasp of the whole system of relations, it is essential to describe the mechanism of sign corn­ murrication by purely discursive means of verbally fonnulated concepts. The sign connection is described below in the system of tenns succes­ sively related to each other and receiving only such meanings as appear from these relations. The same element can be revealed from different angles through its relationship with the diverse components of the sign communication mechanism. So, different definitions of the same element are possible, which do not exclude but rather complement each other. The concepts of sign theory are entered in such a way that their disclosure re­ quires the addition of new concepts related to the already introduced terms. Therefore a logic circle is inevitable for such a closed system of term definitions. The relationships of these concepts form a theoretical model for the described mechanism . Sign is anything that has a fixed meaning. To have afixed meaning means to be systematically related to a certain comprehension scheme of a sign. Comprehension scheme of a sign (a signified) is a reproducible way of correlating the sign with a certain class of referents. Class of referents related to a definite sign is a class of real or imag­ ined objects, which have features that pennit one to refer them to this sign in such a way that is fixed in the comprehension scheme of the given sign.

To the Theory of Sign

41

Referent of a sign is every object related to this sign according to its comprehension scheme. Actualization of the sign comprehension scheme is its use in specific acts of correlating the sign with the class of referents. Sense construction (sense) is the result of the actualization of the sign comprehension scheme. Meaning of a sign is these elements and structures of the sense con­ struction, which are fonned in strict accordance with the comprehension scheme of the sign. Meaning ofa sign is its unified sense. Sense of a sign is its concretized meaning. A sense construction can contain, besides the meaning, elements and structures detennined by something other than the comprehension scheme of the sign: a situation of its use, context, the involvement of an indirect connotative meaning, etc. The actualization of the comprehension scheme of a sign can be prima­ ry or secondary. Primary actualization of the comprehension scheme of a sign (con­ struction of the sense) is the fonning of the sense in the act of expression. Secondary actualization of the comprehension scheme (reconstruction of the sense) is the forming of the sense in the act of interpretation. Expression of the sense is the actualization of the comprehension scheme of a sign connected with the formation scheme of the sign by a defined norm in the act of sign fonuing. Formation scheme of a sign (a significant) is a set of definite features (properties and relations) according to which a planning, embodiment and identification of the sign are performed. Planning of a sign is the actualization of the significant as a fonnation scheme of embodiment of the sign. Embodiment of a sign is the transfonuation of a substrate, by which a sign-exemplar is created or placed in a certain position. Sign-exemplar-"a carrier of a sign" -is a material object that has fea­ tures (properties and relations) fixed in the significant as in a scheme of forming of the sign. The sign-exemplar can be repeatedly reproduced in the same or in an­ other substraturu. Its reproduction may be performed mechanically without actualization of the mental scheme of its formation. The reproduced sign­ exemplars can be identified as the embodiments of one and the same sign­ type, if they have features fixed in the significant Identification of a sign is an actualization of the significant as a scheme of recognition of these features in a material object and its acknowledg­ ment as an exemplar of the sign.

42

1.2.2.

Planning and identification of a sign according to the scheme of its fonning are respectively a primary and a secondary actualization of the significant. The result of the primary actualization of the significant is the plan of the sIgn. The result of the secondary actualization of the significant is the image of the sign. Interpretation of a sign is the secondary actualization of the scheme of its comprehension. The result of the interpretation of a sign-exemplar is its relating to a referent due to the secondary interpretation of the scheme of comprehension. Relation of reference is a relation between a sign-exemplar (body of the sign) and its referen� established by interpretation according to a system nonn of connection between the signified and the significant. Established by a semiotic system connection between the signified and the significant is the relation ofsignification. The relation between a primary actualization of the signified and a primary actualization of the significant is the relation ofexpression. The relation between a secondary actualization of the signification and a secondary actualization of the significant is the relation ofinterpretation The reference, the signification, the expression and the interpretation are semantic relations. The body of a sign, its plan, its image and the significan� which is related to all of them, build the plane ofexpression of the sign. The referent of a sign, the primary and the secondary comprehension of a sign and the signified, which is related to all of them, build the plane of content of the sign. Sign connection is the connection between the expressed and interpreted senses. It perfonns as a result of the primary and secondary actualizations of the signified by the special mechanism. Mechanism of the sign connection is the system of semantic relations between components of the planes of expression and of content. In other words, this mechanism is mediated by the nonns of signification chain of connections between the primary actualizations of the significant and the signified in the acts of expression and their secondary actualizations in the acts of interpretation. Sign (exemplar) is all that is able to perform communicative and representative functions with the help of the mechanism of the sign connection. That means the sign is something that enters into the relation of reference to an object due to the relations of expression and of interpretation coordinated with the relation of signification.

1.3. D IVE R S ITY OF S EMIOTIC M EANS

1.3 . 1 . ON DIVERSITY AND CONNECTIONS OF SEMIOTIC MEANS

Introduction Serniosis-rnediated by external and internal means-is understood differently, in a more or less wide sense. F. de Saussure, based on his lin­ guistic research, defined semiology as a discipline that should investigate "the life of signs within society" (Saussure, 1977: 54). Unlike this, the theory of signs developed by Ch. S. Peirce, fonned in the frame of logics, can be applied to the research of many phenomena that are far from the limits of properly logical constructions and even from the limits of social processes (Peirce, 1 932). Created on this basis by Ch. Morris, the "general theory of signs" directly declares the ability to describe the mediated in­ formation connections not only in the human mind or in social communi­ cations, but also in the internal and external processes occurring in biolog­ ical systems (Morris, 1971a). After the Cybernetics ofN. Wiener (1 948), a common base of information processes in the mind, society, biosphere and sphere of technical devices became generally known. The development of bioserniotics and the semiotics of technics is performed on this ground. At the same time, the differences between the mental and communica­ tive processes based on the culturally elaborated semiotic means, and the information processes in the biosphere or technical devices are also well known. Bearing in mind this difference, U Eco defined a "threshold" of semiotics, which, in his opinion, should remain in the frame of phenome­ na, created in culture and connected with communication between people (see Eco, 1 976). All these approaches to the subject of semiotics and to its limits, de­ spite all their differences, are common in the generalized view on the sub­ ject of semiotic studies as being on a more or less united field of semiotic processes, to which a unified conceptual apparatus can be applied. Indeed, a peculiarity of semiotics (in contrast, say, to henneneutics) is an intention to embrace the most varied objects with the unified conceptual apparatus.

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

45

This intention takes part even in semiographic studies of particular signs, texts and semiotic systems. A fortiori, it is essential for research on the semiological level, where the generalization touches already common fea­ tures of means from diverse semiotic systems. (On the differences of the levels of semiotic studies, see more details in L l . l above.) The unification, nevertheless, does not exclude a more detailed distinction of researched objects: the differences between levels, where the processes of semiosis can occur, and between the semiotic means used for the communication and representation of diverse objects.

1. Infonnation Connection and Semiosis 1.1.

The Concept of Information Connection

All distinctions of the concepts can take place, if there is a common basis for them. A wide enough basis for the concept of semiosis and its species is provided by the category of information connection. This con­ cept can be considered not only quantitatively, as it is in information theo­ ry (Shannon, 1 948), but also qualitatively-as a determination by definite rules of the relations in one system ("receiver") by the relations of some other systems ("source"). The information can then be understood as a result of such determination-as a complex of relations changed in the system-receiver under the influence of interaction with some external agents. Such a result depends on particular qualities of these agents and on the features of the receiving system as well (see more detailed in Tchertov, 1993: 1 8). The content of the term "information" is in accordance with the internal form of the Latin verb informare-'to bring a form' . Although the information connection is always based on some material-energy process­ es, it cannot be reduced to them, and, as Norbert Wiener says, information is information, not matter or energy. The concept of information connection includes, firstly, direct deter­ mination from the outside of a receiving formation, which reproduces more or less fully the structure of an external agent Such a direct "transfer of structures" in the cause-effect chains takes place, for example, in the case of a mechanical print. If such a print or any other object similar to a reproduced object is made intentionally for the representation of an exter­ nal source, one can call it an iconic model. The structural features of this source are most accurately reproduced if the received system's own struc­ ture are least developed-for example, when an engraving is imprinted on a blank sheet of paper, and not on one where there are already traces of previous prints.

46

I.3 . 1 .

Secondly, the concept of information connection includes more com­ plex ways of determining the relations in system-receiver by external rela­ tions when the result of their interaction essentially depends not only on the structural features of the external agent, but also on a readiness of the receiver to react on these features in a certain way. The result of the inter­ action of the external and internal structures in such cases can to various degrees be determined by each of thern, and in an extreme case, a minimal external action can be an impetus for a maximally complex reaction of the perceiving system. Unlike the direct transmission of structure through the causal chains, the infonnation connection in these cases is mediated by both factors. One of them is an external mediator between a more or less outlying source of information and its receiver. Such an external mediator can also exist in cases of direct information connections. For example, when casting a stat­ ue, its outlines are first transmitted to the plaster form taken from it, and only then does the material, poured into the cavity formed by it, reproduce the shape of the original. In this case, the less the cast's own structural features depend on the peculiarities of the mediator, the more similarity there will be between the copy and the original. The situation differs in the case of an indirect information connection. The external mediator may not have any similarity to the content of the message transmitted from the source to the receiver. In contrast to a blank sheet, where the less it shows its own structure, the better it will perceive the information from the outside, the system that receives infonnation must already be structured in some special way. This initial structure of the system can influence the result of the infonnation no less than the structure of the external mediator. A letter can contain only one word and nevertheless evoke a number of actions by the receiver. The complex structure of these actions may be quite incomparable with the structure of this word. Information in this case cannot be determined solely by its ex­ ternal carrier, but necessarily implies that the receiver possesses certain information of a different kind in advance. This is, firstly, knowledge of how the letters contained in it are read, secondly, what their combination means, and, finally, information about the world that affects the interpreta­ tion. Unlike the last point, the first two relate to the conditions of receiving information. 1.2. Proto-information and Code

These conditions can be called proto-inJormation information on the ways of receiving and sending information (cp. concepts of Vorinfor"

"-

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

47

mation and meta-information respectively in Meyer-Eppler, 1959: 25 1 ; Shreider, 2012: 33). This proto-infonnation is the structural peculiarities, an initial fonn that should be introduced in the system before it can receive the infonnation from outside. In particular, the possession of the "fonn of expression", of the "fonn of content" and of their connections in the lan­ guage is a necessary condition for the use of the signs of this language, according to 1. Hjelmslev (1961). When the received system is initially charged with certain proto­ information, external influence actualizes some part of it, detennining the choice of some information reaction. The sources of such a priori fonns, or proto-infonnation, can be infonnation processes of different scales and levels that preceded the act of obtaining a posteriori infonnation derived from a new experience. They can be the processes of biological phylogeny or the evolution of culture, the results of previous individual experience or obtaining in the education processes of experience accumulated in the cul­ ture. The concept of proto-infonnation is concretized in the concept of code, interpreted as preliminary information entered into the system about the means of obtaining and transmitting information. The essential stages of the processes of indirect information communication are acts of coding and of decoding, that is, acts of correlating infonnation and proto­ information in accordance with the norms of this code. When coding in accordance with these norms, meaningful features of the infonnation car­ rier are formed, which constitute a "message" in it. In decoding, this mes­ sage is deciphered, and these features are interpreted according to the same norms. The proto-information of the system can include a whole complex of various codes that, jointly or alternatively, participate in the reception and transmission of information. Each of these codes is a system of norms that detennines the links of internal proto-information with external infor­ mation that is "put" into the message by the sender or is "retrieved" from it by the receiver. In accordance with these norms, the elements and struc­ tures responsible for the transfer of the infonnation are selected and inter­ preted. Such norms can be set by natural laws or have a cultural basis, they can be "embedded" in the system initially or be acquired by it at some stage of its functioning; they can also be declared explicitly or disclosed as a result of the analysis. However, in any case, the addresser and the ad­ dressee should already have a code as proto-infonnation for the transmis­ sion and correct interpretation of the information through a coded mes­ sage.

48

I.3 . 1 . 1 . 3. The Concept of Semiosis

The process of mediated infonnation connection corresponds to what has been called semiosis (UYfIJBiw(Ju;) since the times of the ancient Stoics. Charles Morris considered serniosis as "the process in which something functions as a sign" and in which "a taking-account-of-sornething" is per­ formed by some mediators (Morris. 1971a: 1 9-20). The external mediators that participate in this process can be labelled with the same word "semeion" ((J�J1Blov) that was used in the same wide sense in ancient philosophy. This word can be employed today as a hyper­ nym for such terms as "sign", "symbol", "index", "signal", etc. that can be considered in this case as its species, whose differences will be discussed below. Mediation in serniosis has two components: outside and inside. Every external mediator, semeion, can be the bearer of information only for its receiver or sender, which have inside special proto-infonnation for their interpretation-a semiotic system for the coding and decoding of the mes­ sages. In this sense, semiosis, as such a twice mediated infonnation con­ nection, is contraposed to direct detennination of relations by other rela­ tions, like by printing stamps and similar mechanical or optical processes of reproducing an external object fonn. Even if such processes contain mediating links, such as casting in a prepared form, they all occur until the stage at which their results can be interpreted using some code as proto­ information. Therefore, such extra-code processes can be considered as pre-semiotic or extra-semiotic ones. Semiosis is always a process of corre­ lating, according to certain rules, the external infonnation cooed or decod­ ed at a given moment with previously obtained internal proto-infonnation - a code or an association of codes in a more complex semiotic system. Semiosis is comparable with another concept of ancient Greek philoso­ phy-mimesis (p.iJ1�(Ju;), which is used for the signification of an imitation of something other due to its likeness with it. Both semiosis and mimesis can perfonn a representative function, however the structural organization of their means is different. If mimesis is conditioned by internal iconic similarity between the represented and representing objects, semiosis is based on the connection between them that is fixed in a code and is inde­ pendent of such similarity. Nevertheless, if mimesis is not an involuntary natural process of imitation, but it is a result of a conscious activity for the creation of some productive or reproductive models, it can be considered as a basis of modelling and involved in the field of semiotics (see below: IL6.1).

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

49

1.4. Levels of Semiosis

Semiotic means developed in culture and used in human activity differ from carriers of infonnation in biological systems or technical devices. However, in a variety of infonnation processes, there is a similarity in a number of features, a certain illlified basis associated with ways of corre­ lating in them external information and internal proto-information, mes­ sage and code. On the one hand, natural codes not only serve as a condi­ tion for the development of cultural semiotic systems. but also they are transformed in culture, for example, into the means of artistic expressive­ ness. On the other hand, several semiotic means formed in culture can function without a human-for example, in computers. In order to de­ scribe relationships between diverse semiotic processes, it is necessary to have a illlifying apparatus of concepts. Semiotics will lose such a possibil­ ity, if, by definition, information processes occurring in the biosphere or in technical systems are excluded from its subject matter. In order not to mix processes of different types and levels, semiotics does not need to bring out of its subject everything that is not included in culture and is not created as a means of human activity. It is quite enough for this to define clearly and just semiotic ally the differences between the levels of the mediated information connections, that is, between levels of semiosis. Then, within semiotics itself, it will be possible to distinguish the signal-indexical level of semiosis, accessible to biological organisms and technical devices, and the sign level that appears in human activity.

2. The Signal-indexical Level of Semiosis 2.1. Signals

We will understand signals as such information influences on the re­ ceiver system that are capable of triggering in it certain reactions, condi­ tioned by the pre-information available in the given system, i.e. by code. Under the influence of signals, a part of this proto-infonnation is actual­ ized and a choice of one or another of the possible reactions takes place. However, these reactions, their elements and the structures themselves are predetermined by the structural features that the receiver possesses. There is already an ability for such reactions in programmed automata to respond in a certain way to definite mechanical effects. A fortiori, this ability is inherent in the living organisms that have conditional and uncon­ ditional reflexes. Systems in which external signals detennine the choice

50

I.3 . 1 .

of one or another of the possible reactions are involved in the infonnation processes of the detennination of relations by relations. These processes are covered by the concept of serniosis, as defined above, since the information connection in them has a double mediation: it involves not only external media, but also internal proto-infonnation about the ways of decoding them. In these processes two types of relations inter­ act: the external ties, which characterize this signal and distinguish it from other signals, and internal ties, which occur due to the participation of the proto-infonnation integrated into the receiving signal system. The signal way of communication assumes a certain information isola­ tion of the receiver system and selectivity regarding external influences. Not every kind of effect can be signals carrying information for this sys­ tem, but only those that are capable, first, be separated from "noise", and secondly, be distinguished from each other. The signal recognized in this way acts as a key that triggers a certain reaction 2.2. Indexes

Some of the systems-receivers of information are able not only to re­ spond to external signal impacts, but also to create the internal models of situations where they appear. In particular, the psychical images of the world belong to the class of such internal models. The information bearers reveal their reverse side for these systems. Together with their relation to the receiver, some of their relations to a source are also opened in these models. Pointing at this source and its features, the connected bearer of information functions not only as the signal, but also as the index. Every index is a part or a feature of the situation in which it opens to the inter­ preter pointing to other parts or features of it. Classic examples of indexes ' are smoke indicating a fire, frowning brows expressing anger, etc. Phenomena that become indices can have the status of things, qualities, or relationships. Their connection with the object to which they point ap­ pears due to spatial or temporal contiguity with it, a causal or genetic con­ nection, as well as if they and this object become a consequence of one cause. The class of indices includes not only the evidences of some proper­ ties of a given situation in the present, but also traces or effects of past events. There are also prognostic indexes that foreshadow some events, as clouds portend a storm. Their special class is formed by symptoms that indicate such properties of the situation, which in principle cannot be fixed other than through the indices that display them (for example, a smile as a sign of joy). A combination of symptoms forms a syndrome.

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

51

Infonnation carriers are indices for an interpreter capable of extracting this information: smoke serves as an index for someone who knows that "there is no smoke without fire"; fhe face of a son causally related to the father serves as an index for someone who recognizes in this face generic features, etc. In all cases, only one natural relationship between the index and the object-the relationship of contiguity in space and time or causa­ tion-is not enough. Extracting infonnation from indexes becomes possi­ ble to the extent to which they can be recognized as parts or features of some reproducible situation. This experience can be a part of the know­ ledge about the world and does not necessarily stand out in a special semi­ otic system. However, if such relationships are of a regular nature, they can be considered as

indexical codes.

These codes can be fonned sponta­

neously, based only on natural patterns, and can also be naturally acquired, for example, through genetically transmitted instincts or through the for­ mation of conditional reflexes in learning processes. They can also be the subject of special cognition-as the symptoms of diseases with which medical semiotics is engaged. In both cases, it is acceptable to talk about

natural indices. Another case is presented by

artificial indices--{)bjects deliberately in­

troduced into the situation, which acquire the status of carriers of infor­ mation due to some natural connections of things or likeness with them. Among the artificially introduced indices, we will distinguish marks, indi­ cators, simulacra and indexals (deictic signs).

Marks are

the artificially introduced traces of certain acts (serifs, nicks,

smears of paint, etc.). The set of marks forms the spatial

marking of,

for

example, a construction site, a pattern for a tailor, etc.

Indicators are the bodies

that are artificially introduced into a situation,

peculiarities of which can be indicated due to their natural changes in it. Indicators are, for example, a thennometer, scales, litmus paper, etc.

Simulacra

are artificial reproductions of natural indexes that they

simulate-they look like them and are endowed with fhe same meaning. Such an example is a blush painted on the cheeks as an artificial reproduc­ tion of the natural index of health and freshness. There is a large class of such artificial

quasi-indexes that look like

nat­

ural indexes, but are not really connected with the causes and consequenc­ es of natural indexes with which they are similar. Diverse arts-not only figurative, but also non-figurative as well---often use various kinds of such quasi-indexes.

Indexals

are arbitrary signs included in some actual situation in the

function of indices and marking certain aspects of it on the basis of the

52

I.3 . 1 .

convention, such as, for example, personal pronouns indicating different ways of entering into a given situation of an acting subject. 2.3. Peculiarity of the Signal-indexical Level

Taken together, signals and indices form two aspects of one type of in­ formation process occurring at the signal-indexical level. Serniosis at this level is characterized by all members of the process belonging to the same situation in which it occurs. The source of infonnation, its recipient, the object pointed to by the index, as well as the action that causes the signal are all somehow included in the situation of a mediated information im­ pact. At this level of serniosis, a sender of the message coincides with its source, and all that is presented or represented by the signals and indexes is included in the same information process where they appear. Even objects and events distanced in space and time-say, a supernova explosion that occurred thousands of light years from the observer-can be included in the same infonnation chain as its visible indexes, if they remain available for observation. Signals and indices can be interpreted within the framework of purely cognitive processes occurring both in the psyche of animals and in the minds of people, as well as their behavioural responses outside the communication between individuals. Those semei­ ons that are used in people's communicative processes and are specially created for the initiation of certain reactions or indication of objects enter­ ing into the present situation can perfonn their signal and indexical func­ tions on a different structural basis and use the mechanism of sign com­ munication.

3. The Sign Level of Semiosis 3.1. Differences of Signs from Signals and Indexes

The signal-indexical level of infonnation connection serves as a condi­ tion and a basis on which its sign level arises. Every recognizable sign, regardless of the results of its interpretation, always remains a signal, inso­ far as it initiates an information process. However, the process of sign in­ terpretation itself is more complicated than a response to a signal. A sign in the narrow sense of the word has a meaning that can be unrelated to the situation of its appearance in the infonnation chain between the sender of the message and its receiver. A sign in this sense is a means of the repre­ senting to someone of something other that can remain outside the pre­ sented situation.

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

53

This cannot be said about the index, nor about the signal, which are always related in one way or another to the situation of their appearance. The first is something that points to the real or imaginary peculiarities of this situation, because of its contiguity with them. The second is some­ thing that stimulates the receiver of the message to respond to these pecu­ liarities. Both of them in a certain way present the available situation to the subject, whereas the sign represents the designated object or the action of the subject himself, regardless of their relation to the situation in which the sign functions. The referent of a sign can be presented in this situation, absent from it or even not exist at all-the meaning of the sign is inde­ pendent of this. Like the situation presented by signals and indexes, the objects repre­ sented by signs can be conceived more intensively in comparison with the bearer of the meaning. The signifier, pointing at the represented object, as it were, exits the field of attention. Although the representation could not happen without them, signs being recognized become "transparent to the meaning", because they evoke the "improper representations" (by E. Hus­ serl). As already pointed out by Augustine, signs direct the thought to something different from them, shift it to objects mediated through them. The relationship of the sign with what it represents is constructed in a different way than the connections of signals and indices with the actual situation. It is based on a convention, an agreement that relates the means of representation to the idea of a represented object The latter can be a fiction and a message about its presence-false. In cases of signals and indexes, only their interpretation can be erroneous, but the connection it­ self with the existing situation is given by definition. Differences between signal-indexical and sign levels of semiosis do not depend on the distance between the source of information and its carri­ er, as already noted with the example of the signs of distant cosmic events. These differences are not quantitative, but qualitative, determined by an­ other structural organization of the information process. The signs appear­ ing in human culture differ from the natural signals and indexes not only by their origin, but also by their structure and functions. 3.2. Meaning and Sense of the Sign

Semiosis at its sign level is provided by the unification of the semiotic "mechanism", which is the same for different information processes and for different participants, who own common proto-infonnation. Using the terms of L. Hjelmslev, this proto-infonnation can be characterized as a "form of expression" and a "form of content", stably linked together in

54

I.3 . 1 .

accordance with the norms of some semiotic system. In other words, at the sign level of serniosis, other structural relations between a serneion and its referent are established. On this level, a stable and unified connection ap­ pears between the schemes for the fonnation of a sign and its comprehen­ sion-a connection that is developed in culture and can be communicated to other people. Every sign has a fixed meaning, which is a way of sign interpreting that has been established in culture with the help of a general scheme of its comprehension. This scheme contains some stable features of the desig­ nated object (referent). In the particular case when the sign is clearly ex­ pressed, such a scheme can coincide with the logical concept. However, less clear "infralogical" notions and ideas can also serve as meanings of the signs, if they remain stably connected with them . Due to the connection with the meaning, the sign is always referred to the class of designated objects, regardless of whether any of them are pre­ sent in the situation of using the sign or not, whether they are real or re­ main only in the imagination. The context and concrete referents of signs can be variable, but the very ability of a sign to refer a thought to a certain referent is the sign's own property. The generalized nature of the meaning allows, on the one hand, the sign to be related to the same class of refer­ ents, and on the other hand, the construction of thoughts about them to be directed according to the rules common to the senders and recipients of the message. True, the unified meaning of the sign is always actualized in a certain context, in a specific situation, the peculiarities of which can be no less important than the generalized scheme for understanding the sign. There­ fore, in diverse acts of the sign's application, the relations between such a general scheme and the features of this act of interpretation can be formed in different ways, with various degrees of participation of the reproduced meaning. In some contexts, this meaning can essentially be transformed. Nevertheless, a sure understanding of the sign expression implies a prelim­ inary acquaintance with the meanings as with an important part of the pro­ to-infonnation. If it were possible to understand signs regardless of their stable mean­ ings, one would not have to learn foreign languages or even know their native language-after all, each sign could then mean anything, and nei­ ther their differences nor themselves would be needed. If this is not so, then not only does the meaning of the signs depend on their use, but their use depends on their meaning. Semiotics finds its subject in the acts of message interpretation, because in them there is a semiosis as a process of correlating infonnation and proto-information, carried out in accordance

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

55

with certain nonns, in particular, the interpretation of signs in accordance with their meanings. The meaning of a sign, emiched by a multitude of semantic nuances, dependent on the features of the context and the situation of its use by spe­ cific interpreters, can appropriately be called the sense of the sign. Just as the meaning is a unified sense of a sign, so this sense is the concretized meaning of the same sign. In addition to the uniform scheme prescribed by the semiotic system, this sense can also be detennined by many other cir­ cumstances: the specific situation of its use, the context, the peculiarities of the interpreters, the preconceived opinion, the actualization of a conno­ tative meaning, and so on. The sense of signs is given as they are included in the processes of comprehension, that is, they are involved in the system of knowledge, val­ ues or plans of behaviour. At the same time, a logician can only consider verifiable statements as meaningful, a philologist can see the sense only in something expressed in words or translated into them, a technologist can find a sense only in what leading to the implementation of certain goals, and an ideologist can connect with a sense only what is correlated with a system of values he has accepted. From the point of view of a semiotician, the sense of signs is a way of incorporating them into the already existing set of concepts and ideas (including estimates and plans) coordinated with the nonns of a semiotic system. 3.3. Distinctions of Signs by Semiotic Functions

Signs can perfonn diverse semiotic functions. In particular, they can serve as signals and indexes, as in the case of indexals, like pronouns such as "this", "that", etc. Such signs, on the one side, have a conventional meaning that is unknown for anybody who does not possess a code. On the other side, like any other signs, they acquire a definite sense in each new context. A peculiarity of these signs consists of their generalized meaning itself pointing at a certain way of entering into a present situation and thereby setting a way of dependency on the context. Not only adverbs such as "here" or "there", but also non-verbal signs such as signal-indexical means of traffic lights also belong to the class of indexals. Their generalized meanings are also based on convention, which can be changed in principle by the participants of the communicative pro­ cess. However, senses of such signs are defined in concrete situations by the place and the time, where and when, for example, if the red light turns on. Only the combination of the generalized meaning from the "traffic code" with the certain place and time of its actualization gives possibilities

56

I.3 . 1 .

for a red light to perform the function of a signal that demands one to stop here and now, and, at the same time, of an index that points at a feature of the present situation: "no thoroughfare". Unlike indexals, proper names are assigned to a given persona, sociurn or natural phenomenon, and can, with certain limits, be used regardless of the present situation. They denote the object named by them entirely and are able to perfonn their nominative function without the signification of any features of this object The function of such signs-nominators can be perfonned not only by words, but by nonverbal signs as well-for example, definite emblems, labels, and colours of flags or sport clubs, etc. Another way of functioning is inherent in signs-signifieators that de­ note not entire persons or things, but their qualities or relations that can also be shared with some other objects. As their denolat is somewhat gen­ eral and common for many things, they were called in traditional logics "general names", and in traditional grammar "common nouns". Signs of this type can also be not only verbal, but also nonverbal. For example, a white flag as a sign of armistice or black clothes as a sign of mourning are signs-significators that signify certain conditions or qualities related to various persons and situations.

3.4. Symbols There are also more complicated ways of semeion constructions and interpretations by several semiotic systems used together. These ways in­ clude the cases, when a signified in one system is a signifier in another semiotic system, and they are all used for creation of a new polysemantic semeion. It is more appropriate to call the latter not a sign, but a symboL The tenn symbol receives in this case not the meaning that it has in logic and in the semiotics of Ch. S. Peirce, but the sense which is assigned to it in traditional aesthetics and used by F. de Saussure (1977: 1 0 1 ; see also Todorov, 1998; Chap. 3 in Tchertov, 1993; Pochal, 1983). The category "symbol", in this sense, covers an entire class of complex semeions differing in content and functions. Their invariant part is a con­ ventional sign that is combined with another semeion from some other semiotic system. This second system can belong to the signal-indexical level or to the level of signs. If the complex semiotic construction of the symbol includes a combi­ nation of two semeions, one of them belongs to a "primary" semiotic sys­ tem and can be recognized and interpreted directly, independent of using

On Diversity and COIlllections of Semiotic Means

57

of some other codes. Its meaning becomes the basis where a semeion of a "secondary" semiotic system is formed. For example, the pictogram J. has as its primary meaning "the anchor" and as a secondary meaning "the hope". The latter is relatively independ­ ent of the way of how to depict an anchor and can remain upon the change of the picture with a word or any other sign, if it only saves the same meaning that becomes a signifier in the system of the secondary code. In both cases, the pictogram and the word are signs with a meaning that be­ comes a signifier for another signified in a "secondary" sign system. Both components of a symbol belong in these cases to the sign level of semio­ SIS.

There are also cases when a couple of semeions fonning a symbol (in the described sense) can consist of elements from different levels of semi­ osis. This occurs, on the one hand, if the primary semeion belongs to a sign system and the secondary ones are a signal and/or an index. For ex­ ample, a conventional sign also has an additional meaning due to the sig­ nal-indexical code in the case of the road traffic code. If, in it, the red light is taken as a conventional sign for the signalization of stopping, it can, at the same time, have also a connotation of "danger" or "alann" in virtue of the signal-indexical impact on the impression of the red colour itself To­ gether with this connotative supplement, the neutral sign of stopping be­ comes an emotionally active symbol. A converse effect takes place when a primary independent semeion be­ longs to the signal-indexical level, while the secondary dependent semeion is a conventional sign. For example, a pylon as an architectural element expressing stability on the indexical level is also interpreted in an icono­ graphic tradition as a sign of an Evangelist or others who supported the Christian teaching. Often, symbols include in its heterogeneous makeup, together with a couple of semeions, an iconic model of a represented object signifying a more or less general idea as well. For example, a sculpture of a woman with wings recognized as the goddess Nike (as Winged Victory of Samo­ thrace from the Louvre) can also be understood as a symbol signifying victory as a general notion. The iconic model of the winged woman is connected in this kind of symbol with the conventional sign connection between the visual image of such a figure and the notion of victory. In a similar way, the indexical means are attracted together with con­ ventional signs for creating an expressive symbolic depiction. There is such a case in, for example, the allegories of Persistence and of Inconstan­ cy by Giotto (see Figures 1.3.1-1&2).

58

13.1

Figure, 13.1-1&2. Giotto eli Bondone. AII�s), and the information influence of an indi­ vidual on a collective (s----)- S). These types of semiotic processes are pre­ sented in Tab Ie I. 4-1. The subiects of cultural activity S - collective

S

- individual

Types of their relations S' - S' S�s s�S l ..o S �s S�s s�S

Table 1.4-1. Types of semiotic processes in culture between individuals and collectives as subjects of activity.

"Animal Symbolicum" in the Cultural and Natural Semiospheres

107

In the S�S type of relations, collective experience is accumulated and translated from generation to generation through the use of verbal lan­ guage and other semiotic systems. Both forms are thereby used: separate texts and proto-information stored in primary and secondary semiotic sys­ tems, i.e. in languages and culturally elaborated codes. Instead of a single text, which is, albeit with mutations, biologically transmitted at the genetic level to all representatives of a species, many texts appear in culture and are regulated by sign systems of different types, from which every indi­ vidual learns only a part. Obviously, such information processes take place in the semiosphere of wildlife as well, where individuals and groups can also exchange mes­ sages coded by natural signal and indexical systems. Individuals of diverse species of animals can give and receive signals between each other. In animals' behaviour one can observe conununication between individuals and groups. As Karl von Frisch demonstrated, a honeybee informs its swann about the place where it fOllld l a food source through a "dance" containing indexes and iconic models of moving to this source (Frisch, 1923). Conversely, it is known that some animals learn to behaviour typi­ cal for other animals in their flock through its imitation. However, the principal difference between both these semiospheres is the development in the culture of the systems of signs and symbols that can be arbitrarily created and used for the representation of objects beyond the environment that is present here and now.

S'

S'

Systems of conventional signs developed in culture

51

/

'

5

Scheme 1.4-1. The mediation of cOJUlections between subjects of activity by the cultural elaborated sign systems.

108

1.4. 1 .

In relations of the S�s type, cultural information (i.e. knowledge, values and technologies) is transferred from a group to an individual through sign systems in the educational process, biological programs of organisms' behaviour being subject to social norms. These include, in par­ ticular, the prohibition of incest and social regulation of marital relations, food taboos and prescriptions, social regulation of property relations, etc. In this case, the functioning of natural codes is limited and coordinated by sign systems of culture, and a consciousness dependent on these systems dominates the sphere of the unconscious, in which the results of natural codes' actions are superseded. In relations of the s-----)- S type, in contrast, information is transferred from an individual to a collective in products of individual creativity­ scientific, technical, artistic, etc. Unlike biosysterns, where an individual experience of organisms does not directly affect the genetic code of a spe­ cies, sign means enable such a reverse effect of individual experience on the "non-hereditary memory" of culture. Unlike information flows of the S----s-)- type corning from a group, in flows of the s-----)- S type, these are main­ ly not languages, but texts that are transmitted. In other words, in this case the main subject of communication is not proto-infonnation, but infor­ mation. This corresponds to F. de Saussure's distinction between language as a group, impersonal establishment and speech as an individual produc­ tion of particular texts. At the same time, it is also possible for individuals to create and spread artificial languages in a group by individuals (Morse code, Braille and Esperanto systems, etc.). In relations of the s+-+s type, sign means enable the inclusion of any represented objects available to designation in the communication pro­ cesses. Signs allow individuals to express their ideas and to reconstruct other individuals' thoughts in the processes of understanding. On this ba­ sis, a variety of interpersonal relations, impossible without these sign means, anse. A human's thought processes develop as a projection deep in the con­ sciousness of external information processes that an individual is involved in, and as a result of their internalization (see Vygotsky, 1982, 1983). Un­ like the inter-subject information processes considered above, these are intra-subjective ones. However, the sign form of semiosis allows them to retain the same syntactic and semantic links as in the processes of inter­ subject communication. In both external communication and internal thought processes, the capabilities of those involved depend on how well they master various semiotic means. Polyglottism, understood in a broad semiotic sense as mastering diverse semiotic systems and the ability to relate them to each other in an external and internal activity, is a quality

''Animal Symbolicum"in the

Cultural and Natural

Semiospheres

109

that characterizes both the ability of an individual to communicate and the level of development of his or her intellect. Thus, the result of information interchange between an individual and a group is revealed, on the one hand, as personal consciousness, where a part of the group experience is imprinted, and on the other hand, as the culture of the collective in which the individual experience of many peo­ ple is kept. Signs and their meanings become "generalized and socialized" (per Vygotsky) and codified in culture units, which are common for col­ lective and individual consciousness. They are the means of such reversi­ ble communication between these subjects of activity. Due to this reversi­ bility, people are able not only to receive proto-information that sets the programs of behaviour from the outside, but also to change it, transform­ ing the very methods of their activity. 2.2. Variety of Semiotic Connections in Different Cultures

The balance between the described processes in various cultures is dif­ ferent. In the "cold" (in the term of C. Levi-Strauss) cultures focused on the reproduction of traditions, information links of the S-S and the S�s types dominate. The possibilities of the s-S relations are limited by the social status of the subject, as the leader's authority is more important than the arguments expressed by his opponents. In "hot" cultures, focused on innovation, the dependence of the individual on the group decreases and the attitude to individual creativity also changes: value is attached not so much to the reproduction of established ideas as to the suggestion of new ones. In such cultures, information processes of the s+-+s and the s----)- S types are more significant and internal processes of thinking become more intense. Cultures focused on the conservation of traditions stimulate the repro­ duction of the habitual thought patterns and even the means of their ex­ pression (for example, proverbs and sayings in folklore). In contrast, in "hot cultures", preference is given to productive rather than to reproduc­ tive thinking; non-trivial thought processes are highly appreciated. This leads to making discoveries, inventing new techniques; authors creating original works of art are encouraged more, then imitators, etc. In such cul­ tures, the willingness of a collective to adopt the results of individual crea­ tivity becomes a condition for the development of science, technology, art and more intensive changes in other spheres of culture. Between these poles, there is a series of gradations and intermediate forms that historical­ ly replace one another, although a society can return to some earlier fOnTIs, even if it once reached higher stages of development.

1 10

1 .4 . 1 .

3 . Humans i n two Semiospheres 3.1. Humans in Natural and Cultural Semiospheres Defined by Ernst Cassirer ( 1 944) as animal symbolicum, the human is involved both in the world of symbolic cultural forms and in the sphere of diverse signals and indices available to him biologically. Staying together with other living beings within the semiosphere ofnature, men differ from the latter in the respect that they also form a special sphere of semiotic means created in culture. Humans are special not because they are closed in this sphere of signs and symbols, but because they are involved both in the semiosphere of culture and in the sphere of natural processes at the signal- index level of semiosis. In this system of relations, the human oc­ cupies a unique place, because people not only possess genetic infor­ mation common to the whole species and not only acquire incommunica­ ble individual experience, but also create semiotic means for accumulating group experience and for transferring it to other individuals in acts of in­ ter-subject communication (Scheme 1.4-2).

Semiosphere of Nature

Scheme 1.4-2. The human in the cultural and natural semiospheres.

''Animal Symholicum" in the

Cultural and Natural Semiospheres

111

Therefore, the subject of anthroposemiotics is less homogeneous than that of biosemiotics or the semiotics of culture. Whereas the subject of the fonner is the natural semiosphere and the latter studies the semiosphere of culture, anthroposemiotics has to consider both these spheres in human activity. Their interaction in humans can be highlighted as a special sub­ ject matter-the subject of human ecosemiotics. The cultural semiosphere fonned by sign systems cannot be dissolved in the natural one, just as the human's consciousness cannot be limited to the psyche of the animal. However, this does not mean that the "small" semiosphere of the human is in no way connected with the "big" semio­ sphere of all living things; on the contrary, it can be understood adequately only if we take into account how these spheres interact. 3.2. Interaction of Natural and Cultural Semiotic Systems

Cultural semiotic fonns are largely made up as regulating systems of human behavioural programs built into their biological organization, with­ out reference to which this behaviour cannot be fully understood. As shown by Sigmund Freud, some natural signal systems are suppressed and their manifestations are either completely forced out by culturally accepted norms or transfonned and replaced with symbols accepted in culture. In particular, reactions to human booy are awakened by signals of a semiotic system that can be called natural somatic code. This code has developed in the phylogenetic evolution of human as a biological species. However, functioning of this natural code is suppressed or soothed with the help of semiotic means produced in culture: verbal prohibitions and prescriptions, nonns of proxemics, haptics and oculesics, etc. regulating meaningful behaviour (see Kreidlin, 2002). Law and morality, mythology and religion, art and science, economics and politics, nonns of everyday behaviour and the systems of fashion offer their own ways for the cultural comprehension of natural behavioural pro­ grams. Each of these cultural fonns in a special way restricts and trans­ fonns the genetically programmed processes and brings them into line with social nonns. The collision of natural programs and cultural nonns often leads to various sorts of conflicts: between the "first" and "second" signal systems, conscious and unconscious, social and biological, spirit and body, group and individual, etc. Natural codes in their turn influence cultural semiotic systems. The re­ alization of natural needs takes cultural fonns. In particular, cooking and eating become ritualized and semiotized. Cultural nonns also affect mar­ riage processes. Culture creates special semiotic means to express love

112

1.4.1.

relations, whether it i s courtly poetry in the Middle Ages o r love lyrics in later periods. Artists of all times have used the shapes of the human body created by nature in the cultural forms of sculpture, paintings, etc.

Figure I.4-2. Albrecht Diirer. Adam and Eve. Engraving on copper. 1504. The famous engraving illustrates the Christian idea of original sin as a forbidden reaction of the first man and woman at the features of body that can be considered as an expression plane of the natural somatic code.

''Animal Symbolicum"in the

Cultural and Natural

Semiospheres

113

In many cultural institutes, both cultural and natural semiotic systems act together as if competing with each other. In particular, the fashion sys­ tem forms various kinds of relations between signals of natural somatic code and cultural requirements of decency. It creates diverse visual-spatial texts, which are formed by the means of this natural somatic code together with the cultural code of clothing accepted in a given time and place. 3.3. Artificial Transformations of Natural Codes

The subjective experience of such a collision by a person, whose psy­ che it passes through, can be extremely acute and tragic, but it can take more harmonious fonns as well. Symbolic fonns of culture are able not only to counteract signal systems of nature, but also to coordinate with them and, in their turn, to transform them so that they can get involved in the semiosphere of culture. A number of codes that have developed in biological systems are mod­ ified in culture and have their analogues. For example, the natural mimicry and pantomime described by Darwin as congenital systems of face and body movements are differently codified in culture. They form an essential part of expressive means in arts (as one can see at the Figure 1.4-3). Art has become one of the most important forms that harmonizes the meeting of natural and cultural codes. A number of codes that have devel­ oped in biological systems are modified in the arts, changing their struc­ ture and functions. For example, indices mediating perception experience and fonning psychics for mental processes in an individual at the sensorial level are involved in the complex of pictorial means used in cultural communicative processes. In particular, diverse natural indexes of depth (i.e. occlusions, intersections, decreasing size with increasing distance, decreasing contrast when objects move into the distance, etc.) represent cultural means of lin­ ear and aerial perspectives and are deliberately used in art. Such means, based on natural indexes, form a culturally developed semiotic system that can be called perceptographic code. Constructed by its means, percepto­ grams can transfer visual images from an artist to a spectator. There is also a complex of synesthetic codes connecting the sensations of one modality with those of another one. For example, colours can evoke the feelings of cold or heat; angular lines can visually "scratch", etc. These codes largely have a natural basis and can also be deliberately used by artists together with other expressive means (see more details on this be­ low, 11.9.4).

114

14. 1 .

Figure 1.4-3. Honore Daumier. Pinakothek gallery, Munich.

Th e Melodrama.

Canvas, oil. Around 1860. New

3.4. On the "Semiotic Profile" of a Person

People immersed in the environment of diverse signals, indices, signs and symbols tend to react to them differently depending on what kind of semiotic systems they are involved into and on how these systems are "balanced". These systems-of both cultural and natural origins-can act together, be neutral to one another or corne into conflict with each other. The composition of the semiotic systems relevant to a particular indi­ vidual and their relative "weights" in their interactions create a special "semiotic profile" that characterizes this individual as both a biological organism and a social being.

''Animal Symbolicum"in the

Cultural and Natural

Semiospheres

115

Most of these systems are initially specified by the semiotic environ­ ment of a person. Consequently, relations between natural and cultural semiotic systems are more or less determined by the culture in which an individual lives. Some cultures seem closer to nature than others, which generates the notion of "indigenous peoples", or Naturvolker in German, i.e. peoples that do not know any civilization. Further study showed that these peoples are bound by taboos and other requirements of their culture no less than their researchers are by their own cultural nonns. Neverthe­ less, the difference between groups in how much they subordinate natural impulses to cultural norms is an obvious fact, because not all groups strict­ ly adhere to puritanical nonns. The idea of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that the progress of society is con­ nected not with the tightening of cultural norms, but with returning "back to nature" probably has certain grounds. However, increasing dependence on natural signal systems does not provide a person with more freedom than strict obeyance to cultural nonns does. People get more freedom when they are involved in diverse semiotic systems and know how to han­ dle them in various situations. In other words, more freedom depends on how rich and varied the semiotic profile of a person is. If an individual can choose semiotic systems and consciously fonn their own semiotic profile, then this only choice determines the result of a "competition" between these semiotic systems regarding their importance in personal activity. 3.5. Humans in the Technosphere

The new semiotic systems created by man, on the one hand, mcrease his freedom. For example, technical devices, which are able to communi­ cate with him and between each other using artificially elaborated semiotic systems, give new opportunities to humans. A computer can modell pro­ cesses of their logical thinking and calculation, which have a "mechanical" detenninism. At the same time, a modelling of emotional processes is for it more complex-despite they seemingly belong to lower signal-indexical level of semiosis. On the other hand, some of these technical systems them­ selves can become free and alienated from their creators, if they function in an autonomous mooe. The technosphere, artificially created by humans, is also involved in both the natural and cultural semiospheres, but in different ways. A ma­ chine can be involved in natural physical processes only at the signal­ indexical level of the semiosis, where the information process is built as a chain of commands and responses. In this situation, at the "entrance" and the "exit" of the machine's work, only a person can comprehend the data or

116

1.4. 1 .

results obtained at the level of signs and symbols, which bear a certain hu­ man meaning and can represent some objects arbitrarily far beyond the present situation. However, there are no principal barriers that would make it impossible for artificial intellect to rise up to the sign level of objects' representation and get more involved in the cultural serniosphere. For example, if a com­ puter can win against chess champions, that means it can analyze the op­ portunities given in each position and choose the optimal solutions. Such an ability cannot only be a reaction to the signals detennined by a signal system-it suggests some arbitrariness that approximates artificial intelli­ gence with the freedom of human thinking. Thereby, if it becomes compa­ rable with the semiotic freedom of a human, artificial intellect can trans­ form from a tool of a subject's activity into a separate subject, which can act independently. At the same time, humans' freedom, facilitated by the new possibilities provided by digital technologies, can get limited if individuals become parts of social nets, which have an increasing influence on their behaviour. This trend may lead to the loss of people's independence and their possibil­ ities as subjects of activity. Still, this connection remains only moral, not physical. However, the direct interaction of technical and biological programs at the signal-indexical level seems quite possible and theoretically allowable, though not realized yet. Computer programming of genetic and non-genetic memory is generally conceivable. The practical implementation of such a prospect would lead to radical and hardly predictable changes in the whole semiosphere of both culture and nature. If a direct connection between in­ formation processes of diverse types is made, a person will be physically dependent on the net, and the human can turn out to be just a cell of an in­ tegral infonnation organism. After that, the connections between infor­ mation streams of the S----)-s, s+-+s, s----)- S and S+-+S types formed in culture can change significantly.

PART II

SEMIOTICS OF SPACE

11.1. S PATIAL S EMIOTICS AS AN A UTONOMOUS D I S CIPLINE

ILl . 1 . SPATIAL SEMIOTICS AS A BRANCH OF SEMIOTIC STUDIES

1. On the Relations between General and Spatial Semiotics 1.1. A Particular View on General Semiotics

The development of semiotic studies can be compared with the growth of a tree. They have roots in different disciplines: not only in logic (such as the sign theory of Ch. S. Peirce) or linguistics (such as the semiology of F. de Saussure and the glossematics of 1 . Hjelmslev). but also in psychol­ ogy (such as the sematology of K. BUhler) and even in aesthetics (such as "scientia signornm", or "semiotica", suggested as early as the 1 8th century by A Baumgarten). Every of these "semiotic projects" (using the terms suggested in Greimas & Courtes, 1983: 527) considers the subject of se­ miotics from the side of its initial discipline. However, semiotics growing out of its roots like a tree trunk is formed as a single scientific discipline with its own subj ect of study and system of concepts. Only under this con­ dition, it can serve as a method for other disciplines. Different aspects of semiotic studies are united by semiosis-a process of infonnation connection mediated by definite external and internal fac­ tors. External mediators were called semeions as early as in antiquity, and this word today can serve as a generic tenn for such means of information connection as sign, signa4 index, symbol, etc. belonging to different levels of semiosis. If, following de Saussure, the term sign refers only to conventional means of human interaction, it is possible to distinguish between the sign level of semiosis providing a representation of objects absent in the sign situation, and the signal-indexical level, where any semiotic means do not go beyond the limits of the present situation. Indexes point to some of its features and signals stimulate reactions to them. Signs, by the criterion of U Eco, offer the means for lying about some represented objects, while the means of the signal-indexical level are always essential parts of a pre­ sent situation, although they may be misinterpreted.

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Semiosis also has a required internal mediator-proto-information, i.e. codes and complex semiotic systems, by which various semeions and the resulted texts are constructed and interpreted (see the concepts of Vorin­ formation introduced by W. Meyer-Eppler [1 959] and meta-information by Yu. Shreider [ 1 974]). Thus, apart from semeions, the semiotic subject also includes diverse semio-systems regulating their formation and inter­ pretation, complying, correspondingly, with syntactic, semantic and prag­ matic rules (Morris, 1971a). Along with the means of semiotic activity, the subject of semiotics includes its results-the texts constructed and inter­ preted by these codes or reconstructed and reinterpreted by other semiotic systems. The study of interactions between various semio-systems as well as of diverse texts in the cultural semiosphere (Lotman, 2000 [1 984]) leads to the extension of the "semiotic tree", to the growth of its "crown". It is not only culture but also nature that can be investigated by semiot­ ics, because the information processes mediated by proto-infonnation are realized in some natural systems as well. Biosemiotics introduces its own concept of the semiosphere (Hoffmeyer, 1 996). Such an extension of se­ miotic studies is also interesting for the semiotics of culture, since it makes it possible to consider connections between cultural and natural semiotic fields and cultural transformations of some natural codes. For example, some natural synesthetic and kinesthetic codes give the grounds for their usage in arts, particularly for the development of architectonic code. The correct analysis of such connections between the natural and cultural phe­ nomena is possible, subject to a clear distinction between the signal­ indexical level of semiosis available for bio-systems and the proper sign level of semiosis that develops only for a human formed in culture. Such a wide concept of semiosis and a broad view on semiotics to­ gether with the narrowly understood concept of signs provides for the se­ miotic subject to be joined with the fields that usually stay out of logical and linguocentrical semiotics. From this perspective, semiotic means can contain not only logical concepts and verbalized meanings, but also some reproducible schemes of sense-motoric intellect-"infralogical" or "prac­ tical" concepts that form ideal models of a subject's movement in space and, according to Jean Piaget (1 954, 1 959), are essential for verbal speech development It is also right to distinguish between the semiographic and semiologi­ cal levels of semiotic studies. Their semiographic level is limited to the descriptions of the particular signs, texts and semiotic systems regulating them . The semiological level provides for the generalization of semiotic studies, the explanation of the nature, structure, functions and conditions that make semiotic processes possible, as well as for a theoretic compari-

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son of diverse semiotic means, which is coordinated with the initial sense of the term "semiology" suggested by de Saussure (1977: 54). The terms "semiotics" and "semiology" in this respect are no longer considered as syn­ onyms for two historical versions of the sign theory, but are used together in different senses. Semiotics includes both of these levels: semiography, which covers various sign-related disciplines (grammar of diverse languages, heraldry, phaleristics, cryptography, etc.), and semiology, which, on the contrary, is a single discipline engaged only in the second, properly theoretical, level. (A view on the subject of semiotics from the author's perspective is pre­ sented in more detail in Tchertov, 2017, and above: 1. 1 . 1 ; 1.3. 1 .) 1.2. On the Emergence of Spatial Semiotics

Both levels of semiotic studies coexist in spatial semiotics as well. The semiotics of space appears as one of the semiotic tree branches. Spatial semiotics has its own roots in a complex of humanitarian disciplines con­ sidering spatial means of sense expression. These are history and archae­ ology, sociology and anthropology, aesthetics and art theory, the theory of architecture and urban planning, etc. Even before spatial semiotics was developed they were summarized in the works ofE. Cassirer, who pointed out the transition from the natural-philosophical research of space "as it exists" to cultural-philosophical studies of "what the space means" to a human (Cassirer 1985: 93; Cassirer 1 923-1929). The semiotic studies of space go further: they are not limited to the re­ search of "what" diverse spatial objects mean, but also investigate "how" these objects are connected with their meanings. In this regard, these stud­ ies differ from many humanitarian disciplines that are not aimed at explor­ ing systematic connections between signifiers and signified. In semiotic terms, many spatial phenomena of culture were studied by R Barthes (1971), M. Wallis (1 973), J Mukafovsky (1981), U Eco (1 998), G. Broadbent et al. (1 980), Ch. Jenks (1 977), D. Preziosi (1 979), C. Dreyer (1 979), V Markuson (1 970), and others. The term semiotics of space started to be used in connection with architectural semiotics in the 1 970s, when the International Association for the Semiotics of Space (IASSp/AISE) was established (see, in particular, M. Krampen [1 974, 1 994], P Pellegrino [1 999-2007, 2006, 2019], J Muntafiola Tornberg [ 1 996], A-Ph. Lagopoulos [ 1 993], and A Barabanov [ 1 999]). Another direction of spatial semiotics was initiated by Yu. Lotman and his col­ leagues from Tartu-Moscow semiotic school, who approached this subject from the perspective of literary studies. Realizing how important spatial

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semiotics is for human thinking and communicative processes in culture, Lotman compared it with the importance of verbal language. Instead of the previous conception of "secondary semiotic systems", he began to consid­ er spatial semiosis not as an area of application of ready-made linguistic methods, but as a principally different domain in the "semiosphere" of culture (see Lotman 1992, 2000). Still, the early semiotics of space was not a unified theory, but rather a "round table", where representatives of different disciplines tried to find common grounds in relation to meaningful spatial fonns in architecture, urbanistics, visual arts and, on the other side, in literature (see Tchertov, 1998). Researchers of different directions sought spatial signs and lan­ guages, using the concepts of general sign theory suggested by Ch. S. Peirce or the semiology ofF. de Saussure (see, in particular, the discussion regarding the applicability of these concepts to architecture and design in Werk [1971-1 972]). However, as spatial semiotics was formed, the specif­ ic features of its subject became more discernible. These features should be described by concepts and categories of spatial semiotics developed on the semiological (not semiographic, in the above-described sense) level of research. Several of these categories will be considered in this paper.

2. Specific Properties of Spatial Semiosis 2.1. Differences between Spatial and Tern poral Serniosis

The peculiarities of spatial semiotics are clearly visible in comparison with the opposite branch of the "semiotic tree"-the semiotics of time. The main feature of the latter is formulated in the second principle of Saussurean semiology: signifiers as linear successions are alternated with time. De Saussure opposed these chains of temporal language units with non-linear semiotic means that are visually perceived and spatially ex­ panded (Saussure, 1977: 103). The differences between spatial and tem­ poral semiotics are connected firstly with different possibilities of both these ways for storing and transmitting infonnation. While information transfer is always a process occurring in time, information storage is bet­ ter provided with coexisting spatial objects. Spatial and temporal channels provide different possibilities for human perception and comprehension as well. While the messages in the spatial channel are addressed mainly to the visual modality of perception that show the states of environment, the temporal channel is more suitable for the messages oriented to auditory perception informing about occurring events (Neisser, 1981 : 166). While the simultaneous way of synthesis

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dominates in the case of visual-spatial perception, the successive way of synthesis is more important for the audial-temporal one (Jakobson, 1 964). However, the main difference between these two ways of serniosis is neither physical, nor psychical, but semiotic. Any semiotic process occurs and is perceived both in space and time, but it is only the ways, how me­ aningful elements and structures are selected, that provide the principal grounds on which to differ spatial and temporal semiosis. In these two cases, diverse codes direct the selection of different relationship types by forming expression planes. Spatial serniosis is formed as a process of in­ formation connection mediated by configurations of co-existing spatial relations. Serniotized spatial relations constitute not only a "substance" of information connection, but also its "semiotic form" (in Louis Hjelrnslev' s terms). Contrariwise, temporal semiosis is formed by the relations between some events in time, when the meanings depend on their order, duration and other temporal relations between the elements of the expression plane. Pure spatial semiosis excludes all temporal bearers of meaning from its semiotic form, whereas purely temporal semiosis takes little account of any spatial relations, although both of them contain spatial and temporal relations in their "substance of expression". A synthesis of both these ways is spatial-temporal semiosis, which includes the means fonned by both spatial and temporal meaningful relations in its "form of expression". The separation of spatial and temporal ways fonning meaningful rela­ tions in the expression planes does not prevent the denotation of both space and time in the planes of content. In particular, spatial semiosis has various ways to represent time in the past or in the future (see below, IL2.2). Since spatial and temporal semiosis are mediated by diverse types of relations, they are also organized in a different way as communicative processes. Temporal semiosis, by its very nature, must be synchronized to transmit and receive messages, because beyond the time of their produc­ tion or reproduction, any successions of significant units are not available for perception. Spatial semiosis, in its turn, differs not by its existence beyond the lim­ its of time, but by another structure of its temporal existence. Since tem­ poral means are not included in spatial semiosis, it can be formed as a dia­ chronic succession of communicative acts, where the creation of spatial messages and their perception by recipients can be separated in time. The time discrepancy of these acts gives them and their temporal distance a possibility to have different durations, comparable even to the time of dia­ chronic changes in a language. Messages embodied in stable spatial bear­ ers can be saved for a long time after their formation, dropped out of the

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context of their creation, and included in new contexts. Due to these quali­ ties, connection not only between contemporaries but also between differ­ ent generations becomes possible. Differences

Temporal semiosis

Spatial semiosis

Structural

Linear successions of events

Non-linear configurations of co-existing objects

Functional

Mainly information transmission

Mainly infonnation storage

Way of reception

Mainly auditory reception

Mainly visual reception

Way of synthesis

Successive

Simultaneous

Way of

Synchronic connection

Diachronic connection

comm unication

Table 11.1 I-I. Differences between spatial and temporal semiosis 2.2. Specific Categories of Spatial Semiotics

Meaningful spatial relations selected by semiotization can belong to internal structures of perceptible spatial objects as well as to external rela­ tionships between the whole bodies. Therefore, both "semiotics of spatial relations" and "semiotics of bodies" can be given a united approach and involved in spatial semiotics. In the both of these domains, the specific features of spatial semiosis are manifested. These specific fatures can be described with particular grammatical categories. Such categories as significant body, significant place, spatial form, border, location or the whole semiotized space are different from grammar universals of verbal languages and at the same time are common for many spatial semiotic systems. Not coincident with geometric or phys­ ical categories as well, they can be understood as the key concepts of spa­ tial "universal grammar", although the particular grammar of each spatial code has its own specialization. In particular, semiotized space is one of the key categories of spatial semiotics. It can be considered as a set of places where significant bodies can be located according the norms of a spatial code. Such a space will be autonomous as long as these nonns make a special law for its organiza-

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tion, distinguishing it from the spaces arranged by other laws and serni­ otized by other nonns. It will also be a separate space, if it is set apart from other spaces and makes up a special environment for the objects that stay or change inside. Diverse autonomous spaces can submit to various laws and therefore have diverse qualities. They can be open or closed, discrete or continuous, reversible or irreversible, isotropic or anisotropic, one-, two- or three­ dimensional, and so on. The presence or absence of each of these proper­ ties depends on their connection with the sense, and therefore they can be called "semio-topological" qualities. For example, the space of a written text is semantically one-dimensional and irreversible, because these condi­ tions enable the realization of a meaningful message in this space; the in­ put of other dimensions does not add to any meanings (within pure alpha­ betic writing), whereas the reverse reading of an inscription can change or destroy its sense. Similar to concepts of semiotized space and its semio-topologic prop­ erties, the concept of/orm in spatial semiotics has a specific sense. Here, a form is a meaningful configuration of spatial elements taken in their quali­ tative and quantitative relations. These relations can be selected and repro­ duced in different substances and ideal images of diverse subjects in their communicative acts by spatial code rules. As a meaningful configuration, a semiotically treated form is always connected with some sense and rep­ resents another object or some actions of a subject. As a qualitatively de­ termined object, the form always has some structured elements and con­ tains parts correlated with each other and with the whole. Its quantitative definiteness depends on the proportions of these parts. The pure spatial form, however, does not have any definite size, because many objects with different sizes can have similar spatial forms. Only an embodied fonn gets this kind of size and can be related to a huruan scale. A form can be involved in communicative acts in two ways. On the one hand, it can be a represented object belonging to the content plane of a spatial code. On the other hand, it can be one of the means of representa­ tion from the expression plane of a spatial code. Spatial fonn as an ele­ ment of the content plane is represented, for example, in figurative paint­ ing, but it is excluded from non-figurative art. At the same time, the in­ volvement of a spatial form in the expression plane of any spatial code is obligatory, and thereby a fonn can be considered as a universal category of spatial semiotics. One of the universal grammatical categories of this kind also is a sig­ nificant body relating to a perceptible and recognizable spatial object con-

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nected with reproducible schemes of formation and interpretation accord­ ing to spatial code norms. Another category of spatial "universal grammar" is the significant place, where one or more significant bodies can be located. This category covers several concepts that can be expressed by such categories as entry point, surroundings and locus. The category of entry point denotes a point where relations of spatial objects in an ordinal structure meet, like, for example, street houses ordinal numbers. The category of sUJToundings represents an area close to a selected center. If, for example, a stick is stuck in the ground, it can become the center around which people gather or buildings are built (cp.: Eco, I 972b). While entering is only a dimen­ sionless knot, where ordinal relations meet, a surrounding has an extension and a non-zero dimension. Such extension is also an essential property of loci. Locus is a type of place that does not only correlate with some ordinal sets or a selected point, but also has a definite size extended by one, two or three dimensions and is outlined with certain borders. Therefore, a border is another universal category of spatial grammar. Borders of a body represent a locus where the body itself ends and where something else begins. Borders of a locus can be bodies (like walls or bar­ riers), channels excavated between them (like moats, ditches or trenches) or any limit indexes (like painted lines outlining a locus). Some borders can make a distinction between loci without belonging to any of them. An isolated space can also be separated from other spaces, for example, as is the case with a picture frame separating its space from the space of a gal­ lery. In any case, a border can be defined semiotically as a spatial object marking the difference between meanings of some other spatial objects­ bodies, loci or spaces. Another category of spatial semiotics related and opposed to a border is that of the spatial mediator, which is a meaningful spatial object mark­ ing a passage between loci with diverse meanings or between certain sepa­ rated spaces. Depending on the kind of border, a spatial mediator can be an overpass or a cable that makes it possible to bridge the gap between the divided places, or an open space in a closed wall (a doorway, a gateway, a portal, etc.) or between them (a road, a cannel, a tunnel, etc.). 2.3. Relations between the Categories of Spatial Semiotics

The categories of spatial semiotics enter into specific relationships with each other. Some of these relations will be discussed below in more detail.

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Form, Body and Size. A body is a subj ect of spatial semiotics as long as its internal and external spatial relations can have meanings. Depending on a code, bodily objects can be related to meanings due to their spatial forms, sizes, materials and other features. A spatial form is therefore only one of the factors providing a body with meaning in the plane of content Nevertheless, it is an essential element of the expression plane, which di­ rectly carries a meaning or at least serves as a sense distinctive index. Due to its form, a body is qualitatively different from a formless mass and bod­ ies of other forms. A definite form also makes it possible for a body to be distinguished as a separate object of perception and interpretation. Quanti­ tatively, a meaningful body has proportions given by its form and also a definite size, which is absent in a non-embodied form. Form and Place. Places of all kinds relate differently to the category of form. Neither enter points nor surroundings have a definite form. Unlike them, the category of locus is related to places that are not only correlated with some ordinal sets, but are also outlined by certain borders. Thereby, only loci are the places that obtain a definite spatial form. Differences between the bodies and the relevant loci are not absolute and depend on the viewpoint A place is something that can be filled with bodies, it is where something else can be placed or moved, whereas the body is what is placed or moved there. However, both bodies and loci are shaped and have definite forms, sizes and borders. Form and Borders. The configuration of borders coincides with the body or locus [OnTI. However, border and [onn are not identical concepts and have essential differences. Borders always separate or divide some things and are always connected with a place where they are located. On the contrary, a spatial form is a configuration of spatial relations between its parts that does not depend either on its location or on the definite size of things or places where it is embodied. It can be brought into a substance or extracted from it, but as a scheme of relations between its own parts, a spatial form is independent of any substance. A form is substantiated when it coincides with the boundaries of a particular body or locus. In turn, their borders are formed when their configurations become definite. For exam­ ple, the form of a square is always identical to itself in any substance and size, whereas square borders, for example, those of a table, always differ from those of any other table, even ones similar to them. A body and a place can have the same form. For example, a door and a doorway can have a common rectangular fonn and coincide in size. How­ ever, their borders are not identical, even if the surrounded body exactly fits into the surrounding one. In a similar way, the borders of a sculpture (a "model") and a plaster "cast" taken from it do not coincide, although the

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process of casting suggests the preservation and transfer of a form from one body to another. Such preservation is possible because the same spa­ tial form is common for a convex model and its concave mould. Form and Space. A common feature for space and form is that both of them have spatial relations. However, a spatial form is an exact configura­ tion of quite definite spatial relations, whereas a space is a set of places: where these relations can be formed and where their diverse configura­ tions can reveal themselves. Space does not exist outside spatial relation­ ships, but no configuration of spatial relations covers the space (see also below 11.5.2). Space and Place (Locus). Semiotized space and meaningful loci are close categories reflecting the phenomena that in certain circumstances can turn into each other. On the one hand, semiotized space can be consid­ ered as a complex of meaningful places, i.e. coexisting loci that enter into qualitative ordinal and quantitative metrical relations. On the other hand, several loci can be semiotized in a particular manner and obtain their own spatial codes with special laws for meaningful spatial relations to be se­ lected and organized. For example, a picture contains both autonomous spaces together: the depicting and depicted ones, which differ in their qualities (the first is flat, the second is three-dimensional, etc.). Despite the fact that the depicting space has all the characteristics of a separate space and its frame borders it from the space of the gallery where it hangs, if these characteristics are not taken into account, it can be also considered as a locus in this gallery. Unlike this depicting space of a canvas hanging on a gallery wall, the space depicted on this canvas is completely separated from that of the gallery and cannot be considered as its locus. If a geo­ graphical map is represented in a depicted space, there are grounds for this picture's locus to be considered as a new space within the depicted one. If a part of this map is occupied by a written text, this locus forms another semiotized space incorporated in that of the map. Since the latter is in its turn included in the depicted space of the picture separated from the space of the gallery, complex relations between all these spaces are formed. At the same time, including one space in another is only one type of these relations. Therefore, a row of loci can be inserted one into the other so that they turn into separate spaces, if diverse codes regulate the ways that meaningful relations are selected and arranged. (See more details on the relations between differently semiotized spaces below, IIS 1 . 7 and 11.6.3.) Spatial units and semiotized time. Significant forms and other spatial units can also be considered as part of spatial-temporal semiotics and therefore are connected with semiotized time. The latter is a set of signifi­ cant relations between some events received and interpreted according to

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the norms of some spatial-temporal codes, e.g. kinesic, haptic, mimic, traf­ fic lights, etc. In these cases the changes of the spatial forms, as well as of the borders, sizes, replacements of bodies, etc., are significant, together with the proper spatial relations. However, pure temporal codes belong to another class of semiotic systems, which conform to the principle of line­ arity and are studied by semiotics of time. 2.4. On "Universal" and "Partial" Grammars in Spatial Semiotics

Universal categories of spatial semiotics interact differently in gram­ matical systems of diverse spatial codes. There are codes where the main category is a spatial form and the central position has morphology as the doctrine of form and its involvement in the expression plane. For example, an object-functional code is a semiotic system that con­ nects spatial [OnTIS with the instrumental functions of artefacts where these forms are embodied. Within the scope of this code's morphology, it is possible to regard morphemes as minimal signs of the functions. These morphemes can be combined differently in diverse morphological con­ structions in whole object shapes (see below, 11.5.2.5). Together with morphology, spatial code grammar can also have quite a developed syntax in the narrow sense of the word, as a doctrine of rela­ tions between significant units of expression plane. In particular, in the same object-functional code the field of syntax includes significant rela­ tions between the object's forms as well as their relationships with an act­ ing subject. It is also true that the relations between an object-functional code and an acting person become the signs of a social-symbolic code showing this person's social function. The key categories for the spatial syntax of this code are the meaningful place in all of its modes and the location for the positioning of some significant bodies into a certain locus. Such structural features of semiotized spaces and spatial texts formed therein as dimensionality, openness and closeness, discreteness and conti­ nuity, etc. can be the subjects of semio-topology as a separate section of spatial grammar. These properties characterize specific spatial syntax; they are not mathematical, but semiotic characteristics of semiotized spaces and spatial texts, and should therefore be described with the category of semio­ topology as a special part of spatial semiotics. Each spatial code has its own grammar that gives grounds to think about the comparative grammar of spatial codes. In particular, the rela­ tions between morphology and syntax, which are essential parts of spatial grammar, can vary in different codes. Morphology is the most important

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part of grammar in the system of the object-functional code, whereas in the system of the social-symbolic code, it is as important as syntax; it is less essential in the architectonic code semiotic system and completely inferior to syntax in the system of perceptographic code. Both the morphology and syntax of spatial codes can also be consid­ ered from the point of view of their historical evolution. The forms of arte­ facts are selected in the process of natural evolution. However, unlike nat­ ural forms, those of artefacts can be created by a human as ideas deliber­ ately embodied into material objects and assimilated by other people as reproducible schemes. Historical changes of these meaningful forms and their study can be a subject of semiotic morphogenetics, considered as a part of spatial semiotics that deals with diachronic changes of these artifi­ cially created forms. It is comparable with topogenetics, which is connect­ ed with the idea of topogenesis, i.e. the historical changes of the shapes and senses of architecturally formed spaces (cf Muntafiola, 1996).

3. Spatial Codes and their Diversity 3.1. Spatial Codes

Each semiotized space is connected with some norms of selection and interpretation of meaningful spatial units. These units and their relations are regulated by one or several spatial codes. Spatial semiosis is based on the semiotization of relations between spatial elements when meaningful spatial relations are selected, built by particular syntactic rules and inter­ preted by semantic nonns used in accordance with certain pragmatic rules (cf Morris, 1971a). Different ways of space semiotization make it possible to choose diverse types of spatial relations and connect them with different types of meanings. A particular system of nonns prescribing the choice, ordering and in­ terpretation of spatial relations in their meaningful complexes is a spatial code. Since a spatial code defines the norms of formation and interpreta­ tion for a semiotized space, it thereby detennines semiotic forms of ex­ pression and content (in Hjelmslev's tenns). The forms of expression characterize syntactic ways to build meaningful spatial configurations. The forms of content relate to semantic rules for their interpretation. Diverse spatial codes differ in their ways of expression, the specific forms of their content and the type of connections between the former and the latter. In particular, the connection between expression and content forms can be fulfilled at a signal-indexical level (if both of them do not go beyond the limits of a situation, where the infonnation connection is per-

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formed) or at the sign level (if units of the expression plane can lead the thought far beyond the given situation). Each code suggests its own ele­ ment selection type dependent on peculiarities of spatial bearers and on specific ways of their vision and interpretation at diverse levels of the psy­ che. These factors of semiotic [onn in spatial codes are dependent on ex­ pression and content substances, contrary to Hjelrnslev's famous thesis (1961 [1943]). 3.2. Diversity of Spatial Codes on the Substance of Expression

It is clear from the above that it is possible to distinguish between spa­ tial codes that, above all, depend on various substances of expression. In this relation, the codes are first of all divided into somatic and non­ somatic. Somatic codes are the ways to select and interpret meaningful forms of the human body or its parts. as well as their layout or some other proper­ ties and relations. There are both natural and cultural somatic codes. The norms of natural reactions to the indices of sex, age, state of health, etc. can be defined as the "natural somatic code" . Conversely. the codes of medical semiotics belong to cultural semiotic systems, because they are based not on natural reactions but on the knowledge of scientific ways to interpret somatic symptoms. Such somatic codes as physiognomics or chi­ romancy also have a cultural genesis. A class of somatic codes also includes expressive looks, mimics and gestures, which are reflected in space as well as in time. This class also contains the codes establishing meaningful spatial body relations between people. There is a complex of significant contacts-a handshake, a kiss, a stroke. a slap, etc.-that forms a sphere of "haptics··. In a similar way, a complex of meaningful physical distances between people. their approxi­ mations and movements back and forth forms a sphere of "proxemics". All these kinesic codes are based not only on cultural norms but also on some natural suppositions. Kinesic codes have both spatial and temporal compcnents. Neverthe­ less, spatial components are often so important that many of them can pre­ serve their meaning without any kinesic acts-for example, in painting, where all temporal elements are excluded from the plane of expression. Contrary to somatic codes, non-somatic ones establish the formation and interpretation of extra-somatic objects, i.e. everyday things, architec­ tural constructions, written texts, etc. In the class of non-somatic codes it is possible to distinguish subclasses of object. quasi-object and non-object codes.

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Among extra-somatic objects there is a big world of naturally occur­ ring things that are interpreted by diverse cultural norms. Since any natural phenomenon can be subject to interpretation, it is possible to speak about extra-somatic natural symptomatology, provided it is interpreted as an index of some other natural phenomenon or quality (e.g., clouds as index­ es of possible rain). Another case is extra-somatic "natural symbolism , in which phenomena are interpreted as symbols of some fonn of representa­ tions-mythological, religious, etc. (for example, if a solar eclipse is re­ garded as an omen of an impending disaster). Such symbolism is "natu­ ral", insofar as these phenomena are not created artificially, but it is cer­ tainly cultural, insofar as the meanings connected with them are created in culture. Astrology and alchemy can be considered as examples of these codes, the first being a semiotic system that connects the motions of stars and planets with certain human senses, and the other connecting these meanings with diverse chemical substances and their interactions. All these semiotic systems can be defined as cultural codes ofnatural objects. There is also a large sphere of artificially created things which are not only interpreted but also formed according to cultural norms. These norms of artefacts' fonnation and interpretation are related to another area of object codes. One of their parts regulates the interpretation of subject-object rela­ tions, above all the connections between spatial forms and instrumental functions of the objects. For example, clothes, dishes, furniture, vehicles, etc. are fonned and their instrumental functions are interpreted according to this type of code. Semiotic systems of this type are defined as object­ functional codes. This term covers a number of semiotic systems perfonn­ ing different functions connected with certain visible forms and having different cultural and historical versions. If the forms of these artefacts are also interpreted as signs or symbols of relations between subjects, they acquire connotative meanings as well. The codes regulating these meanings are developed as secondary semiotic systems in relation to an object-functional code and to a verbal language as well. We shall call this type of semiotic system social-symbolic codes. F or example, a military uniform formed and interpreted by the means of the object-functional code can also be understood as a symbol of social relations between a man wearing this uniform and people in other uni­ forms or people without them . This interpretation is mediated in this case by both verbal language and spatial codes of a social-symbolic type. There is another class of semiotic means serving for communication between the subject of activity and the representation of its objects. The members of this class cannot be identified either with somatic or with ex"

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tra-somatic bodies, though they are separate quasi-objects of perception and interest, e.g. significant configurations of lines, colour spots, etc. For example, typed letters or drawn pictures are this kind of quasi-object that can be located on a human's or animal's body or on an object's surface. Not coinciding with any particular body, these quasi-objects may be the units of spatial codes: alphabetic or non-alphabetic ways of writing, her­ aldry, esoteric symbolic system, etc. Semiotic systems, where such ele­ ments are the main units, can be called quasi-object codes. Several spatial codes can have both object and quasi-object bearers. Thus, a demarcation code can contain both types of area indicating marks in its plane of expres­ SIOn. If bearers of visual-spatial information are not connected with a certain somatic or non-somatic body and can keep their semiotic [OnTIS independ­ ent of a particular class of spatial bearers, their regulating codes can be related to a class of objectless semiotic systems. These are different codes determining the ways to select and interpret significant colours or light and dark. In particular, the colours of political movements or sport clubs keep their meaning without regard for the bearer in which they are embodied. 3.3. Semantic Specifics of Spatial Codes (Diversity by Psychical Substance of Contents)

Apart from the differences in external physical content of expression, another code distinguishing factor is the internal divergence of psychic ways to comprehend spatial configurations. Spatial codes have internal semantics covering the areas that are wider than those of a verbal lan­ guage. On the one hand, spatial constructions can express logical sentences not only through formal calculations, but also through configurations of some other artefacts. For example, a state flag raised on a ship's mast can be regarded as a sign, the nominative function of which coincides with a significant place performing the predicative function. Taken together, they form a spatial equivalent of a logical proposition: "The ship belongs to this country" made by the logical formula: "S is P". The mathematician Her­ man Weyl even believed that spatial relations can be more precisely ex­ pressed with such logical relationship judgments as a R b than with verbal constructions (Weyl, 1934: 35). On the other hand, the content plane of some spatial codes can contain ideas belonging to lower cognitive levels than notions described by words. Together with the logical level of the mind, spatial codes are able to ex­ press images of an "infralogicaT' level (in Jean Piaget's terms). There are,

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in particular, perceptual or even quasi-sensorial images, which belong to the plane of content in several spatial codes. Along with "ideographic" codes, which can fix ideas at a conceptual level, and "pictographic" codes, which can express the more or less general schemes of things, there are "perceptographic" codes regulating connections between the depicting and depicted spaces in pictures, and making it possible for perceptual im­ ages to communicate. There is also a complex of synesthetic codes, each of them is able to communicate quasi-sensorial images at a sensographic level of interpretation (such as a visual-thennal code regulating connec­ tions between coloured paints and thennal feelings of what is "warmer" or "colder"). It is fair to distinguish between the codes of direct and shifted compre­ hension. The first type of codes provides cognitive processes of percep­ tion, recognition and categorization of sensually presented objects. In the codes of the second type, the focus is shifted from perceptible objects to the ones located at whatever distance, whether they real or non-existent. Apart from conventional signs, the same ability to shift the subject's im­ age to other objects is typical for the codes of the signal-indexical level, where it is possible for both perceptograms, shifting the focus of percep­ tion to depicted objects, and sensograms, evoking quasi-sensorial images, can appear (see above, 1.3.2). The codes providing shifted comprehension are involved not only in the cognition of objects, but also in communica­ tive processes between its subjects and intra-subjective processes of logi­ cal or infralogical thinking. Besides cognitive ways of interpretation, some spatial codes can also mediate its projective and affective modes. These codes are especially im­ portant for design, architecture and urban planning, which create spatial objects intended for instrumental and social actions of their subjects. Pro­ jective codes connect visual-spatial forms and images of movements de­ veloped on different psychic levels. Thus, the architectonic code regulates these connections with kinesthetic images of interacting forces: gravita­ tion, resilience, tension, etc. The object-functional code regulates connec­ tions between objects' forms with schemes of certain instrumental actions. The demarcation code contains a complex of signal-indexical means in­ volved in the distribution of actants (i.e. subjects, objects or means of ac­ tivity) by meaningful loci of instrumental or social spaces (see more de­ tails on these codes below, 11.3.1-3). Similarly, spatial codes can regulate connections between spatial forms and affective images, such as in cases of mimic actions or significant touches in the system of a haptic code. All these semantic peculiarities in the described spatial codes belong to the "psychical substance of expres-

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sion" and are connected with specifics of the "psychical addresses" of the messages regulated by these codes. 3.4. Peculiarities of Syntactic Constructions

Specific categories of spatial grammar, such as significant spatial [OnTI, place, border, etc. describe the elements of the expression plane in spatial codes. Involved in significant relations by norms of a spatial code, they build syntactic constructions with specific sernio-topological features, dis­ tinguishing them from temporal syntactic structures. In particular, syntactic constructions of many spatial texts cannot com­ ply with the "principle of linearity" fonnulated by Ferdinand de Saussure for linguistic and related systems. Contrary to verbal syntactic construc­ tions, spatial significant structures can develop in two or even three di­ mensions, such as constructions of spatial fonns and places, regulated by an architectonic code. The nonlinearity of spatial syntactic structures is connected not only with their quantitative variety but also with qualitative dimensional differ­ ences i.e. with their anisotropy. Thus, in the social-symbolic code system, a change of position towards top or bottom, left or right, front or rear is often connected with a change of meaning. At the same time, spatial syntactic constructions can be symmetrical and reversible, their content being the same regardless of the succession of "reading"-in contrast to irreversible and asymmetrical temporal construc­ tions in language, where palindromes are rarely possible, if ever. Some codes have separate units combined in non-continual syntactic constructions. This is, for example, alphabetic writing that uses discrete letters as basic elements. However, other spatial codes comply with a prin­ ciple of the "palette" rather than with the one of the "alphabet"". and in this regard, continual transitions of some qualities have their meaning. For example, in a perceptographic code, continual changes of colour character­ istics indicate the turning of rounded shapes on depictions (on the differ­ ence between the "principle of palette" and the "principle of alphabet"". see in more detail above. 1.3.3). Various combinations of these qualities fonn diverse "semio-topologic profiles" of syntactic constructions, which are regulated by different spa­ tial codes. Thus. for example. the expression plane of the perceptographic code contains syntactic structures of depictions with two-dimensional, reversible, continual and closed spaces. On the contrary, the semio­ topologic profile of alphabetic writing is liable to linearity. irreversibility, discreteness and openness.

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3.5. Types of Relations between the Spatial Codes

Spatial codes, like other semiotic systems, can be involved in diverse relations with each other These relations are of different types. All these types can be considered in terms of the connections between the expres­ sion and content planes in these codes. They can be written in short as PE\PC or PCIPE, if a converse order is more convenient. In particular, translation can be considered as such a relation between the codes, where the textual content remains intact after its expression plane has been substituted with the elements and structures of another code. For example. the letters of a font generator can be changed to the ones of another font code. one sort of bank notes can be replaced with oth­ er ones or (also comprising a change in the content plane) one architectural order can be changed to another one, i.e. replaced with a different version of the architectonic code. Only a small part of the relations between spatial codes can be regarded as a translation, because it suggests that the content plane remains unchanged (the latter can be written as PCS!=PCS2). whereas the codes often have principally different mental levels, where their con­ tents are developed (see above, 3.3). Translation can be briefly represented in a formula, where the expres­ sion and content planes of a semiotic system (S) are marked as PEs and PCs, respectively, and the operation of replacement is marked with the ' ----)- ' SIgn. The translation of Sl to Sz code can be shown as (PEs!�PEszl\PCs!.s2; (pCS! = PCS2) · Another kind of relation is also often referred to as a translation, when not only the expression plane of a text but also the plane of its content is interpreted by the means of a different code-for example, the elements of architectonic code (AC) and their meanings are described by verbal lan­ guage means (VL). In such cases when a semiotic system is totally changed, it is wise to talk about the relation of description, which can be briefly expressed as (pEs! \PCS!)�( PCS2/ PEs2); S! � S2. There is also an inverse relation towards translation, i.e. when the plane of expression remains the same, but the one of content is changed and interpreted by the means of another code. For example, this is the case in recoding an alphabet, when each letter denotes the one in alphabetical order, as was the case in ancient Rome. We will regard this case as rein­ terpretation and express it as (pCS!�PCs2)!PEs!.s2; (pEs! = PEs2). Another type of connection is fonned by meta-semiotic relations be­ tween semiotic systems when one of them is described by the means of another one (see Hjelmslev, 1961, §22). The difference is that, in the case of meta-semiosis, not only texts but also an entire system of another code

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is described by the means of the one given and can thereby be included in its plane of content Using the '=>'sign to express such an inclusion (A=>B denotes A contains B), it is possible to [onnulate the meta-semiotic relation as PES1I(pCS1=>PEs2IPCS2). Only a verbal language is able to describe an entire semiotic system, although some spatial codes can represent the plane of expression and thereby that of content of the same or another code. For example, one picture can represent another one by the means of the same perceptographic code, or an architectural project can represent the means of architectonic cooe and their meanings by the same perceptographic means. In these cases, rneta-serniosis in its wider sense is realized. There is a second way to include one semiotic system in another, i.e. to include it in an expression plane of another system, which is referred to by 1 . Hjelmslev as the relation of connotation (Ibid). In a notation system, this relation (we shall call it Hjelmslev 's connotation) can be expressed as PCs1/(PEsl=> PES2IPCS2). For example, a palette and a brush denoting their direct functions in the system of the object-functional code (OFC) can also signify painting in its general sense in the emblematic code system (EC), where they form the units of its expression plane together with their planes of expression and contents: PCEc/(PEEC=> PEOFCIPCOFC). However, a sort of connotation can also be used without fixing it to a definite way of expression, when only the expressed content is shifted into the expression plane of a connotative system . We will denote this shifting as PCsl�PEs2. For example, the meaning of the word lion in English or in any other language, as well as a picture or a sculpture of a lion, can not only denote an animal but also connote force or power, regardless of their specific ways of expression. Such a relation of symbolization differs from the case ofHjelmslev' s connotation. The latter takes place, for example, if a number of dynasties or states with a lion depicted on their emblems differ in the ways these depictions are outlined, i.e. when the expression plane unit of a heraldic code is formed (see Figure 1.3.2-5). On the contrary, there is a reverse relation of a recording, when the expression plane of one code is shifted into the content plane of the other (PES1�PCS2). This is the case of alphabetic writing, where phonemes of expression plane units of a spoken language turn into units of the content plane within this visual-spatial code system . The latter can in its turn be recorded through a shifting of letters from the expression plane of writing onto these systems' content plane, such as with Morse or Braille alphabets. The above-mentioned alphabets as well as alphabetic writing are examples of subordination between semiotic systems, when one of them exists irrespective of any other semio-system, while another one is an auxiliary code functioning with the first system .

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Semiotic systems' subordination is a particular case of their functional connection, when one of them functions only on the condition that another does the same. If the latter can function irrespective of the first system, there is a one-way dependence; in an opposite case, the dependence is mu­ tual. These types of relations can be represented as Sl +--Sz in the case of one-way dependence and as Sl�SZ if the dependence is mutual. Apart from the functional connection, there is also a genetic depend­ ence, when a semiotic system is developed by the means of the other one, although in some cases this secondary system (in the terms of the Tartu­ Moscow semiotic school) can then function independently. For example, formal calculus, introduced by a verbal language, does not need it further on. In some cases, different cooes can have common elements of their ex­ pression planes. For example, a wall of a building, involved in diverse syntactic constructions in its expression planes, can denote support in an architectonic code system, protection in an object-functional code system and separation from other functioning spaces in a demarcation code sys­ tem. In such cases, codes with common elements intersect at their planes of expression. If the common units represent constituent parts of expres­ sion planes in any code-Sl Sz S:J-then code intersections at these units ' can be represented as PEsl APEszAPEs3. Unlike spatial "homonymy", in the "synonymy" of spatial codes the same meanings are expressed differently-for example, coins and bank notes are mutually translated semiotic systems differing in their expression plane, but signifying the same content. Such cases of intersections in the content plane can be expressed as PCSl APCSz, etc. It is clear that in such cases, a mutual translatability of these codes is also possible. If systems do not depend on each other, they can be simultaneously used together without inclusion or intersection in expression or content planes. Such a combination of independent semiotic systems can be re­ garded as their coordination, if these systems are both involved in devel­ oping complex meanings. This case can be expressed as: S, VS2 vS,=PEs, \PCS! VPES2IPCS2 VPEs)IPCs) . Spatial codes are also involved not only in diverse mutual relations, but also in verbal language-related ones. Some of them directly depend on this language, such as alphabetic writing, which encodes the expression plane of spoken language and shifts it into the content plane, or ideography, which translates the contents of verbal language into visual-spatial forms. However, some other spatial codes can develop independently. For exam­ ple, an object-functional code connecting spatial forms of artefacts with their instrumental functions develops in human activity as a separate sign ,

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system, although its units can be named and described by a verbal lan­ guage. Moreover, architectonic, synesthetic and perceptographic codes have their natural origins, despite their being transformed and developed in culture.

4. Spatial Texts and their Interaction 4.1. Spatial Texts

Similar to linguistics, which, after Ferdinand de Saussure, distin­ guishes between "language" and "speech", spatial semiology has reasons to distinguish between spatial codes and spatial texts. While the codes are the means of space serniotization, the spatial texts are its results. Not every spatial construction is a spatial tex� only the one that forms syntactically and semantically connected sets of meaningful elements is. A spatial text is always a holistic configuration of significant objects and places, structured and interpreted according to the rules of one or several semiotic systems. Being the products of serniotization, spatial texts differ from non-texts by their quantitative and qualitative characteristics. Spatial texts are quantitatively characterized by external limits, within which they occupy some space. Qualitatively, they stand out from all irrelevant ele­ ments and relations in the same space due to the features fixed in the spa­ tial code system and present in their units. Since spatial texts are formed only by spatial relations, no temporal re­ lations are involved in them. Of course, there is a class of spatial-temporal texts and coordinated codes which covers both spatial and temporal chan­ nels, such as gesticulation. However, purely spatial texts exclude temporal relations from their semiotic form and contain them only in the substance of expression. Time in this kind of spatial text does not mean anything and can be represented only as a denotaturn at the content level. 4.2. Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Spatial Texts

The creation and interpretation of a spatial text can be regulated by one or more codes. The text becomes mono- or poly-systemic, respectively. Depending on the relations between texts and codes, it is possible to dis­ tinguish between different concepts of texts related to various disciplines. Unlike L-texts, which are coordinated only with verbal languages and are the subject of linguistics, S-texts include a wider class of texts in a broader semiotic sense; each of them is coordinated with a verbal or a non­ verbal code. If a text is coordinated with several definite codes, it can be

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considered as a complex rhetoric construction created by its sender and be included in the R-texts class. Finally, a text can be in a kind of open rela­ tionship with different codes, be interpreted by any of them or, on the con­ trary, without of any code at all (for example, through mimetic resem­ blance to a represented object). This case corresponds not to the message sender's position, but to that of its recipients, who are not limited by pre­ assigned semiotic systems and are ready to introduce their own ways of interpretation. Such a hermeneutic position is correlated with the concept of H-texts (for more details on the diverse types of texts see above, 1.3.1 .5.2). All these text concepts (linguistic, semiotic, rhetoric or hermeneutic) can be applied to spatial texts. A spatial text can be homogeneous, if it is represented in one semiotic system-for example, an L-text written in compliance with the grammatical rules of any single language. However, even the text of a dictionary is regulated by at least two languages and should be referred to the class of R-texts, which are always heterogeneous. Several codes combined together in the construction of heterogeneous spatial R- and H-texts are a usual phenomenon in the cultural semiosphere (cf: Lotman, 1 98 1 : 7; 2000: 1 97). Diverse areas of semiotic practice can use different complexes of semiotic systems, among which different cooes can be more or less important. For example, alphabetic writing and a font code are typical semiotic systems for written texts, although the architec­ tonic code can be used in these cases as well. The object-functional code is an obligatory semiotic system for the products of design, although the above-mentioned architectonic or social-syrn bolic codes are also essential for them. A perceptual image of three-dimensional space can be evoked by the usage of the perceptographic code in a picture, although many other visual-spatial codes can also be used by this interpretation. Different semi­ otic systems jointly used to create heterogeneous spatial texts are typical phenomena for the semiotic structure of the human environment and archi­ tecture. 4.3. Combination of Spatial Texts in Architecture

Semiotic concepts can be differently applied to the field of architec­ ture. The "first wave" of architectural semiotic studies focused predomi­ nantly on the search for a specific "architectural language" following the pattern of a verbal language (see e.g. Jencks, 1 977). However, a more de­ tailed analysis makes it possible to consider architecture as a special field of semiotic practice, where different spatial codes are jointly used to ar­ range and comprehend human behaviour in the area of social and instru-

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mental activity (see e.g. Eco, 1998, C4). This field partly intersects with that of design (e.g. in interior planning), but differs from other domains of semiotic practice, where the means of spatial serniosis are also used. In particular, fhe space of human behaviour formed by architecture differs from that of contemplation, created by painting, or from that of reading, regulated by the semiotic rules of writing. This does not exclude using the codes studied by architectural semiotics in the creation of pictures or writ­ ten texts, nor does it exclude the usage of perceptographic pictorial means or writing codes in architecture. But these codes are not obligatory for architecture, unlike dynamic codes complexes connected with projective ways of interpretation, i.e. with the creation of moving images including locomotion and social behaviour in an architectural environment. In particular, a demarcation code contains indexation norms, since that social or instrumental space is divided into sections having different mean­ ings and values. Its semiotic means are the signals and indexes of places to pass, turn, stop, etc. An architectonic code regulates the norms of connec­ tions between visual spatial fOnTIS and kinesthetic feelings of mechanical forces. An object-functional code connects visual forms of these objects with definite instrumental functions. A social-symbolic code establishes the nOnTIS of connections between definite spatial objects and social sub­ jects using them. Different codes can be meaningful to varying degrees in diverse cases. For example, the object-functional code dominates in technical construc­ tions, the social-symbolic one is more important for meaningful social buildings, the demarcation code or the one of road signs is more useful in organizing urban traffic, etc. However, many spatial codes usually interact when interpreting architectural buildings and the human enviromnent. At the same time, the relationship between the codes and their involvement in the overall semiotic complex can be different depending on fhe purpose of an architectural construction, its social or cultural functions, historical conditions, stylistic preferences, etc. A spatial form of a building can be interpreted by the architectonic code means as a construction of "supports" and "overlaps", while the means of the object-functional code treat it as a "house", a "factory" or a "stadium ", and the means of the social-symbolic code can recognize it as a luxurious or beggarly one. Some buildings or their elements can even be recognized as letters by the alphabetic code means. Correspondingly, each building can be considered as a corn bination of different spatial texts that are constructed and interpreted by the norms of various visual-spatial codes. In particular, it contains a text regulated by the nOnTIS of the architectonic code, i.e. a construction interpreted as a

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complex of columns and arches, supports and beams, which expresses force relations between parts of the construction and evokes viewers' kin­ esthetic reactions. Texts regulated by the norms of the object-functional code in the same building are formed by other units having other mean­ ings. Their units are constructed by spatial forms differing in the functions they perform for people: walls and roofs, windows and doors, staircases and corridors, railings and lanterns, etc. If specific characteristics of these units obtain supplementary meanings, these qualities build a new text in­ terpreted by the social-symbolic or similar codes. Instrumental and social divisions of space are directly signified by the means of the demarcation code that denotes the places where diverse loci change their meanings. Coordinated mono-systemic spatial texts regulated by different codes form a complex poly-systemic text intended for the artistic organization of an architectural space. Suitable behaviour in such a space involves the usage of different semiotic systems and their joint or alternate actualiza­ tion as well. 4.4. An Exam pIe of a Heterogeneous Architectural Text

The different kinds of interaction between spatial codes. described at a semiological level, can be demonstrated through semiographic examples of pictures from an "Architectural Alphabet" elaborated in the XVIII cen­ tury by the German architect Johann David Steingruber. He designed a series of projects representing unrealized buildings, each of them being shaped as a letter of the alphabet: A, E, C, etc. The buildings were repre­ sented by drawings of facades and by plans formed as capital letters (Kiermeier-Debre&Vogel, 1997; see Fig. 11. 1 . 1-1). This example can be considered as a heterogeneous spatial H-text, where one can see a combination of three groups of spatial codes in vari­ ous relations to each other. These are, firstly, a group of typical codes for buildings-the demarcation, architectonic, object-functional and social­ symbolic codes; secondly, there are two ways of depicting these build­ ings-as relief drawings of facades by the means of the perceptographic code, and planes, drafted by another, more conventional version of the perceptographic code; thirdly, the letters are used in two ways-as the common means of writing and as forms, whereby the planes of the build­ ings are delineated. All these codes may be actualized, because architec­ tural objects are depicted by the means of the perceptographic code (PGC) used for drawings. This gives reason using the designations from 11. 1 . 1 .3.5 to express the connections between these codes as PCPGC:::::)(PEACVPEDCVPEoFC), where

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AC, DC and OFC are the architectonic, demarcation and object-functional codes, respectively.

Figure II. l . l -l . Johann David Steingruber. The schemes of buildings shaped as the letters "E" and "R" from his "Architectural Alphabet" ( 1 773) [by Kiermeier­ Debre&Vogel, 1 997, pp. 23, 5 1 ] .

Another code contains the letters of alphabetic writing (AW) in its ex­ pression plane and stays in different relations with other spatial codes in­ volved in the interpretation of the drawings. The letters that mark various rooms represented in the draft are independent of other codes and coordi­ nated with the meanings of their means: AWVDCvACvOFCvSSCVPGC. However, the letters delineated by the building walls are functionally connected with at least several syntactic constructions formed by the ele­ ments of the demarcation code, which are shifted into the shapes of letters and coincide with them; thereby the demarcation and alphabetic codes intersect in these constructions: PEAW=>PEDC; PEAWAPEDC. This example shows that architectural buildings can have a complex semiotic structure, which is formed in result ofjoint using of various inter­ acting codes. Its component analysis is quite possible if, before pointing at single signs in a heterogeneous architectural text, the semiotic systems used in its formation and interpretation are studied.

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Conclusion

Thus, spatial semiotics grows as a special branch of semiotic studies and is comparable with another branch of the "semiotic tree", i.e. semiot­ ics of time, which complies with the second principle of Saussurean semi­ ology. In contrast, spatial semiotics does not comply with the syntactic principle of signifier linearity, because many meaningful spatial construc­ tions possess such specific semio-topologic qualities as non-linearity, re­ versibility, anisotropy, etc. As for another Saussurean thesis, i.e. the semantic principle of arbitrar­ iness of signs, spatial semiotics does not quite correspond to it too, be­ cause the nonns of many spatial codes are dependent on some extra­ semiotic connections between objects participating in fonnation of expres­ sion and content planes. For example, in the architectonic code, connec­ tions between the spacing of visible fonns and kinesthetic images of me­ chanical forces as their meanings are dependent on the physical experience of a human. Apart from the syntactic and semantic peculiarities of spatial semiot­ ics, it also has a pragmatic feature, i.e. a specific relation of spatial semio­ sis to diachronic communicative processes, the stages of which can be far apart from each other in time. This is also different from the synchronous connection model between participants of communication, accepted by de Saussure. In this comparison, the semiological principles suggested by de Saus­ sure-primarily, the principle of linearity of signifiers-seem to be the basic principles of the semiotics of time (including linguistics as its main subject). There are grounds therefore to consider the semiology of de Saussure not as a universal theory of sign systems, but as a separate branch of it- "chronosemiotics ", i.e. the semiotics of temporal bearers of meamng. Since general semiology developed similarly to verbal language in other sign systems, the specifics of temporal semiotics could go unnoticed. However, the more spatial semiotics (or "chorasemiotics") develops and recognizes its specifics, the more it is shaped as a parallel branch of the sign theory dealing with other communication mechanisms based on dif­ ferent principles. In the same way that "the whole mechanism of lan­ guage" described by Saussurean temporal semiotics is focused on the con­ secutive order of audible units in time, the organization of visible spatial syntactic structures fit the conditions of their spreading in space (see above, 1.1 .2). Since the main principles of Saussurean semiology are not relevant to spatial semiotics, it has the nature of a "non-Saussurean" theory (like non-

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Euclidian geometry rejecting one of the possible postulates). Spatial semi­ otics is a "non-Hjelrnslevian" one as well, in the sense that it does not ap­ ply the thesis of the Danish linguist on the complete independence of a semiotic [onn from the expression and content substances. The main subject of spatial semiotics is space semiotization, i.e. the ways to order and interpret meaningful spatial structures. Different ways of serniotization are spatial codes. The semiotics of space also considers the results of this semiotization, i.e. spatial texts. Therefore, it is equally developed as semiotics of spatial codes and that of spatial texts. Spatial semiotics also studies various interactions between spatial codes and other semiotic systems. Thereby, the formation of heterogeneous texts regulated by the entire complex of spatial codes is also included in the subject matter of spatial semiotics. Thus, spatial semiotics covers a quite large area­ from small forms of script or heraldic signs to huge architectural and ur­ ban constructions. Volumetric tangible objects such as buildings and houseware as well as quasi-object [OnTIS of alphabetic writing and similar ways of inscription are included in its field, because in all these cases, the spatial relations are the bearers of meanings. Together with the semiotics of time that includes linguistics, as well as with studies of spatial-temporal semiotic means, spatial semiotics is one of the main ways to study the cul­ tural semiosphere. This does not exclude the fact that it can also study natural roots of synesthetic, perceptographic, architectonic and other spatial codes. Its sub­ ject in this relation is formed by signal-indexical connections of external optical data with reactions to them on diverse levels of the psyche. These natural connections are developed and artificially used in arts studied by spatial semiotics. In particular, the semiotics of architecture, urban planning, design, painting and other fine arts are the application fields of spatial semiotics, where spatial codes interact in a special way and form types of spatial texts for each of these spheres. However, with all its specifics, general categories of spatial semiotics provide a conceptual system that allows, on the one hand, to differ the area of spatial semiosis from other parts of the semiosphere and, on the other hand, to consider parts of this area from a common point of view.

11. 1 .2. AESTHETICS AND ART THEORY AS GROUNDS FOR SPATIAL SEMIOTICS

The connection between aesthetics and semiotics is usually treated uni­ laterally-as an application to aesthetics of semiotic methods already es­ tablished on other grounds. It is assumed that semiotic concepts should make aesthetics more rigorous and help it cease to be "the least exact of all inexact sciences" Cas Nikolay Akimov called it). Charles Morris, for ex­ ample, believed that aesthetics is a kind of sign analysis that has as its sub­ ject works of art as a special class of "aesthetic signs" (Morris, 1971c [ 1 939]). In fact, the use of semiotic concepts helps aesthetics to rethink the issues under consideration and even to pose new questions, for example, to formulate as its task the analysis of the methods of a skilful use of various cultural codes in works of art. However, semiotic concepts often turn out to be not more, but less ex­ act means of describing works of art in comparison with traditional aes­ thetic and art criticism. For example, the interpretation of the most diverse works of painting, graphics or sculpture as "iconic signs" does not specify but, on the contrary, coarsens a much more subtle and differentiated un­ derstanding of the features of representative means in different types of figurative art, worked out in traditional aesthetics and art history. Moreo­ ver, the central concept of semiotics-a sign conceivable as a discrete car­ rier of a stable value-is not entirely adequate for characterizing the depic­ tive and expressive means (continuous and polysemantic) in spatial forms of art. This is not surprising, considering that semiotics actually developed in the search for analogies of other sign systems with verbal language. Such is the case, first of all, of the semiology of F. de Saussure, which takes as its basis the principles of the arbitrariness ("umuotivated") of the sign and the linearity of signifiers. Both these principles characterize the sign sys­ tem of the linguistic type, directly related to the initially auditory-temporal mode of communication through alternating discrete signs. Such an orien­ tation gives grounds for considering the semiology of de Saussure and his followers not as a universal theory of signs and sign systems, but only as

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one of the branches of such a theory that is a "chronoserniotics", the semi­ otics of discrete signs successively replacing each other in time. As the semiotics of space develops and becomes aware of its specificity, this "choraserniotics" grows as a parallel branch of semiotic studies, which deals with some other mechanisms of messaging. Among the disciplines that can be the ground for this branch of semiot­ ics, it is quite natural to consider traditional aesthetics and the theory of art. After all, semiotics is not a dogma, a ready-made and immutable con­ ceptual apparatus, nor a doctrine claiming the status of the "only true" method applicable to any subject, but a historically developing science. In its history, it was guided by different subjects, each of which corresponded to their own methods. The ground for semiotics could be logic-as per Locke (1980 [1 689]) or Peirce (1931-32 [ 1 867])--{)r linguistics (as in de Saussure's semiology), or even psychology as well (as, for example, in BUhler (1994 [1 934]). However, if in the second half of the twentieth cen­ tury semiotics was developed, first of all, within the framework of the "Peirce project" or the "de Saussure project", this does not mean that in such "donor" rather than "consumer" relations with semiotics there can only be logic and linguistics. Other sciences that include in their subject means of expression can also prove to be the ground on which their semi­ otic concept can grow. A Greimas and J Courtes (1983 [1979] : 527) in­ troduced, instead of the notion of "theory", the less binding term "project", which gives a possibility of considering, together with the developed con­ ception, different ideas that contain a potency of the further developing. In particular, the potencies of the approach that could be called the "Baumgarten project"-semiotics developing on the basis of aesthetics and the theory of art-are by no means exhausted (see Baumgarten, 1961 [ 1 750]). Although this project was not developed to the same degree as the logical or linguistic version of the science of signs, the aesthetics itself developed not only as a "science of the beautiful" or as a philosophy of art, but also as a "science of expression" as it was detennined, for exam­ ple, by B. Croce (2000 [1 902]) or A Losev (1 970). Therefore, it seems quite legitimate to turn over the habitual way of correlating semiotics and aesthetics and to speak not only of what aesthet­ ics can take from semiotics, but also of what it can give it. Even a cursory glance at the history of aesthetics reveals that it can give a lot to semiotics. In particular, the aestheticians and theoreticians of art studied the spatial means of expression in much more detail than semi­ oticians-not only linear but also multidimensional, not only discrete but also continuous, and so on.

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149

It is known that, in the project of A Baumgarten, semiotics was sup­ posed as an important part of aesthetics, and it should deal with the signs of the beautiful in pieces of art (Baumgarten, 1964: 455). Aesthetics itself was conceived as a "science of sensory cognition" for the study of its "lower stage", just as logic deals with its "upper stage"-the mind (Ibid: 452). However, in their historical development, aesthetic researches have de­ ployed this "lower stage" into a whole "stairway", whose complex "archi­ tecture" has been reconstructed in various ways in multifonn concepts. Aesthetic thought distinguished at first the cognitive and affective as­ pects of what is united by the single word "sense". If, in one case, one is talking about sensations and perceptions that serve objective knowledge, then in the other, emotions expressing a subjective evaluation are meant (see Kant, 1966 [1 790] 206-207). Different areas of sensory cognition for aesthetics were by no means equivalent, and were divided into "lower" and "higher" ones. H. Horne, for example, began his aesthetic treatise with the division of "higher" and "lower" feelings. If taste, smell or touch are directly related to the subject and retain a corporeal character, then the eyes and ears distant from him raise these feelings above as more spiritual, although they do not reach the height of the intellect (Home, 1977 [ 1 762] 45-46). The hierarchy of sensations extends to the emotions associated with them. The pleasures of the visible and the audible are regarded as higher than the pleasures of the rest of the senses, and the aesthetic feelings prop­ er-the experiences of the beautiful, sublime, tragic, etc.-are evaluated more highly than the pleasures from something simply pleasant and attrac­ tive. Aesthetics and art researchers considered the relationship between the two aspects of feeling, noting the ability of cognitive senses (sight and hearing) to participate in the expression of affective feelings (joy, anger, etc.). The actor, imitating the expressive movements of his character, is able to arouse appropriate reactions from the viewer and listener, just as an artist, by learning expressive movements and facial expressions, can cause affects with the help of his visual means. "Universal communicability", the ability to be transferred to other people, is inherent also to a purely aesthetic sense. Therefore, judgments of taste can claim to be valid (see Kant, 1966: 219-221). Aesthetics in this connection traditionally under­ stand art as a special language through which a person's feelings, like his thoughts, can be transmitted to other people (see, for example, Home, 1977 268-275; Wakemoder, 1977 [1 799] 68; Collingwood, 1999 [1938] Chap. XII).

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Aesthetics investigated the specificity of semiotic means of different types of art. Already the aesthetics of the Enlightenment realized the dif­ ference of possibilities, which have, on the one hand, visually perceived spatial carriers of meanings and, on the other, semiotic means of the verbal language, oriented towards the time channel of communication and turned mainly to hearing (see particularly Du Bos, 1976 [1719] : 222-224; Les­ sing, 1957 [1766] : 1 86-187, 460-462; Mendelsson, 1929 [1757]: 1 74175; Bendavid, 1779 [248-249]; cp. with ideas of semioticians of XX cen­ tury in Saussure, 1977 [1916]: 103; Jakobson, 1972 [1964]: 84-86). A discussion of diverse dimensionality in different spatial arts (from three­ dimensional architecture to one-dimensional art of calligraphy) and of reversibility of their spaces (Bendavid, 1 779 [255-256, 249]) can be con­ sidered as an anticipation of a future semio-topology (see above, p. 130). As M. Kagan proposed, one can even speak of a "semiotic approach" to the classification of art forms in the aesthetics of the Enlightenment, which distinguished these species according to their "signs" (Kagan, 1972: 33). The aesthetics of Romanticism explored the difference between intui­ tively comprehended symbols and discursive signs (see Pochat, 1983: 3347; S0fensen, 1 963). In the second half of the XIX century, this distinction was translated into a psychological plan in the theory of "empathy" (Ger­ man: Einfuhlung) (see Vischer, 1 873: 6, 27-28; Vischer, 1 887: 1 87; Vol­ kelt, 1 876: 85-100; Lipps: 1906: 22-32). Its creators linked aesthetic per­ ception with the transfer of the subject's experiences to objects that he was able to see, when these objects, depending on their [OnTIS, seem as "run­ ning", "falling", "rising upwards", etc. (Vischer, 1 887: 1 82). On this basis, T. Lipps developed a special "aesthetic mechanics", which studies the experiences of physical forces, awakened by visible spa­ tial forms (see Lipps, 1 897; 1903: 224-292). An intellectual interpretation of conventional signs is here also contrasted to the sensual and involuntary comprehension of meanings with the help of "aesthetic symbols" capable of fonning a special «language of fonns" with own visual-spatial "diction­ ary". Within this "language", Lipps distinguishes between "material", "functional" and "target" symbolism. The first expresses the "life of the material"; the second points to separate dynamic functions and forces (lift­ ing up, support, pressure down, etc.); the third reveals practical functions, the relation of the form to the goals and needs of the person (for example, functioning as the handle or spout of a teapot). Thanks to this "target sym­ bolism", objects, as it were, invite a person to perform certain actions: sit in a chair, grab a cup, enter the portal, etc. (Lipps, 1906: 564). Thus, one can find here an anticipation of a differentiation between the synesthetic, architectonic and object-functional codes (cf below, 11.3).

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151

In the aesthetics of Romanticism, and then in the aesthetics of "empa­ thy", there was also revealed the difference in the nature of the relation­ ship between the expression and content planes in the case of artistic sym­ bolism in comparison with purely conditional means of representation. Later, art theorists analyzed in detail the "syntactic" features of the ex­ pression plane in various types of spatial arts and in the system of different "fonTIS of vision". Flatness and volume, corporeality and spatiality, line­ arity and painterliness, etc. are also culturally conditioned by the histori­ cally changing attitudes to the perception and comprehension of certain elements of the visible form (see, in particular, Hildebrand, 1991 [1 893]; Wblfflin, 1930 [1915]; Gabrichevsky, 1923; Riegl, 1901; Brinkman, 1935 [ 1 922]). In the variety of spatial forms and their relations, analogies were sought for the signs of the verbal language and the texts constructed from them, the creation and "reading" of which presuppose their own "vocabu­ lary" and "grammar", dependent on culture (see Wblfflin, 1922: 24; 1930: 13, 269; Riegl, 1966: 2 1 1 ; and others). Alexander Gabrichevsky, in a similar way, said in the 1 920s that the "language of things" needs special research, independent of its usage in arts-like language, grammar is researched independently of the investiga­ tion of literature (Gabrichevsky, 2002). This idea of the "language of things" was consonant with the ethnographic research performed in the 1930s by P. Bogatyrev, who considered the costume and other objects of everyday life as kinds of sign systems (Bogatyrev, 1971 [1937]). Aesthetics and art theorists have also considered the features of the content plane of works associated with its multilevel structure (see, for example, Hartman, 1958 [1953]; Ingarden, 1962; Panofsky, 1999 [1 957]). This structure includes, along with conceptual and emotional reactions, motor reactions to the spatial form, carefully analyzed, for example, in the "aesthetic mechanics" of T. Lipps (1903-1906). The idea of a special language of spatial forms discussed by aestheti­ cians and art researchers was consonant with the similar reflections of art­ ists and architects, who approached it from their side. So, the architect and historian of technical arts Gottfried Semper, already by the middle of the XIX century, foresaw the time when investigators of arts and linguists would together research some united features of languages and arts and would be able to find some "dictionary" of spatial forms and their "syn­ tax" (Semper, 1970 [1 860-1863] 223, 271). Already in the early XX century, the artist Wassily Kandinsky consid­ ered in detail elements of the "language of forms and colours" that artists use as their expressive means (Kandinsky, 191 1 ; 1 926). Gybrgy Kepes graduated from Bauhaus, where Kandinsky taught, and by the middle of

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the XX century he had published the book Language of Vision (Kepes, 1 944), which attracted the attention of Charles Morris, who suggested considering aesthetics as a part of semiotics (Morris, 1971c [ 1 939]: 416). So, the ideas of Baumgarten about the connection of aesthetics and semi­ otics were converted two centuries later. The enumeration of various proto-semiotic ideas developed in aesthet­ ics and the art theory closely connected with it can be taken much further Many of them are still far from being mastered by semiotics and are of particular interest to the semiotics of space. Its link with aesthetics will prove to be truly fruitful only when it is reciprocal and will connect a se­ rniotically-oriented aesthetics with an aesthetically-oriented semiotics. These disciplines may well have a palatable collaboration, although the subject of one of them is the objective and precise study of semiotic pro­ cesses and the subject of the other is subjective aesthetical assessments. One of them will hardly swallow up the other--either in the variant of Baumgarten or of Morris-but they can collaborate and emich each other with new ideas.

11. 1 .3 . ON THE ANTICIPATION OF SPATIAL SEMIOTICS IN THE CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER

The category of space became important not only for natural science, but also for cultural studies at the end of the XIX century. The ethnograph­ ic research of non-European cultures has shown diversity in the collective images and notions of space by different ethnoses (see Cushing, 1998). Psychology turned to empirical studies (Helmholtz, Fechner, etc.) has dis­ covered that the sensorial images of space differ from its physical and ge­ ometric schemes and various modalities of perception [onn structurally diverse spatial images. In the studies of art historians, significant distinc­ tions of spatial perception were shown not only for different types of art (Hildebrand), but also for different cultural and historical situations-as various ways of "artistic volition" (Riegl) and "forms of vision" (Wblf­ flin). In this context, the question of the philosophical comprehension of space as a category of humanitarian knowledge arose. This general rein­ terpretation was carried out in Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, where the author transits from the old natural-philosophical to the new cultural-philosophical view on the problem of space (Cassirer, 1 9231 929). Within three volumes of this work, various ways of spatial repre­ sentation of the world, in particular, are considered. The scientific knowledge of space is understood there as one of the "symbolic forms". Cassirer raises questions about the place of this problem in the general "phenomenology of the spirit" and in his philosophy of symbolic forms. The spatial structuring and schernatization established in diverse [OnTIS of culture-language, myth, art or science-form the specific systems of symbolism. In all cases, the spatial symbols serve as the natural mediators between sensually perceived phenomena and conceivable content that be­ comes thereby more visible and understandable. In this function of the unique symbolic mediator, the space is connect­ ed not only with being but also with meaning With this approach, the

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"comprehension function" becomes primary and defining, while the spa­ tial structure turns out to be a secondary and dependent moment. This structure appears only together with a specific content and only with a certain way of thinking-a certain sense order (Sinnordnung). In the report "Mythical, aesthetical and theoretical space", where the views of the phi­ losopher on the category of space are briefly expressed, Cassirer wrote : The purely ontological, objective characteristic of the fact, that space and time are, is still not enough to convey what they mean for the structure of knowledge. [ . . . ] Depending on whether it is thought as mythical, as an aes­ thetic or as a theoretical order, the "form" of space also changes, and this change does not only concern certain exceptional features, but it refers to it as to the whole, to its fundamental structure. (Cassirer, 1985 [1931]: 93)

In particular, the structure of the mythological space fundamentally differs in its entirety from the structure of the space of Euclidean geometry or from the physical-empirical space. The anthropomorphic space con­ ceived by mythological consciousness is not homogeneous, since each place in it is endowed with special qualities and meanings. It is aniso­ tropic, because the directions differ in their meanings: the rise has a mean­ ing reverse to the fall, the movement to the left is evaluated differently from the rightward movement, and so on. It does not possess the property of the infinity of a mathematical space, but, on the contrary, is bounded, etc. (see Cassirer, 1925. Part II. Chap. 2.1). At the same time, the mytho­ logical space is similar to the geometric one in that it sets its own schemes of connections between the elements. In a similar way, the artistic space has its own structure, and, as shown again by Hildebrand, it differs in various forms of art. And even within the framework of a certain kind of ar� for example, painting, spatial images formed in various perspective systems represent differently structured and interpreted "symbolic forms". It was shown, particularly, in the work Per­ spective as Symbolic Form (panofsky, 1 927), the title of which itself indi­ cates the connection with the main work of Cassirer. Cassirer's thesis about the absence of one universal way of spatial or­ dering independent from the way of interpretation has evidently deviated from the ideas of Kant's philosophy of space as a necessary and uniform way of contemplation. This deviation began even earlier when, in his book The concept of substance and the concept ofform (1910), Cassirer consid­ ered the evolution of philosophical and natural-scientific notions of space as a transition from attempts to comprehend it through categories of "be­ ing" and "non-being" to the comprehension of space as a system of rela­ tions. The general definition of space as "the order of possible coexist-

On the Anticipation of Spatial Semiotics in the Cultural Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer

155

ence" given by Leibniz is applied later by Cassirer to the humanitarian spheres. In the transition from the concept of being, conceived from the time of Parmenides as something unified, to the concept of order, which, on the contrary, is initially relied on as something plural, the philosopher sees a victory of pluralism over abstract monism . Rudolf Camap, in the book The Space, demonstrated the differences in the ways of description of spatial structures in mathematics and physics, as well as in sensorial knowledge (Camap, 1 922), and Cassirer highly appre­ ciated this work (Cassirer, 2002, Vol. III: 385). However, he had reason still not to be satisfied with its methodological framework, because it did not take into account the modification of the category of space in the de­ veloping sciences of culture. As it turned out, this human "living space" (Lebensraum) has diverse manifestations: the space of perception differs from the space of action, the space of mythological thinking from the space of artistic imagination, and so on. In all these cases, space acquires its own forms and its specific content The relationship between the former and the latter is regulated by a symbolic function that Cassirer understands quite broadly, including not only the conventional relationship of the sign with meaning, but also the expressive and figurative functions of the "symbolic forms". All these kinds of symbolic functions can be performed by spatial structures. The same configuration of lines, for example, can be seen and inter­ preted differently. Depending on the way of thinking, it can be treated as an abstract geometric figure, as an artistic drawing, as a magic sign filled with mythological meanings, etc. It can be expressive, causing certain in­ ternal experiences, pictorial, reproducing the external forms of a repre­ sented object, or a sign in the narrow sense, purely conditionally connect­ ed with the conceivable meaning. In each of these cases, along with the "function of comprehension", both the content and the spatial structure of the object change. It is not difficult to see in these distinctions a parallel with the triad of indexical, iconic and symbolic signs proposed by Charles S. Peirce (193132) and established in semiotics. However, the semiotic potential of Cassi­ rer's theory is far from being exhausted by this obvious similarity with the classical formulas of Peirce's sign theory (cf Krois, 1984: 363). Cassirer, in the mid-1 940s, not only came close to the threshold of structuralists' studies, but, long before its formation as an autonomous field, he began to develop the problems of the future spatial semiotics. Having uncovered the symbolic nature of the cultural ways of structur­ ing and understanding space, their connection with language and other forms of expression, Cassirer introduced in this area a rich set of ideas, the

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mastering of which still remains the task of future researches. Philosophi­ cally founded by Cassirer, the transposition of the category of space into the sphere of the sciences of culture, and the establishinent of a connection between this category and meaning, anticipates the future semiotics of space as a science of ways of expressing meanings through spatial rela­ tions.

11.2. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AS A SPECIFIC WAY OF SENSE EXPRESSION

11.2. 1 . SPATIAL STRUCTURES AND SENSE

The human space is not an abstract continuum of dots but a complex network of significant relations. It acquires various senses in human activi­ ties, in the system of subject-object and inter-subject ties. At the same time, various internal space models are constructed at different levels of conscIousness. Already, perceptual space has a heterogeneous and anisotropic struc­ ture with the highlighted centre-the perceiving human. The egocentric coordinate system, set forth by his body build, structures the space along the axes of "top-bottom" and "right-left", and at the same time gives its various parts and directions unequal, emotionally-coloured meanings. Vis­ ual spatial relations also contain indexes of unseen qualities of objects­ solidness, heaviness, stability, etc.-as well as traces of their previous states and symptoms of their future changes. The perceptual model of space also contains, together with cognitive and affective meanings, dy­ namic meanings consisting of various motor patterns. Incorporated in the activities in which the subject not only cognizes and evaluates but also transforms objects according to a certain plan, the sense model of the present space situation is correlated with the thought model of its transformation. At the same time, there is a selection of func­ tionally significant features and relations as well as their new comprehen­ sion and structuring. Reproducing and anticipating the structure of spatial actions, spatial thought performs the various operations connecting the ready parts into one whole, dividing one continuous whole into parts, transforming it and rearranging its parts. Each of these operations may dominate in the professional thinking of, for example, a stonemason, en­ graver, potter and weaver respectively (cf. alike division of crafts into tec­ tonics, stereotomy, ceramics and textile in Semper, 1970: 225). Similar to the space of object-related action forms in subject-object re­ lations, the space of social behaviour forms in inter-subject ties. In the first case, the own individual space of the subject is opposed by the external space of the object under transfonnation. In the second case, "one's own" space, already not only the individual's but also the collective's, is com­ prehended in opposition to the "alien" space, not controlled by this social

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subject. If "one's own" space is traditionally thought of as 'good', 'bright', 'protected', the "alien one" on the contrary seems 'evil', ' dark' and 'dan­ gerous'. Also, like a mediating tool is wedged between the subject and the object in the space of the object-related action; "one's own" and "alien" social spaces of diverse subjects are divided and connected by some medi­ ator. The dividing function (wall, fence, moat) or the connecting function (gate, road, bridge) may be predominant in it. This link may grow into an independent area of 'common', 'public' space (square, theatre, court of law, etc.). The same axes of top-bottom, right-left, front-back, as well as relations between centre and periphery, transferred from the egocentric coordinate system into socio-centric coordinates, participate in the struc­ turing and comprehension of the social space. The ideas of space fonning in social practice are projected onto its the­ oretical models. Ancient and medieval concepts of space, picturing it as the hierarchy of relations of the centre and periphery, top and bottom, in­ ternal and external, transfer onto it the structure of social space (see e.g. Vemant, 1988: 14-16, 1 5 1-155). Space conceptual models created in the­ oretical cognition preserve some similarity with practical object-related action models as well. The reasoning methods of the stonemason, potter or draftsman reveal, for example, such space concepts as, respectively, atom­ ism, building it from ready-made "bricks"; a platonic understanding of space as amorphous matter, as an "adopter" of forms brought to it by dem­ iurge; or Euclidean geometry, representing space as a continuum that is split and dissected by dots, lines and surfaces. It is noteworthy that the initial space elements (eHot X£tCX "letters")­ dots and lines-are treated by Euclid as marks (0'l)l£toV) and traces (YPCX)l)l'l), as if anticipating the later "semiotic" understanding of geome­ try as the language in which "the great book of nature is written" (Galileo) or which is taken for its description by researchers (Poincare). Such a se­ miotic undertone is contained not only in conceptual but also, as it follows from the above said, in perceptual and apperceptual space models as well. However, it is natural that space structures specializing in the expression of senses and meanings become fully loaded semiotically. Such structures fonn, first of all, in the space of social actions, where different places are connected with various meanings and behavioural rules. These meanings become denser in the space of ritual and other syrn­ bolic actions-scenic, game, etc. They are imprinted in spatial forms of architecture, city planning, applied arts, design, and assembled in the de­ pictive space of the picture. Finally, the most concentrated expression of meanings is formed in the written text space, which gives grounds to ex­ pand the idea of text to other ways of expressing sense. �

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11.2. 1 .

In all space texts (in a broad sense), the structure and connection with sense are regulated by norms of one or several spatial codes. The serniotization of space made by each of them singles out these or those significant elements from the whole variety of relations and detennines their semantics. The serniotization of spatial relations differs in some aspects from the serniotization of verbal processes of communication between the speaker and the listener, where the temporal relations are main bearers of the sense. These differences are linked with special features of space structures as infonnation carriers, as well as their perception and comprehension. The particularity of the meaningful spatial structures gives the grounds to distinguish spatial semiotics as a special branch of semiotic researches.

11.2.2. SPATIAL SEMIOSIS AND TIME

1. On Spatial and Temporal Semiosis The problem of relations between spatial serniosis and time is a matter of principle for the semiology of space. The last must be differed from spatial semiography, which describes concrete spatial signs and reveals their meanings. As for the semiology of space, it is built on a higher level of generalization, and is occupied with such questions as the possibility of spatial serniosis itself, its specific character, ways of serniotization of space in different spatial codes, etc. The problems considered in this paper belong just to this semiological leveL These are the problems of relations between spatial and temporal serniosis, peculiarities of existence of spatial serniosis in time and ways of the representation of tirne in spatial serniosis. First of all, it should be mentioned that the distinction of spatial semi­ ology as an autonomous branch of semiotics is based on the essential dif­ ference between temporal serniosis and the spatial one as a special form of sign connection. This difference depends to a great extent on their differ­ ent ways of existing in time: in spatial semiosis, temporal relations do not generate meaningful units of text, in contrast to the temporal one, where they do. Despite spatial and temporal semiosis often being able to coordi­ nate with each other in spatial-temporal messages, they have different structural and functional possibilities. Spatial bearers of meanings, which are mainly minded to visual per­ ception, permit arranging relations between meaningful units into struc­ tures of other types, than chains of signals following each other and being addressed to listening (see Jakobson, 1 964). The semiotized space can differ in the main from temporal structures by its semio-topological prop­ erties: non-linearity, reversibility, types of symmetry and asymmetry, etc. Due to variations of these properties, syntactic structures in spatial semio­ sis can be more various and complex than ones limited by a temporal axis. For a description of specific structural features of spatial semiosis, the version of semiology which is traced back to Ferdinand de Saussure's lin­ guistic generalizations is ineffective. This version is based on the declared principles of language in his Cours de linguistique generale: the principle

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of non-motivation of signs and the principle of linearity of significant units. These principles are not relevant for many semiotic systems, which regulate communication by means of the visual-spatial channel of connec­ tion < . . . > (see in more detail above, 1 . 1 . 2 and 11.1 .2.2). Describing systems regulating non-linear and reversible bearers of meanings in spatial serniosis requires another, "non-Saussurean" semiolo­ gy, a theory of semiotic means where at least one of the two principles of Saussurean semiology is not performed. It is primarily the principle of linearity of syntactic units, though the other-the semantic principle of sign arbitrariness-is also irrelevant for many of these systems. Just as linguistics became the ground for the semiology of de Saussure and logic became that for the semiotics of Peirce, investigations of expres­ sive and representative means of visual arts, carried out traditionally in aesthetics and visual arts theory, can also become a basis for the semiolo­ gy of space (see above 11.1 .2). It is notable that the difference between spatial and temporal means of representation has been discussed in aes­ thetics from the moment of its appearance as an autonomous discipline in the Age of Enlightemnent, when this problem was raised especially sharp­ ly in the famous "Laocoon" by Lessing. In particular, a number of Russian art investigators, like M Bachtin (1 975), who has described a "chronotop" in literature, have discussed the relations between time and spatial arts (see especially Favorsky, 1988; Florensky, 1993; Gabrichevsky, 2002; Vipper, 1962; Volkov, 1967; Zhegin, 1 962). However, the problem of the relations of spatial means of representation and time exceeds the limits of aesthetics and art theory and touches the grounds of sign theory, primarily the diver­ gence of two of its branches-spatial and temporal semiotics. The difference between temporal and spatial bearers of meaning can be defined within the framework of "non-Saussurean" semiology as the struc­ tural diversity of texts having a different expression plane : in the first case, it is built as a chain of signs following each other, and, in the second case, as a configuration of co-existing spatial fOnTIS and their relations. Such configurations can be considered as specific spatial texts, where only these spatial fOnTIS and their relations are meaningful, but no meaning is at­ tached to any temporal changes of their material bearers. It is possible to say that a spatial text not only exists in a space, but also fOnTIS its own space of meaningful relations, whereas it does not have its own time and exists only in external time, where something happens with it, but not within it. Temporal texts, on the contrary, have their own, or internal, time (but not their own space), fonned by relations of temporal following be­ tween units of their "expression form". There are also many mixed spatial­ temporal texts, which have both of these own form types.

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It is important that the specific structure of spatial texts touches the "fonn" of expression, rather than its "substance" (using Louis Hjelmslev's terms). That is the point: the difference between "temporal" and "spatial" bearers of meaning is not essential for the substance of expression. Both of them participate in the process of communication by means of a material mediator, for which both space and time are inalienable attributes. Any spatial bearer of meaning changes in time as well as any perception, and the interpretation of spatial text as psychological processes has a temporal structure. But all the peculiarities of the physical or psychical substance of spatial texts are only the grounds for a special "semiotic fonn", established by spatial codes, each of which is a system of norms semiotizing the space. In contrast to its bearers, the spatial text is constructed and recon­ structed only by means of these codes and their semiotic form. Therefore it does not have any relations that are not provided by them. In the case of temporal semiosis, the situation is different: spatial rela­ tions here are the elements only of the substance of expression, but not of its fonn. The latter includes, in contrast, as its meaningful units the tem­ poral relations, which in spatial semiosis only exist in the "substance of expression", but do not mean anything as elements of its semiotic form. The inevitable physical changes in the substance as a rule are not in­ cluded in the authentic structure of the spatial text; for example, painting restoration just has to take out all physical results of this temporal being. So the reasons of separation of spatial semiosis are not physical or psycho­ logical, but only semiotic: the separation of spatial relations from temporal ones in semiotic systems and their derived texts, where the form of expres­ sion is built only by configurations of the spatial relations. However, the time which exceeds the limits of the semiotic fonn of expression in spatial texts, remains, on the one hand, in its physical and psychical substance as an important factor of communicative process. On the other hand, the spatial texts get special means representing time in their plane of contents. Accordingly, it is possible to speak about both be­ ing of spatial semiosis in time as well as about being of time represented in spatial semiosis.

2. Spatial Semiosis in Time 2.1. Peculiarities of Tem poral Being

As it is clear from the above, it is incorrect to think that a specific fea­ ture of spatial semiosis is existence out of time. As with every process, it is performed in time, but it differs by another way of temporal being. Both

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the functioning of communication by spatial bearers of meaning and historical changes of the conditions of this functioning have their own peculiarities in spatial serniosis. Moreover, relations of these two aspects do not differ here as deeply as in the case of temporal serniosis. The latter exists as a synchronic process of sending and receiving, because the usage of signs following each other supposes as an obligatory condition of the coexistence of a sender and a recipient of a message in a common communicative action (even if this coexistence has a virtual character, and the act of message creation is reproduced by technical means). On the contrary, this condition is absent in the case of spatial serniosis, because it does not need the coexistence of participants of communication, but cannot do without the coexistence of meaningful units in the space. Therefore communication occurs here as a diachronic process divided into two acts, performed at different times: the creating and the "reading" of a spatial text The separation of these acts in time permits them, first of all, to have different durations, because their synchronization is unnecessary in spatial semiosis. The process of text creating can be very long (for example, seven centuries for the building of Cologne Cathedral), whereas the perception of the text can be very short. Vice versa: a meaningful spatial fonn can be created quickly (for example, water-colour created on wet paper using the alia prima technique), but perceived and interpreted over a long period of time. However, one can also find a temporal correlation between both of these acts: as a rule, more complicated spatial texts demand more time for their creation as well as for their perception. Secondly, a long period of time can pass between the acts of creating and receiving a spatial message, and that makes possible not only communication between contemporaries, but also between people who belong to different generations and historical periods. As the spatial message can outlive its creators, it naturally gets to other contexts and to other times. Thereby they can exist not only within the time of creation and perception, but also within historical time. The difference between synchrony and diachrony themselves is not sharp in spatial semiosis because, on the one hand, its functioning has a diachronic character and, on the other, the preservation of a spatial text for a long time allows the extension of this functional connection as long as its spatial bearer exists. So the structural properties of the communicative process in spatial semiosis make possible some of its specific functions. Due to these functions, spatial semiosis can be especially favourable or simply unique for the preservation and transmission of infonnation for "long distances" in time. Therefore, the spatial fonn of representation is irreplaceable for the

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preservation of cultural memory-both personal and of the collective. Moreover, historical time itself arises together with the possibility to fix events in a written form, which means the possibility of translating oral speech and all available for its cultural experience by means of spatial semiosis. Thus, the fixation of time in the past allows spatial semiosis also to have impact on the future. The introduction of spatial texts into new historical contexts, where they get new senses, is connected not only with the change of com­ municated subjects, but also with the historical changing of codes, and even of the mentality of interpreters. These changes are perfonned in his­ tory to different extents. Several of them are based on natural grounds, such as the psychophysiology of eyesight, which is reproduced on a genet­ ic level and only modified in a culture. Such are the synesthetic codes, which correlate some visual sensations of forms and colours with definite feelings of other modalities, as well as the perceptual code, regulating the transformation of optical data in a perceptual image of volumetric forms. The codes of this type undergo cultural influences to a lesser extent than the codes deriving from them, which are the architectonic and percepto­ graphic ones respectively, which have their own cultural history. Some other codes are created in culture and change more quickly than natural based ones, such as, in particular, the object-functional code regulating the categorization of recognizable obj ect forms constantly reproduced in cul­ ture and the connections of these forms with their instrumental functions, or the social-symbolic code, endowing the forms with connotative mean­ ings, thanks to which they can indicate the roles of their users in the space of social behaviour (see below, 11.3. 1-2). The uneven development of spatial codes leads to the displacement of senses and ways of interpretation. This particularly regards spatial texts with a complex semiotic and rhetorical structure, which requires a united application of several codes together for its comprehension. Some config­ urations of these codes and their relations in each case influence the defi­ nite way of "reading" the pieces as a visual-spatial text and conceiving its senses. Such complex semiotic structures are typical especially for pieces of art, the interpretation of which depends on the usage of a changeable set of codes. From this point of view, all history of spatial arts can be consid­ ered as the history of using of diverse visual-spatial codes for the creation and interpretation of art pieces and the changing of relations between them. So the treatment of art history as a "history of semantic structures" suggested by M. Wallis (1 970) can be re-interpreted as the idea of the evo­ lution of visual-spatial codes developed in history to different extents and the modification of their relations (see more detailed below, 11.9.3).

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2.2. Presentation of the Spatial Text in Time

The specific relations of spatial texts to time suppose their regulation on the level of the semiotic [onn in the systems of corresponding codes. The process of text actualization during its perception as well as the pro­ cess of the text' s generation requires special rules providing some condi­ tions of the temporal presentation of spatial texts. These rules are provided at least in cases of several special codes serv­ ing for the recording of temporal texts in a spatial form and their recon­ struction in the new contexts. These codes have rules of correlation be­ tween the expression plane of spatial texts with the coded expression plane of texts developing in time. For example, phonetic writing renders the ways of projection of the temporal order of oral speech into spatial axes, as well as the rules of the reverse translation of spatial relations into tem­ poral ones by reading. Its expression plane contains spatial rows of signif­ icants that denote temporal successions of phonemes (for example, by the interpretation of spatial relations, e.g. "left-right", as temporal relations, e.g. "earlier-later", etc.). The represented temporal relations of phonemes belong to the contents plane of written text and fonn its "semantic" mean­ ing, whereas its plane of expression contains only spatial relations but not the internal time. However, it is also possible to find some "syntactic" or "grammatical" meaning of this text, related to the way of its temporal presentation, because the "reading" of the spatial text as a process devel­ oping in time needs a definite order of its actualization and limiting of liberty by successive transits from one spatial unit to another. The semiotic form of written code sets the direction of these transits and thereby gets to the space, semiotized by its means with a quality of irreversibility, making it structurally more similar to the oral speech. The possibility of representing the internal temporal relations of oral texts through the internal spatial relations of written texts due to their structural similarity differs phonetic writing from other spatial codes­ even from some non-phonetic writing, which does not aim to translate a temporal sequence of signs into a spatial order. It is true that a culturally educated eye can learn to read signs formed in lines, for instance, from left to right or from top to bottom, as in European writing systems. However, such linear reading is a special way of seeing and is not the only nonn of visual perception. "Natural" eyesight is able to synopsize and can take many spatial relations as one whole picture, as a simultaneous, but not succeSSIve, Image. That does not mean that peering into non-written spatial texts has no temporal order. The internal programs of its "reading" are not only in writ-

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ten texts. For example, the system of architectonic code permits the per­ ception of spatial relations as a successive process reiterating spatial sig­ nals, treated as a "rhythinical order" built in time. The temporal "opening" of a spatial text during its perception can be subordinated not only to the "principle of projection", which supposes "drawing up" the space in a line, but to be inherent also to a perception of the two- and three-dimensional spatial text, which may not be reduced to a line. Many complex architectural buildings can be perceived gradually due to being well arranged, which allows successive transits from one rank of parts to another So, for example, a Gothic cathedral, the silhouette of which is perceived from a large distance, "opens" all its smaller details to view as they get nearer, literally "step by step", and big forms go out of the viewing field. In a similar way, temporal ordering can be performed also by the perception of many other visual-spatial texts (book miniatures, gobelins, ornamented pottery and so on), if their perceiving is determined by the artistic using of means of architectonic and other visual-spatial codes. A temporal order of "reading" is supposed also in well-constructed de­ pictions, where the lines and tonal contrasts can put a process of viewing in time and "guide" the gaze of the viewer into pictorial space in a definite temporal succession (see Florensky, 1993: 230-231). So, for example, the well known scene of the "Expulsion from Paradise" in the relief of Berndward's doors of the Sl. Michaelis Cathedral in Hildesheim is ar­ ranged as a succession of gestures, each of which draws attention at first to Adam, then to Eve, and at last to the devil (see Figure 11.9.3-7). Another type of successive moving of a viewer's look is set in the famous "Sistine Madonna" by Raphael from the Old Masters Gallery in Dresden, where a lot of weakly distinguished angels' heads are opened only to such look, which directs into the background, when perceiving of the clearly silhou­ etted figures in the foreground already held. However, in all these cases, the temporal structure of "reading" differs from the case of reading by lines, because it neither requires the irreversi­ bility nor one-dimensionality of the textual space. On the contrary, by the "reading" of a picture, as well as of an architectural construction, the look is moving into a principally reversible and non-one-dimensional space. The temporal ordering of these spatial texts becomes possible because, excluding the temporal relations from their internal syntactic structures, they contain the means of their presentation in the time of text receiving. As these means are regulated by the spatial codes, they are related not only to the being of spatial semiosis in external time, but also to the existence of time in spatial semiosis.

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3. Time in Spatial Semiosis and Semiotic Means of its Representation 3.1. Time Represented in Semiotized Space

Together with the means of presentation of spatial texts in time, culture develops the means of representation of time on the semantic level of these texts. The "internal time" in serniotized space is possible only as time represented by spatial means. Such "internal time" is contained, for example, in a picture representing some depicted events. Their time coincides neither with the external time of the physical being of its expression ("substance"), nor with the psychical time of the picture's creation or perception, nor with the time of expression ("fonn"), where it is absent according to the definition of the spatial text The "internal time" of a picture belongs only to its plane of content and is represented together with the depicted space, where some indexes of the shown action are given. The temporal semantics of serniotized space includes all three aspects relating to three temporal modes: the present, the past, and the future. However, expression of the present has no temporal specifics, and when speaking about the representation of time in spatial semiosis, it is natural first of all to mean the modes of the past and of the future. Spatial forms have a specific ability to represent something that happened in the past, due to "taking out" its image or its signs from the time stream and preserving its more stable "banks". Space, as an order of relations between the coexistent things, has a relative stability in time that pennits its structures to imprint the past in a converted form and to preserve a memory about it. Preserving the past in the space can occur involuntarily, such as through "natural signs", or indexes, of past events-tracks of diverse processes imprinted in spatial forms. By these indexes, cultural history can be naturally laid up like geological processes leaving their traces in the spatial structures of rocks. So, the structure of territory involuntarily imprints the ways of life of its inhabitants, like the structure of roads imprinting the connections between settlements, and, at least, any print of a rolling wheel is an obvious conversion of a temporal process in the space. However, the imprinting of time in the space can also be developed intentionally, in specific cultural forms, most of which are produced and reproduced deliberately. So the function of tools is imprinted in its form, social relations between citizens are imprinted in the plan of a city, etc. In fact, every spatial artefact preserves the traces and indexes of processes in which it has participated, whether as a condition, a medium, or a result.

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The spatial text can also point to the future. Yet animals can anticipate some future events, using some spatial indexes. Humans increase this ability, firstly, by interpreting "natural signs" more deeply and, secondly, creating artificial spatial signs, which program their behaviour in the future. This programming touches different aspects of the activity-from the above-mentioned reading of the spatial text itself, to various spatial movements and actions, directed by the forms and spatial layout of indexes of a future movement. This semantic differentiation also has some pragmatic aspects, and these are connected with the corresponding important functions of spatial texts. The ability of spatially imprinting the past in the present and thereby of preserving the past for the future allows spatial semiosis to perform a function of the means of cultural memory. Another pragmatic function of spatial texts touches the other temporal modus-the programming of the future by establishing some spatial signals and indexes directing body, hand or eye movements. Both of these functions can be combined and performed by the same sector of semiotized space, where signs, signals and indexes of different time modes function equally. The semiotic means of natural or artificial origin form complex semiotic structures, representing different aspects of time.

Figure 11.2.2-1. Zwinger in Dresden ( 1 709-1728). Architect M. D. Poeppelmann.

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Such a combination of different temporal modes in the plane of seman­ tics as well as the perfonnance of different pragmatic functions is typical particularly for architecture. An architectural building can contain indexes of the present conditions of its being, for instance, the revealing of internal constructions by its external shape or representing some "static" or "dy­ namic" qualities. Due to expressive means of the architectonic code, a building can look solid, "staying" in its place (like a Greek temple) or vis­ ually "striving" above it (like a Gothic cathedral), or "flowing" together with its surrounding fountains (like the Dresden Zwinger-see Figure IL2.2-1). Architectural buildings also give artificial spatial signs, which program the behaviour of their inhabitants in the future. Each building (which is constructed according to a project) appears with a ready "program" direct­ ing the future movements and behaviour of a human in the space arranged by it. Architectural [OnTIS have in their syntactic structure some spatial units, which act as signals of reproduced movements. So the steps of a staircase serve as signals of definite movements in the future and even as their signs, keeping the meaning independent of the realizing of these movements. Architecture also has different ways of holding the past Every archite­ tural construction is made artificially and preserves more or less clear trac­ es of its creation, even if rows of bricks point out the time and temporal order of their arrangement. In semantics of architectural buildings, one can find diverse cultural types of time imprinting through spatial fonns-from Egyptian pyramids to building forms intentionally reproducing the styles of other epochs ("Renaissance", "Classicism", "Stylization", "Historicism ", etc.). These artificial means of time representation are combined in architecture with the natural traces of physical or historical changes, and sometimes it is difficult to differ one from the other (for example, natural deformations and artificially created "ruins" as signs of the past). In a similar way, three modes of time can be represented by the pic­ ture, which can serve as a project of a future situation (for example, a planned building), as a drawing of a present object, as well as an imprint­ ing of the past. A picture can "remember" the images of persons or things carried away by time long ago. As a picture has a double space-the de­ picted and the depicting-it can contain the means of time representation in both of them-the tracks of a brush moving over the depicting space as well as the images of past events, people or objects represented in the de­ picted space.

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I n some cases, time itself in general becomes a subject o f depiction. This occurs in Vanitas, a special genre of picture, which collects different visual-spatial indexes of the transitory and taken by time life-old skulls, fading flowers, smoked pipes, and other things with spatial marks of tem­ poral changes. The space of the picture can even represent relations between time and eternity. So the picture by Albrecht Altdorfer, "The Battle of Alexander at Issus" in the Munich Alte Pinakothek, is divided into two representational­ Iy different parts: the lower part shows a mass of fighting people, which forms a stream, making literally visible a "stream of time" taking out their lives, and the upper part represents an immovable board with an inscrip­ tion, eternally fixing the result of this battle (see colour picture I I). One can see some historical changes in the representation of diverse temporal or extra-temporal qualities in different cultures. Unlike depic­ tions from ancient Egypt, which can be elaborated for transit from the temporal to eternal world, or medieval icon painting, which was intended for the uncovering of some eternal for the transient, new European paint­ ing is directed more at the stopping in time of separate episodes, which become shorter, right up to the "snapshots" of as if random moments in Impressionists' paintings (see Figure 11.2.2-2).

Figure II.2.2-2. Edgar Degas. The Ballet Class. Oil on canvas. Philadlphia Museum of Art.

1 8 8 1 . The

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3.2. Semiotic Means of Time Representation in Space

The means of time representation in serniotized space can differ se­ miotically. They can be indexes. for example. tracks of movement-both naturally formed and artificially held indications of past events. They can be signals of movements and actions, which can also have both natural and artificial origins (any wall is a spatial signal of stopping or turning for the moving subject). They can take the semiotic form of conventional signs, as, for example, a tombstone is a sign of a past life and memory about it (fhis sign's function is clearly expressed in fhe Greek 'sema' denoting bofh 'tombstone' as well as 'sign'). Both index-signal and sign (in the narrow sense) means of time representation are regulated by different spatial codes, each of which has its own possibilities. Several of these codes mainly give means for the more imprinting of the past in the present and its saving for the future. Such is, for example, fhe code of writing permit­ ting the fixing of oral speech. Several other codes contain signs and sig­ nals of future actions, such as the object-functional code connecting object forms with "programs" of their using or demarcation code regulating the movement of people in the social space. The indexes of real or imaginary forces are presented in forms of the architectonic code as if they act in the present time. Different codes can also interact with each other in a common act of sense expression. This is possible, for example, in the case of symbols, which have a complex semiotic structure with two or more levels of mean­ ing signified by means of diverse codes. For example, "The Monument of the Third International" by Vladimir Tatlin (see Figure 11.9.7-1) was in­ tended to serve as a symbol of the temporal development of the world, using the signs of the social-symbolic code connected with "upper-lower" relations, together with the means of architectonic code for the expressing of dynamics. Spatial semiosis also uses such rhetorical fOnTIS of time representation as metonymy and metaphor. The spatial metonymy represents a whole pe­ riod through some parts left of fhis time. For example, the Doric column or the whole building of the Parthenon can be interpreted as a metonymy of "classical antiquity", a lancet arch or Gothic cathedral can mean "the Mid­ dle Ages", etc. Spatial objects can also represent time by using metaphors. Such spatial metaphors can be found, for example, in different forms of clocks: the moving of the sun's shadow, the flow of water, the pouring out of sound or the turning of hands in a mechanical process become their metaphors, on the basis of which fhe time is indicated. Diverse means of time representation often combine with each other. The clock can serve as an example of such a combination of different spa-

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tial ways of time representation. Indexes of temporal order are used here also as signals of some actions for a subject; the clock can point out not only the present time, but also the historical time of its creation, turning it into a sign of the time of its origin or even into a symbol of some historical period. Some tower clock can contain iconic figures following each other, representing periods of human life, etc. The construction of the clock itself can express some ideas of time typical for definite historical periods and can be considered in the spirit of Bachtin's ideas as a specific "chronotop". The diverse forms of ancient clepsydra or of sun clocks point out different ways of time comprehension by Egyptian, Greeks or Romans, while the spatial form of a sound clock expresses the idea of the overflowing of the future into the past through a short moment of the present, which can be found, for example, in Saint Augustine's meditations about time (Augus­ tine, 1968: 268-279). In a similar way, the rotation of wheels in mechani­ cal clocks served as a model of the temporal order of the universe in de­ terministic conceptions of Descartes, Leibniz and other philosophers of the XVII-XVIII centuries (see Tchertov, 1998). These examples reveal one more and very important way of time rep­ resentation: the formation of its various spatial models-iconic and non­ iconic ones-which have some common features or structures with time. The spatial models of temporal structures allow the representation mainly of some of their quantitative features: an order of discrete units or the du­ ration of a continual period. Both these cases need different means of rep­ resentation. The representation of the temporal order is possible, first of all, through its submitting by spatial relations. This representation is per­ formed, as a rule, by the usage of the same principle of its projection into the spatial structures, which take place in the above-described written code. Such a projection occurs, for example, in the a face of watch, where the temporal order is represented by the spatial relations of circularly ar­ ranged indexes differing from each other only in their spatial order. The projection can be performed by different syntactic constructions: the meaningful orders can be separated and built as linear successions of signs arranged along the spatial axe-as a rule, a vertical or horizontal one-and the spatial order can be cyclical (as on a dial) or tabular (as on a calendar). The semiotized space has in such cases not only a fixed dimensionality, but also as a rule a fixed direction; therefore it is "semantically irreversi­ ble", because the changing of the direction influences the sense. The principle of projection is also used for the representation of the temporal order by means of spatial relations in other cases. It can be found, for instance, in the motif of procession often met in the art of the

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ancient Near East (Egypt, Assyria, Persia, etc.)-rows of figures arranged one after another and presented in different moments of time. The principle of projection also appears in the rows of pictures representing different events of a story, separating them into single pictures. The coordination of temporal and spatial successions is typical for the arrangement of narrative pictorial series intended to be drawn in a line-from the reliefs on the column of Trajan and rows of Bible scenes (such as in the mosaics of San!' Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna) to contemporary comic strips. The same projection of time succession in the spatial order can also take place within the frames of one picture representing some processes due to stratifying them into a row of moments. In medieval icon painting and even in Renaissance pictures, there was a usual way of depicting several story episodes perfonned in diverse moments of time as scenes that are arranged in different fragments of one space, such as in the "Seven Joys of Maria" by H. Memling (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) or in the painting series "The Story of Saint Ursula" by V Carpaccio (Venice, Accademia Gallery). Dissociated moments of time can be smaller and consist of single stages of movement, on which the parts of moving figures are decomposed, as is the case in paintings of Futurists and their followers where this, "cinematographic" way of depiction became a very popular expressive mean (see Figure 11.2.2-3). It is so essential that time representation became especially important for spatial arts of the XX century. N. Pevsner and A Gabo, in their Realistic Manifesto (1 920), theoretically proclaimed the introduction of time in spatial arts as their actual task and practically fulfilled it, having created their own non­ figurative spatial constructions with multiple elements as a spatial equivalent of the temporal order (see, for example, Thomas, 1986: 1 42). It is also possible to represent the duration of processes by means of spatial semiosis. For such representation, other grammatical fonns are necessary than the projection of temporal order in spatial rows. The duration can be represented-particularly in pictorial series-through the distance between depicted scenes, such as in the miniatures of some ancient Russian manuscripts (see Likhachev, 1979: 31). It can be represented also by a concentration of different events or states in one picture or even in one figure. A well-known example of such concentration is the "flying gallop" of horses, depicted by Gericault as well as by many other artists and discussed by many art explorers starting from Rodin (see, Rodin, 2002: 46-47; Volkov, 1977: 134-139). The projection of a temporal succession in the spatial order represents time as a homogeneous multitude of moments-as though any moment is equal to another one and all their differences are reduced only to the order

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of their places. However, the spatial means can represent not only a gen­ eral and unified course of time and its quantitative structures, but also its qualitatively differed periods-such as seasons of the year, times of the day, etc. (such as the famous sculptures of the Medici tombs by Michelan­ gelo). Spatial bearers also preserve the memory of the individual being of concrete persons and unique moments of their life: their birth, death and other significant events.

Figure 11.2.2-3. Kazimir Malevich.

The Knife Grinder or Principle of Glittering.

Oil on canvas 1912-13. The Yale University Art Gallery. New Haven. This memorial function is performed, for example, on tombstones and any other monuments dedicated to heroes or outstanding events. However, it is natural that the imprinting of something or somebody takes a form of their iconic models, which can, unlike general signs, reproduce particular features of things or of people. This form includes all kinds of depictions, each of them "stops" a depicted and saves its image from disappearing,

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due to the quality of space to hold the forms of things left in the past (on the connection of icon signs with past experience, see Peirce, 1960: 360). At the same time, there are depictions specially designed for this saving, for example, death- masks, which make an attempt to imprint sorneone's last face in a more constant substance and which do it in different ways in diverse cultures: preserving something general and essential in ancient Egypt Of, contrariwise, keeping individual features in ancient Rome. Such also are the memorial portraits of later ages performed in sculpture, paint­ ing or engraving, and which represent some persons together with attrib­ utes of their time. The preservation of particular instants and conditions is performed especially in a photograph, which literally "stops" a moment and "takes" its fleeting image from the temporal stream to save it in the more stable spatial form. Developed cultures, besides their "primary" spatial forms of time rep­ resentation like writing or pieces of art, also have "secondary" ways of artificially imprinting temporal changes. Their specific feature is the order­ ing of spatial bearers, which already perform the function of cultural memory. Among these "secondary" aggregations one can find some in­ voluntarily appearing fonnations, such as spontaneously formed environ­ ments of towns, which contain the marks of diverse events of their centu­ ries-old history. However, cultural memory can be concentrated intentionally in some "reservoirs" of spatial bearers of information in collections of spatial texts. Various types that these collections can take include the form of a ceme­ tery, an aggregation of tombstones as the signs of past lives, of a library, a depository of written texts as accumulators of all human experience, or of a museum (pinakothek, gliptothek, etc.), a collection of pieces of art and other bearers of cultural memory. Each of them transfonns in its own way some temporal traces in a semiotized space. For example, a museum can be treated as a fonn of transformation of historical time in a heterogeneous cultural space, where the spatial relations between pieces of art and histor­ ical documents of different ages become a form representing their tem­ poral relations. A new type of such a "hyperspace" has been formed by the Internet as an information milieu, which has already perhaps given a "ter­ nary" system of time representation and of cultural memory. The concentration of the collective memory in diverse fonns of spatial semiosis makes the qualitative transformation of culture possible. The space of its changing is accelerated by the appearance of new technical means of spatial semiosis, from book printing to the Internet, each of them giving new possibilities for semiotized space both to keep the past in the cultural memory, as well as to program the future.

11. 2 . 3 . SPATIAL SEMIOSIS IN CULTURE

1. The Problem of Particularity of the Spatial Semiosis The communication, which uses a space as its medium, is still not sufficiently investigated part of the semiotics. It has many specific features, several of which were noticed by Yu. Lotman. The view of the scholar on the relationships between the verbal language and the spatial means of communication changed in the development of his semiotic conception. His initial thought on a difference between the "primary" and the "secondary" sign systems was transformed into the conception of the "serniosphere", where the interaction of a minimum of two types of sign systems is necessary (see in particular Lotman, 1992: Vol. I 29-3 1 , 5354). Systems like verbal language, which combine discrete conventional signs, in principle need other semiotic systems as their complement. These complementary systems control the creation of continual texts without separate signs, and they tend to deal mainly with iconic and other forms of motivated signs. Both types of systems need each other both in culture as in consciousness, and they can equally be considered as the "primary" sign systems (see Lotman, 1992: Vol. I 1 1-24, 142-147). Thus, as Lotrnan has shown, there is essentially a kind of semiosis other than the semiosis of the linguistic type. Its properties are presented most clearly in the sign systems, where the plane of expression is built by visible spatial forms and their relations. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the spatial channel of infonnation is connected with visual perception, as the temporal channel is connected with hearing (see Jakobson, 1 972). So the peculiarities of spatial semiosis are dependent on the properties of both the external structures of spatial objects and their internal reconstruction in visual perception. Both of them are the components of the joint visual-spatial infonnation channel. The specific topological peculiarities of spatial objects-their non­ linearity, reversibility, diversity of relations between symmetry and asymmetry, etc.-influence their abilities to create specific structures in the plane of expression, like the linearity and non-reversibility of time

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influencing the particular frames of speech chains. The three­ dimensionality of the spatial channel gives a possibility to build the syntactic structures in more varied configurations. That is not only a quantitative, but also a qualitative difference, because it allows the appearance of some additional kinds of meaningful relations between the dimensions. The space can thereby be anisotropic in a different way and have diverse classes of symmetry. The symmetrical constructions are as natural in spatial serniosis as they are unnatural for temporal ones (where, for example, palindromes are exceptionally rare). Further, because the spatial structures are fonned by relations of co­ existence and have some stability in the temporal stream, they can be reversible and allow both a forward and backward order in the relations of their significant elements. The continuity of space can play its role as well, because the visual-spatial channel gives more possibilities for the continual picture of a whole, where it is not easy to find discrete parts (which was also not once noted by semioticians; see Ivanov, 1976: 138; Lotman, 1992: Vol. I 3 1 ; Ivanov, Lotman, et aI., 1998: 13-15, 38-40). Therefore, spatial serniosis allows syntactic structures to be built essentially in a way other than successively ordered chains of discrete signs, known for linguistics. Specific properties of spatial semiosis depend not only on the external part of the visual-spatial channel, but also on the internal one--{)n the peculiarities of visual perception. Its simultaneous character gives eyesight the ability to take in the diversity of relationships between objects as a whole picture, which then disappears by translating in a successive row of signs (see Amheim, 1974: 92-93). This whole impression received from the entire complex of spatial relations precedes the division into separate parts, in contrast to the acoustic perception of successive signals, where the choice of parts precedes the taking in of the whole. The difference between the successive perception of speech constructions and the simultaneous synthesis in visual perception correlates with the ability of spatial syntactic structures to be fonned not only as a combination of ready units, but also as a result of the reverse process of dividing a continual whole into separate parts with its subsequent differentiation (for example, in pictures and related forms of representation). The ways of semiotizing space also have some peculiarities in the plane of contents. The sphere of meanings, which are communicated by visual­ spatial fonns, includes both verbal and non-verbal levels of the psyche, and the latter play an irreplaceable role in the activity of the mind, which was repeatedly stressed by Yu. Lotman (see, particularly, Lotman, 1992: VoL I 46-57; Lotman, 1996: 296). Lotman's ideas of an interaction of two types of semiotic systems in the processes of thinking accord not only with the

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investigations of neurophysiologists on the functional asymmetry of the right and left hemispheres of the brain (see, for example, Nikolaenko & Deglin, 1984), but also with the conceptions of psychologists who consider the activity of thinking as a process of mutual recoding of information from the non-verbal simultaneous fonn to the successive verbal one and back (see, particularly, Zhinkin, 1964: 36; Vecker, 1976: 1 34). The universality of this mechanism appears, notably, even in the formation of logical­ grammatical constructions in verbal speech, which cannot be built without using any spatial images. The disturbing of brain structures, responsible for its creation, lead to the loss of the ability to construct propositions and to understand the logical relations (see Luria, 1979: 1 84, 197-198). It is clear that thinking needs the use of spatial schemes, because they give other possibilities than just successive rows of signs.

2. The Semiotization of Space and the Spatial Codes However, the peculiarities of the spatial-visual channel of communication give only the general conditions for the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic dimensions of spatial semiosis. The opportunities of this channel can be used in a different way. The physical existence of spatial sign vehicles, as well as the psychical systems of their perceptions and understanding, are related just to the components of the "substance of expression" (Hjelinslev, 1961). It is also not enough to analyze a "substance of contents" which depends on the way of interpretation of a spatial message in the frame of some sphere of culture. They open some specific possibilities for the building of spatial sign structures, but they do not necessarily detennine a semiotic "fonn" of spatial expression. The internal semiotic aspects of spatial communication are related to ways of organization of connections between that which, in Hjelmslev's tenns, must be called a "fonn of expression" and a "fonn of contents". Only the presence of a semiotic "fonn" allows a separation of meaningful spatial relations from the other, non-relevant, spatial and temporal ones, as well as a distinction between diverse types of significant spatial structures. The semiotic properties of meaningful spatial objects depend on a definite way of structuring and interpreting space, i.e. on its fixed way of semiotization. The semiotization of space is just the same act as that which brings a definite semiotic "fonn" into a "substance" of some spatial carriers. Each of the ways determines, in its own manner, the selection of meaningful spatial elements and their structuring, its own nonns of interpretation, and its own conditions of their use by interpreters. These syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules, respectively, establish together a spatial

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code-a semiotic system which regulates the acts of the coding and decod­ ing of information in the visual-spatial channel (cf Morris, 1971a). There are different systems of the semiotization of space and, thereby, spatial serniosis is realized not through only one "language of space", but is due to several diverse spatial codes. These codes use various psycholog­ ical and semiotic mechanisms and establish different nonns of interpreta­ tion and behaviour in the space. Accordingly, the space semiotized by these codes can get different forms. It can appear as a "power field" by the means of an architectonic code, correlating visual spatial forms with feel­ ings of mechanical forces. It can be treated as a space of instrumental ac­ tions, if it is serniotized with an object-functional code, which fixes the stable connections between constantly reproduced forms of the objects and its instrumental functions. It can be structured and interpreted also as a space of social behaviour, if its serniotization is regulated by a social­ symbolic code, which correlates spatial relations of objects with social characteristics of subjects. The space of depiction appears to be due to using a perceptographic code, which mediates a translation of some optical marks into a perceptual image of the visible world. The space of the writ­ ten text is subordinate to diverse systems of writing, etc. Some certain parts of a space which is semiotized as a result of using one or more spatial codes can be considered as a spatial text (cf. Toporov, 1983). Any spatial text includes only the spatial relations which are con­ nected with the function to express the meanings according a system of code. So, the spatial codes and the texts regulated by them are mutually connected, like language and speech in linguistics. But the peculiarities of the spatial ways of sense expression put their own imprint on the spatial codes, and therefore the linguistic models are not very effective for the analysis of many kinds of spatial texts. The spatial texts subordinated to diverse codes can have a specific syn­ tax with particular topological properties. For example, the space of a pic­ ture is non-linear, reversible and continuous, in contrast with the spatial structure of the one-dimensional, irreversible and discrete written text. Therefore, the description of spatial syntax needs to work out its own theo­ retical models. These models can become the subject of a special part of spatial semiotics-"semio-topology", which would be aimed at the re­ search of the topological properties of syntactic structures in spatial texts: discreteness and continuity, openness and closeness, homogeneity and heterogeneity, dimensionality and so on. These properties are important for semio-topology only as semiotic qualities-the extent to which they are necessary for semantics and syntax-and they belong to the "form of expression", not to its "substance". So, semio-topology deals only with the

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meaningful structures of spatial texts, not with the topology of physical carriers of infonnation or their mental images. The semiotization of space also establishes, together with its external structuring, its reverse side-the internal ordering of mental schemes, which regulate the ways of perceiving and understanding the spatial objects. Both the external arrangement of space and its internal frame are subordinated to spatial schemes, which are established by a spatial code. So the cultural space is a product of the exteriorizing of internal spatial schemes, and these schemes are worked out as the result of interiorizing external spatial activity. The interpretation of spatial relations from these schemes is perfonned due to semantic units, which fonn the plane of contents of some spatial codes. These semantic units do not have to be logical concepts and can have other "psychological addresses". They may belong to diverse psychical levels: sensory, perceptual, apperceptual, or conceptual, as well as to various motor and affective structures. For example, the object­ functional code develops in the practice of instrumental activity as a parallel to verbal language, and instead of verbal meanings it has "practical concepts" in its plane of contents (in J Piaget's terms)-the motor schemes of instrumental actions.

3. Genetic, Functional and Structural Peculiarities of Spatial Codes Spatial codes as semiotic systems have their own peculiarities, which touch their origins, functions and structures. All of them are used in some way in culture, but many of them have still a natural genesis, which is independent of speech, and go back to biological signal systems. So not all spatial codes relate to verbal language as the "secondary" sign system, and several of them, on the contrary, serve as conditions of the ability to create complicated constructions in verbal syntax and in logical thinking. These codes are involved in the semiosphere of culture in another way than verbal language and similar systems. While verbal language was fonned in culture initially as a system of external communicative means between the subjects, the spatial codes were developed above all in the processes of subject­ object activity (cognitive and projective) as an internal psychical regulator of human behaviour. Accordingly, while speech became the internal means of the mind due to the interiorization of intersubjective communicative actions, these spatial codes were initially the cognitive means, and they got their communicative function in the opposite process of exte-

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riorization, where mental actions are expressed through the outside spatial forms (cf Vygotsky, 1982: 356). For example, perceptual code originated as a cognitive system of the visual decoding of optical signals. But its naturally formed means were reflected and exteriorized in the practice of pictorial communication. So culture reformed the intra-subjective perceptual code into its diverse inter­ subjective versions, each of which can be called a "perceptographic" code. Another type of natural codes-the synesthetic ones-serves as a basis for the architectonic code, which has also been created in culture as a result of the process of the reflection and exteriorization of synesthetic and kines­ thetic signals. In a similar way, the means of natural mimic and pantomim­ ic codes have become consciously and freely reproduced in culture. This role of spatial codes is also connected with the specificity of their functions. Like the temporal means of communication, spatial semiosis perfonns the functions of representation, communication and thinking, but in another way. The representative function can be perfonned, for exam­ ple, due to iconic spatial models, which reproduce their objects in praesen­ tia of text, but not in potentia of a semiotic system, in contrast with verbal language, where it is just the potential paradigmatics that mainly realize the modelling function. The peculiarity of the communicative function in spatial semiosis is de­ termined by its ability to connect the subjects, who belong to diverse mo­ ments of time-in contrast to the participants of verbal dialogue, who are united by one temporal moment. If the moment of time joins everything that is "there" and "now", space joins the moments "here" and "then". So, space unites diverse temporal moments as well as joins subjects separated through temporal distance, whereas time connects points distanced in space. Many spatial codes, like verbal language, are able to serve not only as the means of external communication but also as the tools of the internal processes of thinking. The function of thinking is performed due to means of the spatial codes on the other "floors" of the psyche than the level of logical concepts. The visual or moving schemes of spatial thinking belong to non-verbal levels of the psyche and to not theoretical, but practical in­ tellect. However, as has already been noted (p. 1 79), the most abstract levels of thinking cannot function without involving some spatial patterns. The ability to build a synthetic mental picture allows spatial thinking on all its levels to grasp a whole more easily. The genetic and functional peculiarities of the spatial codes also influ­ ence some of their strnctural particularities. While the acoustic signal sys­ tems tend to provide the maximum effect with the minimum length of text

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in time, the visual-spatial systems can mediate the decoding of infonnation in another way. For example, the iconic spatial models serve not as a key for opening the fhesaurns full of collected knowledge, but carry the main information in its own structure. It is this structure of the text that mainly performs fhe model function, unlike the sign systems of a verbal type, where the model function is performed by an implicit system of a code, rather than by an explicit text Therefore the latter type of semiotic sys­ tems needs a preliminary "dictionary" of signs with ready meanings, whereas the fonner does not need it, and many spatial codes have neither a dictionary nor alphabetic units. Some of these codes belong to a "grammatical", but not to a "lexical" type of language (in F. de Saussure' s terms). For example, the system of linear perspective gives the principle of arrangement of visual indices of depth on a plate-a system of shortenings-and can be considered as an important part of a perceptographic code. However, neither the perspective nor fhe perceptographic code as a whole have any "dictionary" of ready signs. Unlike the verbal language, their implicit structure gives a very poor model of space, whereas the explicit syntagmatic structure of the picture, built with their help, models a certain space much fuller than any verbal text Instead of an alphabet of discrete signs, some of the spatial codes have continual fields of forms and colours. The sense-discriminating elements in these systems are subordinate not to "the alphabet principle", but to "the palette principle" (see above, 1.3.4). The latter allows the elements to be mixed in diverse ways, as the palette gives opportunities for various mix­ ing of colours. Thus, instead of the controversy between "yes" and "no", the palette establishes a gradual flowing of sense-discriminating elements one into another, according to the principle of "more" or "less" (cf. Eco, 1976 176). Thereby the "palette principle", unlike the "alphabet principle", allows one to operate not only with contrasts of binary oppositions but also with nuances. This principle correlates more with the continuity of space, as well as with its non-linearity and reversibility, whereas the "alphabet prin­ ciple" is correlated with the one-dimensionality and irreversibility of ver­ bal texts. If the latter principle makes possible the successive selection of discrete signs in time and their joining on the "axis of combination" (in Roman Jacobson's terms), the principle of the palette is more relevant for a simultaneous synthesis of many relations in a united whole, grasped be­ fore its separate parts are distinguished. This principle is valid for colours as well as for figures, and not only in the frame of the perceptographic code, but also those of the architectonic or social-symbolic codes.

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4. Spatial Semiosis as Part of the Semiosphere The ability of spatial codes to function as the means of communication, representation and thinking allows them, along with the verbal language, to be an important part of the serniosphere. These codes are included in different areas of culture mediating in heterogeneous relations of the human towards nature and society. But the structural and the functional peculiarities of spatial serniosis let it play a particular role in the serniosphere of culture. A space is not only a medium of communication between subjects, but above all an environment of their activity: moving, working, etc. This environment consists of a multitude of manifold areas and [OnTIS, which can also be considered as various syntactical and semantic types of spatial texts. A home, a street, a city, etc. can be considered as different types of spatial texts, regulated by different nonns of space serniotization. These texts serve first of all as the means of regulating human behaviour­ instrumental and social. There are also the separated spatial texts, which are intended especially for communicative functions (writings, paintings, etc.). The latter are combined together with the former in a complex spatial hypertext. An example of such a complicated space was given by Yuri Lotman as an illustration of his idea of the semiosphere: a museum hall, "where the exhibits of various ages are presented, together with writings in known and unknown languages, instructions on their decoding, the texts, explaining the exhibition, schemes of excursion routes and rules of visitors' behaviour" (Lotman, 1992: Vol. I 53-54). The transit from one type of spatial text and its ways of semiotization to another is regulated with the help of special markers, which point to the switching from one code to the other, and so function as indices of a spatial metalanguage. For example, a house threshold, a picture frame, a theatre stage border, etc. are such markers that demarcate the spaces with different nonns of behaviour or contemplation and indicate a transit from one way of their interpretation to others. It is possible that the same spatial locus is semiotized in different ways and can contain spatial texts regulated by several codes. Then these codes can enter into various relations between each other: to complement or to except one another, to cross or to exclude, coordination or subordination, etc. The interaction of these codes in their various forms may be a subject of some "visual rhetoric", which appears where different codes take part together in making up some complex text with a total sense (cf Lotruan, 1998 61 1).

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The spatial codes interact also with temporal sign systems like verbal language. The divergence of organization gives various opportunities for their interaction. There is a possibility to change the audio-temporal plane of expression into the visual-spatial one, due to its new coding (as in phonetic writing) or due to its translation Cas in ideography). In both cases, the spatial elements and structures are subordinate to linguistic fonns. However, if the spatial way of representation retains its own features, it is a reorganization of some contents from the verbal speech into a visual form, rather than a translation of them. A spatial way of expression allows for the transposition of paradigmatic structures of a language and of its secondary systems into syntagmatic constructions. The non-linearity of spatial texts provides a possibility to present some whole structures for a vision, which are given in the verbal language only implicitly. For example, icon-painting, which had to translate gospel narration into visual form, makes something different Through the oppositions of top and bottom, left and right, etc., it has opened some hierarchic and value relations for visual perception, which are only implied in the verbal narration, not explicitly presented in it Generally, the spatial codes give also a visual basis for the development of invisible structures in diverse systems of culture: language, myth, religion, etc. Ccf. Cassirer, 1923: 1 47166; 1 925 1 07-132). The spatial codes and texts arranged by them are very important for the sphere of art. The peculiarity of arts is not in the use of some special "languages of art", but, on the contrary, is in their involvement and special working out of codes, used also in many other spheres of culture. As the arts of words organize the signs of everyday language in a special way, giving them an artistic effect, the spatial arts work out the means of the everyday spatial codes. The semiotic means of these ordinary codes are arranged and rearranged in works of art being transfonned into the means of artistic expression. For example, figurative art can be considered as the art of exteriorizing the diverse means of the cognitive perceptual code, which are selected and reflected by artists, and turned into the means of communicative "perceptographic" code. Various kinds of arts are distinguished from each other due to the complexes of semiotic means being worked out by them. Although there is a dominating code for every kind of spatial art, each of them deals as a rule with several codes. So architecture deals not only with the means of architectonic code, but also with the means of social-symbolic and object­ functional codes, and the representative arts also work out the means of the different versions of perceptographic code together with some other spatial codes: object-functional, mimic, pantomimic, etc.

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5. Spatial Semiotics as an Autonomous Branch of Sign Theory Thus, it is natural to suppose that spatial semiosis can be the subject of a special branch of semiotics. It deals with the ways and the results of the serniotization of space, i.e. with spatial codes and spatial texts. The semi­ otics of space has to find its relations with other semiotic disciplines and, above all, its place in the system of general semiotics (what is important also for itself). In particular, it has to define, on the one hand, some com­ mon properties with other semiotic systems and, on the other, some pecu­ liarities, i.e. what separates it from them. Spatial serniosis can certainly be described in the general categories of Peirce's and Morris' semiotics, which considers signs in syntactical, se­ mantic and pragmatic dimensions. It can be described as well in some concepts of Saussurean semiology, which considers correlations between signifiant and signifier in whole sign systems, paradigmatic and syntag­ matic aspects of these systems, the oppositions of system and text, of syn­ chrony and diachrony etc. However, the analogies of spatial serniosis with other sign systems have limits, beyond which their principal distinctions begin. The differ­ ence between the spatial and temporal order of sign vehicles in diverse kinds of art is a subject of discussions which have been well known at least since Lessing's time (see Lessing, 1957: 1 87). This subject is im­ portant not only for aesthetics, but for semiotics too. Spatial semiotics has to define its place in relation to other, non-spatial spheres of semiotic in­ vestigations. There are grounds to consider the semiotics of space as a separate branch of semiotics, correlated with temporal semiotics, which was presented first of all by Saussurean semiology < . . . > (see above, 1. 1 . 2 and II. 1 . 1).

11.3. S PATIAL CODES

11.3 . 1 . TOWARD SEMIOTICS OF SPATIAL CODES

1. On Spatial Codes Each inclusion of space into human activity is connected with its com­ prehension and organization, either real or only an ideal one. The space organized as sense expression means turns into a text, in its general semi­ otic sense. Not only written messages, but also other spatial objects can be texts of this kind. if they are structured and interpreted by the norms elabo­ rated in culture. According to Pavel Florensky. "The whole culture can be interpreted as a space organizing activity"' (Florensky. 1993: 55). This is true, because space organization is not only physical but also a mental activity, and can be considered not only from its material-technical per­ spective, but also from that of semiotics. Organizing space into sense-bearing texts structured according to defi­ nite nonns is what constitutes space serniotization. The latter presupposes, firstly, the separation of spatial elements and structures responsible for conveying the meanings; secondly, settling the nonns for their interpreta­ tion; and, thirdly, defining the conditions for them to be used by interpret­ ers. Thus, syntactical, semantic and pragmatic rules are set, forming a "language", as this concept was determined by one of the founders of se­ miotics (see Morris, 1971a), or a "spatial code" , in the terms of this work. Spatial codes involve only connections between the "fonn of expres­ sion" and the "form of content" (in Louis Hjelmslev's terms). However, contrary to the opinion of the Danish linguist, they are not indifferent to the features of the substance, at least at the level of the expression plane. Just as the verbal language mechanism depends on the principle of the consecutive transmission of acoustic signals in time (Saussure, 1977: 1 03), the organization of spatial codes cannot remain independent of the specif­ ics of spatial meaning bearers. However, within the limits of the opportunities provided by these bear­ ers, specific ways of space semiotization can be different. Spatial codes corresponding to these ways also prove to be unequal. Their units can be formed by spatial relations of different types, and the comprehension of

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these units is realized through non-identical semiotic mechanisms. In par­ ticular, spatial relationships can take meanings as traces of the past, symp­ toms of the present or signs of the future; they can serve as signs of in­ strumental or communicative actions, as well as symbolize the social sta­ tus of certain subjects of activity. There are spatial objects fully limited by semiotic functions. For ex­ ample, coins are the signs of some financial values. They can be defined as sign-quantificators, since they denote a certain quantity of money. In a similar way, there are spatial objects denoting some qualities and can therefore be called sign-qualificators, such as, orders and medals awarded for certain achievements. It is also possible to separate out a category of objects functioning as sign-nominators denoting certain persons, states or other individual objects; for example, such a function is fulfilled by coats of arms, standards of military divisions, etc. Each kind of these object signs is regulated by their own spatial code. Some of these object signs can be replaced with quasi-object forms. Quasi-object codes constitute a large part of spatial semiotic means. They include, particularly, diverse types of writing and other meaningful ways of drawing on objects or on people's and animals' bodies (tattoos, nicks, hallmarks, tamgas, etc.). Obviously, such codes as heraldry or writing have long been studied (see, for example : Dirringer, 1947; Gelb, 2004; Arseniev, 200 1 ; Slater, 2004). Compared to them, forms of artificially created objects are much less studied. However, they also take a variety of meanings in culture. These meanings are fonned on the basis of different semiotic mechanisms, using signal-indexical, sign and symbolic means belonging to different levels of information communication (see above, 1.3. 1). Among the object codes alone, it is possible to identify spatial codes in which the semiotic means of each of the three levels will dominate. Such differences are present, in particular, in the three spatial codes considered below. Each of them characterizes a certain type of semiotic system organization, in which specific codes sharing typical features can be formed. However, these codes differ in their spheres of application, cultural and historical conditions of their fonnation, stylistic features and some other properties.

2. Architectonic Code The architectonic code is a complex of visually perceived indexes of the forces which influence the fonnation, conservation and transfonnation of visible spatial forms. Due to such indexes, the visible material of a body

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is perceived not only as a geometric form, but to a varying degree also as a heavy and dense mass, possessing hardness, strength and other physical qualities, while the position of this body in space is experienced as a state of stability or instability, equilibrium or disequilibrium. The expression plane of the architectonic code comprises such visible spatial objects attributes as size, shape, orientation in respect to the vertical and horizontal axes, and their mutual arrangement in space. Along with the forms filled with dense mass, the "empty" volumes in between fulfil their functions in the architectonic code as welL Although these volumes are usually not perceived as the object's forms, their distinguishing quali­ tative and quantitative characteristics make them available for contempla­ tion and affect their dynamic comprehension. Every volume of this kind, depending on its size and configuration, provides a person's or object's body with some freedom to move inside or through it Despite its empti­ ness, each volume can be perceived as an action field of multidirectional forces, e.g. centrifugal, centripetal, attraction, repulsion, etc. For example, a long, outstretched corridor can affect depression and, figuratively speak­ ing, "push" the person who has entered it towards the exit. A round area, on the contrary, provides a stable center with "gravity" and the body placed in it seems to occupy a "natural" and more stable place than in oth­ er parts of the area (cf Arnheim, 1974: 24-28; 1984: 62-66). The content plane in the architectonic code is created by motor images of the forces acting in space. The interpretation of this plane's spatial form does not depend on its object functions as a tool, but is connected with the ideas of the force field influencing it. Its form indicates the effect of real or imaginary forces of gravity, pressure, elasticity, tension, etc. Characteris­ tics of the forms reflect different kinds of interaction between these forces: some of them dominate, while others are subordinated, and a third type are balanced. For example, the convex shape of a ball gives an impression that internal forces prevail over external ones. A concave form, on the contra­ ry, seems to result from external forces overcoming internal resistance. Flat cube surfaces look like a result of the achieved balance between ex­ ternal and internal forces. Less symmetrical fOnTIS indicate a varying force effect on their different parts. For example, a disk combines a circular shape and flat sides, the first being perceived as a result of radially di­ rected centrifugal forces equally affecting its edges, while the second seems to result from flattening under external pressure. In the architectonic code, the grammar function is performed by the rules for constructing significant spatial relations. Spatial structures orga­ nized according to these rules form "syntagmas" of the architectonic code. However, the essential difference between spatial and temporal syntagmat-

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ics is that the fonner does not comply with the principle of linearity of the signifier, according to F. de Saussure, which is the basis of the entire lin­ guistic mechanism (see above, 1.1 .2). Spatial syntagmas are not limited to one dimension, but may spread in two or three dimensions simultaneously. In particular, in the system of the architectonic code, fonns that are includ­ ed in vertical and horizontal spatial syntagmas acquire different dynamic values. In the vertical plane, the dynamic meanings of spatial forms and their significant constructions are first of all understood as relations between their masses and the gravitational force overcome by the support system. Subordination to the force of gravity or its surmounting is visually ex­ pressed in the architectonic code as the order of the placement of spatial forms along the vertical axis, and as the internal proportions of these forms. These complementary relationships between external and internal spaces can be compared to interactions between syntactic and morphologi­ cal features in speech constructions. The fact that the form function is expressed in a construction not only by these fonns' order, but also by their features, leads to their mutual co­ herence in the whole construction, which can be compared with word matching in a sentence. The capital fonn in the antique order is coordinat­ ed both with the cornice lying on it and a column shaft The horizontal surface of the column cap top indicates the extension required by the order system, i.e. a horizontal balk placed on it (see Figure 11.9.6.1-1). Without this the fonn remains visually incomplete. A sharp or rounded completion of the vertical row (for example, a spire, dome, tympanum, acroteria, etc.) has the opposite meaning, and visually excludes any upward trend of the structure and puts an end to a vertical syntagma. There can be only an empty space above, otherwise even the peak of a spire would not be per­ ceived as the extreme point of a vertically-oriented construction. If a vertical construction is not placed onto the lower base but hung on the support located above (for example, a chandelier), the expressed forces take on the reverse direction. In this case, on the contrary, the lower the visual centre of gravity in relation to the attachment point the stronger the opposition to the force of gravity. If the hanging form ends at the bottom with sharp or arcuate parts that cannot be supported, and which are fol­ lowed by empty space, the sagging of the visible mass will be expressed even more strongly (cf Semper, 1970: 170, 238-239). Unlike polarized structures with a distinctive top and bottom, forms which are symmetrical to the vertical axis allow for visual inverting, which is an index of an object's mobility and ability to change its position (such as the shape of a wheel, ball, mailbox, etc.). In a transportable form

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the direction of movement and even its speed can be morphologically ex­ pressed. The shape of a space rocket visually rises faster than that of a balloon, just as the silhouette of a racing car more sharply expresses the direction and speed of movement than that of a tram. The latter example, however, is related to the orientation not in a verti­ cal, but in a horizontal plane, where other rules of morphology and syntax are applicable. The main contrast between horizontal and vertical syntag­ mas is that the former do not focus on the difference between the support and the load, but concentrate on the means indicating that the movement of both the construction itself and the person towards it is possible. Forms intended for directional movement in space (for example, transport) have, as a rule, a clearly expressed structural difference between longitudinal and transverse directions. They often have polarized anterior and posterior parts, while the asymmetry of the left and right is relatively weak A good example is the asymmetry of bow and stern parts of a ship in the longitudinal plane and the symmetry of its sides in the transverse plane. On the contrary, objects whose movement is not explicitly oriented in the horizontal plane have no opposition between the frontal and lateral planes, and their "front-rear" opposition disappears. Their functions are to a greater degree correlated to the symmetrical fonn of a circle. Like movable objects, stable structures are also to a greater or lesser degree symmetrical, depending on how explicitly the direction of move­ ment inside or near them in the horizontal plane is specified. The round arena of a circus and a metro tllilllel can be considered as opposite cases of spatial structures with a very weak or extremely intense movement direc­ tion, respectively. For a person moving primarily in the horizontal plane, its forms and spatial structures differ, first of all, in opportunities for movement. An impenetrable mass of a solid body and an "empty" space volume open for movement inside constitute the main pair of significant units that form horizontal syntagmas in the architectonic code system . The connection of dense ("filled") and transparent ("empty") volumes provides for the as­ sembly of these initial units of the architectonic code into relatively com­ plex syntactic constructions in the horizontal plane. Depending on whether the "empty" volumes are separated from each other by a continuous barri­ er, they fonn open or enclosed areas of space that, in terms of content, have different dynamic values, expressing the difference in mobility. A set of open and closed volumes created by a combination of massive bodies and empty gaps, supports and floors, barriers and openings, forms a kind of architectonic "text" indicating that in some places movement is possible, whereas in others it is not. Yet, the means of architectonic code

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do not provide any infonnation about the purpose of these spatial move­ ments. To convey the meanings of object actions and social behaviour is the task of object-functional and socially-symbolic codes.

3. Object-functional Code The connection between the form of a spatial object and its instrumen­ tal function is expressed by means of an object-functional code. Whereas the architectonic code is based on natural relations between a visible form and the physical processes in which it can be involved, the object­ functional code is entirely determined by cultural norms defining both the appearance of a significant form and its dynamic meaning, as well as the relationship between them. However, unlike verbal language signs, mean­ ingful fonns of the object-functional code are by no means spontaneous, but depend on a number of technological factors, including the methods of the corresponding objects' practical use, the techniques of their construc­ tion, the possibilities of materials, etc. However, the form developed under the influence of these factors is fixed in culture, both in material practice and in the ideal sphere, in the collective and individual consciousness. The object form, having become a stable unit of practical thinking, acquires an "inertia", which allows it to be preserved even if its functions and for­ mation ways are changed. As a unit of the semiotic system, the object form, even if motivated by technical factors, is not identical to its material construction, just as the semiotic "form" in any sign system is not identical to the "substance" realizing it. The divergence between a material construction that functions pure mechanically and an information-bearing fonn is also reflected in the fact that not every technical detail can become a significant element of the form; this is only possible for those available to and aimed at visual per­ ception. In its turn, information bearers in the object-functional code can also be technically useless or even harmful elements of a form. It is possi­ ble to differentiate between Functionalism, which minimizes the differ­ ence between technical and informative aspects of the form, and the Styl­ ing that allows for a large gap between them, just because the significant form, as a unit of the object-functional code, is not identical to the form which is based on a technical construction only. Visible object forms that have been culturally selected and have taken root in the collective consciousness as stable ideas, become the basic units of the expression plane in a particular kind of the object-functional code (the "language" of clothing, utensils, tools, etc.). In the individual con-

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sciousness formed in a given culture these ideas correspond to perceptual schemes, the correlation with which provides for an object belonging to a particular class to be recognized as a visible form. The researchers of visu­ al perception state that together with the lexicon of a verbal language, the person's memory stores also a "dictionary of visual images" that only par­ tially coincides with it, and with the help of which it is possible to recog­ nize and categorize forms of objects (see Glezer, 1 966, Chapter III. 2). Both the verbal and visual "dictionary" can be involved in the process of subject recognizing. However, verbal categorization is still secondary for visual perception. Before a visible object is called a "table" or a "car", its image needs to be identified with a visual scheme stored in memory, i.e. with a unit of the visual "dictionary". The involvement of a suitable verbal category in the identification process is possible, but not necessary. Like a word is considered by linguists as the unity of the signifier and the signified, an artificially created object is the unity of its spatial form and its instrumental function. The object-functional code connects them as units of expression and content planes. In this connection, a reproducible and recognizable visible form is the signifier, whereas a scheme of instru­ mental action with the object becomes its signified. Together with the vis­ ible form of an object, the method of its use is placed in the collective con­ sciousness as a universally recognized norm that is in its turn fixed in the minds of individuals who have mastered this norm as an action pattern with the object. The object-functional code regulates the comprehension not only of object forms, but also of spatial zones having a fixed functional purpose. The room of a library or a sports hall, the space of a highway or a pedes­ trian zone, etc. is oriented to different modes of behaviour expressed by visual indexes and signs, which are mediated by the norms of the object­ functional code.

4. Social-symbolic Code The interpretation of spatial objects from the point of view of their di­ rect designation does not exhaust their possible meanings. In many cases it is more important to treat them as social symbols indicating that the sub­ jects involved belong to a particular social group. In this case, the nonns of another spatial code type are applied. There are codes of a social­ symbolic type that relate visible spatial forms of artificial objects to par­ ticular social characteristics of the persons using these objects. One may talk of social symbolism when spatial forms of things and architectural structures, as well as their location in space, indicate their owner's or us-

Toward Semiotics of Spatial Codes

195

er's social status, their belonging to a certain social group, to a certain gender, age, profession, class, nation, religion, etc. Codes of this type include semiotic systems giving "secondary", or connotative, meaning to spatial artifacts that have a "primary", or denota­ tive, meaning in the subject-functional code system . A throne and a crown can symbolize royal power, provided that they are recognized as a seat and a headdress, respectively. Bearers of meanings in the system of social-symbolic code can be ob­ ject fOnTIS of all kinds: clothes, jewelry, furniture, vehicles, etc. Significant differences of the social-symbolic code of clothing alone create a variety of subcodes: different versions of military, professional or sports unifonns, fashion for festivities or casual clothes, etc. These nonns can be more or less rigid, more stable or impennanent. However, not only forms of mo­ bile things, but also the ones of stable architectural structures become means of social symbolism to the extent that, in addition to their direct functional purpose, these forms can also express social roles of their users. Elements of the expression plane in the social-symbolic code, both for objects and buildings, are mainly their non-functional characteristics, such as proportions, dimensions, material, colour, etc. Together with the volume forms of objects and structures, the means of a social-syrn bolic code also include free space areas, e.g. rooms or halls in the interiors of architectural structures, streets and squares in their exteri­ ors, etc. A significant place in this code system becomes the same unit of the expression plane as the significant form. The relations of fonns and places there are capable of arranging into syntactic constructions compa­ rable with verbal propositions. The content plane of social-symbolic code includes both the signified social characteristics and the designated individuals or social groups pos­ sessing them. Focusing on one of these functions turns a code unit into an emblem, which acts as a sign-nominator, or into a symbol functioning as a sign-significator. Thus, the colours of a champion's sports uniform nomi­ nate their club, and the step of the pedestal they rise to or the honourable cup in their hands significates their sporting achievement. A combination of such spatial symbols in one meaningful construction gives the equiva­ lent of a logical judgment to a subject-predicate structure: "The one who holds the cup is the winner". Such a combination can occur both between significant fonns them­ selves, and between them and significant places in a social space. In the latter case, a significant form is included in a certain system of spatial co­ ordinates, specified by some way of space semiotization. Such coordinate systems can be formed by an individual space, correlated with a human

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body scheme or by a value-differentiated social space. Putting a significant form onto a significant place in such a system of social coordinates gives it a new meaning and allows you to express some judgment. For example, an engagement ring worn on a finger, or a monument erected on a square, can be regarded as social symbols included in the subject-predicate structure of specific spatial utterances. In the case of the ring, its shape of the object symbolizes marriage and is associated with a specific person who is indi­ cated (instead of a name or pronoun) by combining of a certain form with a specific position with his or her individual space. In the case of the mon­ ument, on the contrary, the sculptural image of a person serves as a spatial equivalent to their name, and the significant place in the social space of the city, where the monument is located, performs the function of a judgment predicate expressing their social assessment. In both cases, it is essential to connect a significant form with a significant place. Just as a place not filled with a meaningful form does not express any judgment, so this form acquires its full meaning only when it is located in the appropriate place. The fact that the social-symbolic code provides semiotic means for constructing spatial equivalents to verbal utterances brings it closer to a verbal language and distinguishes it from the previously considered spatial codes. The structural differences of these codes are complemented with their functional diversity, since their semiotic systems play different roles in human activity. Whereas the architectonic code sets the norms of the sub­ ject's reactions to the relations between the objects and the object­ functional code expresses the functions of objects in subject-object rela­ tions, the social-symbolic code regulates the mediation of inter-subject relations. When involved in various aspects of activity, these codes are addressed to different levels of consciousness and use different types of semiotic means. Therefore, they do not compete and do not duplicate each other, but are used together as quite a wide range of means that fonn and com­ prehend the space semiotized with their help. Their interpenetration and joint action allow for spatial artifacts to acquire art value.

11. 3 . 2 . THE SEMIOTIZATION OF SPACE AND DYNAMIC CODES

1. The Specifics of the Semiotization of Space In this article, a group of visual codes, on which feeling and compre­ hension of space by the subject depend, is considered. These codes form a basis for some means of expression, often regarded as 'languages' of di­ verse sorts of spatial arts (architecture, urban or industrial design, and so forth). Nevertheless, their usage is not limited to any art activity. Thus, the role of spatial codes may be understood and described more adequately in a general setting of semiotics rather than one of art theory or aesthetics. Within some system of semiotics, the specific of the codes un­ der consideration are categorized by: (1) the distinctive properties of the semiotic means which build up, in tenns of these codes, the plane of ex­ pression (PE); (2) the selection of the meanings which form, in terms of them, the plane of content (PC); and (3) the correlation between meaning­ ful units of the PE and meanings in the Pc. However, a semiotic categorization of spatial codes cannot be pro­ duced by applying theoretical models proposed in the study of other sys­ tems of signs. For example, in this case, one of the underlying principles of F. de Saussure's semiology-the principle of the linear organization of the PE, assuming that any sign construction is made up of a sequential string of signs, as phonemes and morphemes in an act of verbal speech-is no longer valid. Oriented towards integral visual perception, the plane of expression of spatial codes is to be built up right away in some three­ dimensional (or at least two-dimensional) space. Hence, it cannot be repre­ sented generally by one-dimensional strings of signs, unless spatial codes are directly subdued to the structures of verbal language, as this take place in case of writing. The singularity of the spatial codes consists of a semiotization of the space they imply. A semiotization of space means a structuralization of it (a selection of some meaningful elements of space and some meaningful relations between these elements, along with any principle), provided with

198

11.3.2.

some rules of correlation between the distinguished elements of space and their meaning. The spatial structures are constructed to build up a PE, re­ lated by a spatial code to its Pc. Spatial codes differ in the way they semi­ otize the space, i.e. how they structuralize it within the PE, how they as­ sign meaning to meaningful elements of space in the PC, and, finally, what semantic means they use for relating units of PE and Pc. Later, these dif­ ferences in the ways of space serniotization through different dynamic codes will be considered more detailed.

2. The Object-spatial Dualism of Visual Perception Spatial codes structuralize space, proceeding from the image of the world that visual perception builds up. The image of a visible world results from the effect of a special perceptual code, through the agency of which a visual field unfolds into an image of three-dimensional bodies placed in the space. While such a stereometric image of a world is being formed, not only a structuralization but also an initial categorization of the space ele­ ments is happening. They are divided, so to speak, into 'positive' and 'negative' elements: the human eye catches, first of all, spatial forms of dense physical bodies, capable of hindering human movements, while skipping 'gaps' between them. Such a dual structure of a sensually per­ ceived space is essentially different from a conceivable mathematical model of space as a continuum, monotonously filled up with an infinite set of points, infinitely close to each other. Out of the known theoretical mod­ els, the ancient conception of the atomists, which ultimately opposes to each other absolutely impenetrable atoms and absolutely penetrable vacui­ ty is the closest to the structure of a visually perceived space. However, within visually perceived space, the opposition between dense mass and blank spaces is not so rigid. In fact, the fonner allows for a division into parts, whereas in the perception of a pictorial work, say, in Impressionist painting, it is brought to nothing at alL

3. The Spatial Units ofPE in Dynamic Codes The distinction between 'positive' and 'negative' domains of space, as preserved in different spatial codes, reflects their diverse roles. In some cases, the main infonnation is taken on by spatial fonns of objects, where­ as in other ones-where some outward relations between them are more significant, or object fonns are included into some meaningful system of coordinates-it is taken on by singular spots of spatial zones (e.g. into a personal space organized by the structure of a human body, into a social

The Semiotization of Space and Dynamic Codes

199

space of an urban environment, into a play space of a sports ground, and the like). The dynamic codes we are especially interested in are those that use interobject relations within the structures of their PE in different ways: form-generating ones in the "inward" mode, and interobject ones in the "outward" mode. Thus, the object-functional codes single out as their basic units in PE some separate object forms with fixed correlations between their inner parts, while at the same time allowing a free modifying of interobject rela­ tions (the fonn of a moving car, for instance, does not generate in the ob­ ject-functional code a joint sign construction with the objects it is passing). In contrast, in the case of an architectonic code, the structure of the PE is to be fonned essentially by some fixed outward relations between object forms, a certain system of apertures and barriers, supports and floors, al­ lowing greater freedom in the mounting of the corporeal masses which build them up. (Therefore, decor on the facades may be changed without altering its underlying construction.) Unlike the object-functional code, oriented towards a rather exact locating of an object form within the per­ sonal space of a human who is using it, the architectonic code not only admits, but dictates a more or less determined movement of a human with­ in the architecturally organized space. In that way, the modification of 'positive/negative' elements reverses its sign here. A G. Gabrichevsky has already noted that in the dynamically meaningful space, it is its vacuity that becomes a positive moment, related to an option of human movement (Gabrichevsky, 1923). Finally, in the social-symbolic code, both corporeal fonns (including the very body of a human) and the spatial relations between them (for in­ stance, a human sitting in the judge's chair, endowed with a proper fonn as well as with a position in space, is attributed with a different social sta­ tus to one seated in the dock) are equally significant. Within this code, object-spatial relations may build up sign constructions with a subject­ predicative structure similar to the statements of verbal speech. Thus, for instance, the ring put on the finger, the flag hoisted above the building, the monument erected on the plaza, and so forth, state some events or ideas through the placement of a meaning bearer in a meaningful zone of a per­ sonal or social space (consider the position of a ring in the pocket, of a flag in the storehouse, or a monument at the restorers' workshop).

4. Dynamic Meanings of PC The spatial codes considered here form a special group due to the spe­ cifics of their Pc. Unlike of many other codes, the values of spatial rela-

200

11.3.2.

tions in them are not cognitive, but motional irnages-kinesthetical feel­ ings of the forces and tensions to be operating in the space, the schemes of object actions, the plans of communicative behaviour, and so on. These dynamic images relate to different levels of mental processes-just as the corresponding perception, presentation and concept make up different lev­ els of cognition. Prof. N. A. Bernstein discerned five levels of these motional irnages­ from level A, inherent already to protozoa, that controls most primitive motion reactions, to level E, intrinsic to humans only, on which the plans of speech thinking and communicative actions are built up (Bernstein, 1 947). Semiotics is sure to focus on the last level of structures. However, also of interest for the semiotics of space are those values of spatial ele­ ments that are built up on lower levels C and D, where the schemes of movement in space and plans of object actions are fonned. Movement images on level C constitute the meaning in the PC of the architectonic code; they allow the coordination of the displacement of man in the spatial environment, endowed with geometrical and physical fea­ tures. For that, a very precise psychic image of the situation presented is needed, as given for man through his perception. Hovewer, perception does not give just a purely optic image of spatial forms but also of their physical qualities (solidity, weight, resilience, and the like), or a "naive physics", as 1. S. Vygotsky dubbed it. Spatial forms may cause through their visualized qualities the emergence of kinesthetical images of such physical qualities, along with their emotions. For instance, a convex sur­ face manifests a preponderance of internal forces over external ones, a concave surface indicates a predominance of external forces over internal, while a plane surface demonstrates their balance. A rectangle, horizontally oriented, looks more quiet and stable than one vertically oriented, whereas a diagonal orientation in the vertical plane makes it visually unstable and stirs up a sense of disquietness. Thus, a clever usage of the architectonic code could acquire an artistic quality. While level C images only let the human adjust his movements to the spatial environment given, level D movement images already provide for the planning of its goal-oriented transformations. At this level of move­ ment construction, the leading role shifts from the perception of a real sit­ uation to the conceptualization of a desired transfonnation of it-an ideal target that starts to control some meaningful object actions. In compliance with such aims, the instrument have definite practical functions, attributed to corresponding spatial forms by the cultural norm. Thanks to these norms, one spatial form is to be interpreted as, say, a 'hammer', another one as a 'cup', a third as a 'bench', and so forth. Such connection between

The Semiotization of Space and Dynamic Codes

201

a visible form of an object and its function, that is, the connection between schemes of the fonns recognition and schemes of instrumental actions operating with them, lays the basis for an object-functional code. Lastly, level E structures allow the construction not of object actions but of communicative inter-subject actions, including non-verbal "seman­ tic gests", which transform the spatial environment into the complex of means that pass various meanings from one subject to another. The no­ tions that emerge at this level of thinking create the PC of a social­ symbolic code, capable of building up sign constructions equivalent to the statements of verbal language. For example, the erection of a monument in a square, and, contrariwise, its deletion from it, may be considered as a spatial equivalent of a statement, affirming or negating the social signifi­ cance of a person represented. In this case, a monument is an equivalent of a proper name, and its place in a plaza is an analog of the predicate in a logical statemen� constructed along the lines of the formula "S is P". So, as we can see, dynamic spatial cooes differ not only with respect to the structures of their PE but also with respect to the levels of movement images in the PC 5. The Levels of Connection between the Units ofPE and PC The difference between these dynamic codes is also determined by the difference in the ways that units of the PE and the PC are related with each other In the architectonic code, the kinesthetic images that make up its PC are, so to say, "built in" the visual perception of a given spatial situation. The indications of diverse physical qualities, of static and dynamic forces, combined with the properly optic data, are becoming actually visible. They turn out to be the indexes that present some physical conditions of a visible object to a subject With respect to the movement of a human, they corne up at once as the signals that encourage some movements, while forbidding others. In that way, within the architectonic code, the connec­ tion between the PE and the PC is implemented at the signal-indexical level. In the object-functional code, the transition of the visible form of the object to the meaning of the fonn is already assumed not as a perception of some explicitly given qualities, but as a motional scheme of how this form is involved in a goal-oriented action. Here the fonn represents a function beyond perception itself. Such a relation of representation be­ tween the units of the PE and the PC of the object-functional code allow discussions about a sign level of their interconnection.

202

11.3.2.

As for the social-symbolic code, its very name suggests that, in addi­ tion to a sign representation of an object function, there happens to be a second assigning of meaning to an already meaningful [OnTI, a cognitive comprehension of it, a conferring of a complementary meaning of it. In this case, different codes combine their actions in the process of compre­ hending some fragment of the object-functional environment Such joint activity and interaction of diverse codes in the building up of a common meaning gives ground to ascertain the symbolic level of the relation of the spatial structure with the meanings assigned to it within this code (see above, 1.3.1 .3.4). To conclude, the relationships between the semiotic levels and spatial codes may be seen in Table 11.3.2-1.

Type of code

Plan of expression: Spatial structures

Architectonic Discernible spatial relations between corporeal masses ObjectjUnctional

Recognizable object forms

Socialsymbolic

Meaningful locations of objects m space

Plan of content: Dynamic images

Semiotic level: The way of connection between the units of the PE and the PC Signal-index

Kinesthetic reactions to spatial relations between objects The schemes of Sign object actions of a subject The meanings of Symbolic communicative actions in the relations between subjects

Table 11.3.2-1. Dynamic spatial codes and their semiotic levels

11.3 . 3 . ON DEMARCATION CODE

Border is an important category of spatial semiotics. It perfonns semi­ otic functions in both expression and content planes of spatial codes. In the first case, the boundaries indicate differences in the properties and values of objects that are limited outside or divided inside. In the second case. they become designated objects themselves. If the border is interpreted as the signified, it is represented as a marked place, i.e. as a locus having its own special properties. This locus can be signified by semiotic means that point to, but are not identical to it. Verbal descriptions of borders or some spatial indexes, e.g. fences, border markers, etc., can serve as these means. The former are involved in the "delimitation" of borders, while the lat­ ter are in their "demarcation". Both the delimited and the demarcated bor­ der remains an object designated with the help of certain signs and belong­ ing to the content plane of texts constructed by the means of a verbal lan­ guage or another semiotic system. Demarcating the border with the help of non-verbal means seems to be synonymous with its verbal delimitation. However, the methods of their designation as well as their semantic func­ tions are different. The complex of culturally conditioned norms, facilitating the demarca­ tion of spatial obj ects in different segments of semiotic practice, will be called the demarcation code (DC). Like any other spatial code, the demar­ cation code arranges significant elements of the expression plane in the syntactic structures they form and their correlation with meanings in the content plane. The semiotization of space by the demarcation code means leads to the forming of special spatial texts indicating the boundaries be­ tween contiguous loci or separate spaces. The network of borders thus marked will refer to the content plane of these texts. Visual-spatial means of demarcating borders are highly variable, as are the spheres of their application. A wall, a fence, a barrier, a ditch, a line, a border marker, a ploughed strip, an outstretched ribbon, red flags on a strained rope, marking lines, punctuation marks and other such visual­ spatial denotation means represent different versions of the demarcation

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11.3.4.

code elements. They differ in the sizes of their divided areas as well as in their meanings. The means of demarcation cooe can be used in diverse fields, e.g. state borders, borders between differently functioning territo­ ries, land plots belonging to different owners, traffic on roads, demarca­ tions on a sewing pattern or on a map, written texts, etc. With all the diversity of the demarcation code versions, its semiotic means are united by the fact that in the content plane they mark the bound­ aries between areas of space that get different meanings. Unlike signs of the verbal language that are able to denote boundaries regardless of the spatial or temporal appearance near them, the means of the demarcation code indicate the exact place where they are and when they are the bound­ ary. These means, therefore, perfonn an index function, noting the places where the meanings of the divided space sections change. Like every in­ dex, demarcation means are tied to the situation of their presentation, and in this case to the one fixed due to them. Together with the index function, which is basic and compulsory for semiotic means of the demarcation code, they also perfonn, as a rule, a signal function, suggesting quite a forced movement and action of the per­ son encountering them. Being signals, these elements direct persons' be­ haviour, triggering a particular reaction in dependence to a specific prag­ matic situation, e.g. they have to stop, move away, go around, cross the border, etc. By their semantic function, the elements of the demarcation code always indicate the boundary being approximate to it in space, whereas by their structure (and at the same time by their genesis) they can belong to a sign type of information connection and be correlated with their meaning due to the convention (in the sense that conventional signs differ from natural indexes). In this respect, it is possible to draw an analogy between spatial boundaries and indexes or "shifters" in verbal language (cf Jakobson, I 972b). For example, the pronouns "that" or "this" have conventional meanings, fixing a certain way of entering the situation, when they use a correlated object. At the same time, being the means of deixis, they always acquire different particular meanings in speech depending on the context and, often, on the accompanying index gesture. Like the pronouns "here", "there", "this", and "that", the marks of the demarcation code represent, on the one hand, universal indicators indiffer­ ent to the properties and semantic differences of the demarcated places. They are able to mark anything as they do not fix any definite signs of what is being demarcated. On the other hand, as deictic means, they can perfonn their index or signal functions and acquire specific values only when they are in a certain place and are attached to it.

On Demarcation Ccxle

205

If a body able to become such an index moves in space (for example, if a fence is transported), its object form can be recognized as a fence and designate its function, but it does not fulfil its basic function of a boundary indicator until it is emplaced. If the place of this body is changed, it starts indicating another border. Thus, the erection or removal of markers at a particular place can function not only as the means of border fixing, which has already been delimited in some way, but also as those of its formation or destruction. Obviously, in such cases, apart from spatial dimensions, time becomes significant as well. The establishment of such a boundary index or, conversely, its removal may become a significant action and space-time text. It can also be con­ nected with sym bolic functions, which are able to be performed by the semiotic means of the demarcation code, if some other codes are involved in their interpretation. As a syrn bol, a border can represent some political and ideological values associated with its integrity. For example, erecting and then dismantling the Berlin Wall were not only the means of demarca­ tion, but also a symbol of the changing political situation in Europe. The symbolic function can be performed also by a significant crossing of bor­ ders---entering a temple, a house, a city, etc. Generally it should be noted that symbolism in its broad sense is typi­ cal for the means of the demarcation code and is understood as the possi­ bility of interpreting several codes in several systems simultaneously. For example, a wall of a house not only physically divides the rooms fulfilling different functions and semiotically marks these differences in the system of the demarcation code as a "border", but can also be treated as a "sup­ port" in the system of the architectonic code, as "protection" in the system of the object-functional code, as a symbol of social barriers in the system of the social-symbolic code, etc. The means of demarcation code can perfonn modelling functions, if they are formed up into the iconic model of a certain modelled object For example, such functions are fulfilled by the boundaries on the map as well as by the contours of the depicted object In the latter case the combination of the demarcation code means with other ways of space semiotization is especially evident. On the one hand, drawing can be understood as a distinction of forms in the depicted con­ templation space by the means of marking, similar to those used by a tailor to demarcate their space of action in a piece of cloth. On the other hand, a drawing artist can also use other means, e.g. perspective cuts, chiaroscuro, etc. In this respect, contour and tonal drawings differ as different versions of perceptographic code, which are differently related to the demarcation code. A contour drawing is limited to a spatial text constructed by means

206

11.3.4.

of the demarcation code, but involved in stimulating the perception of the modelled objects. In a tonal drawing, such boundaries are present only at its initial stage and, as it is worked on, are replaced by the boundaries of the depicted bodies. In this process the elements of the demarcation code are replaced by those of the perceptographic code, through which the boundaries of the bodies are represented in the depicted space, i.e. in the content plane of a picture as a spatial text. In the expression plane of the demarcation code, various markers are involved to designate the boundaries. Visible spatial objects that take the [OnTIS of separate significant bodies and significant places can have an object or quasi-object [onn (for example, a barrier and road marking are different in this relation). Semiotic means of demarcation remain in this quality as long as they preserve not only the connection with the marked border, but also their differences from it. Every index is a part of a situation that it denotes and to which it is combined to a greater or lesser extent, but it remains a semiotic tool as long as it does not completely coincide with it. Boundaries of a locus should be considered, in tenns of spatial semiotics, as a spatial text constructed in the system of the demarcation code. Separate "links in the chain" of the indices constituting a syntactic structure, which designate spatial boundaries, become significant parts of such a text. Syntactic differences between the means of the demarcation code and the verbal means are connected with their orientation to the visual-spatial channel and with the peculiarities of its topology: the ability to form significant constructions deployed in two or three dimensions, continuous, reversible, anisotropic, symmetric, asymmetric, etc. At the same time, the semiotic means of the demarcation cooe can be involved not only in the fonnation of purely spatial but also of spatial­ temporal texts, as has already been shown in the cases of the symbolic establishment, removal or crossing of the border. The texts of such specific semiotic systems as garnes, in which semiotic means of demarcation code are also used, have a spatial-temporal character as well. These systems acquire semiotic qualities to the extent that the crossing of a spatial boundary turns out to be a significant action. For example, in ball games, getting the ball into a goal or a basket, like in football or basketball, or out of the space, like in volleyball or tennis are the meaningful acts that influence the results of the game. The game spaces, semiotized with the demarcation code, can serve as a convenient model to describe the demarcation of other types of separate spaces and of significant crossings of the marked boundaries.

11. 3 . 4 . PERCEPTOGRAPHIC CODE IN VISUAL CULTURE

1. Visual Culture and Perceptual Code Human, unlike animals, can not only receive optical data, but also de­ liberately produce them. creating depictions. The ability to produce and reproduce depictions is conditioned, besides the natural system of eye­ sigh� by culturally elaborated skills. and depends on both external tech­ nical means known in definite culture and internal ways of operating visu­ al images. There is also a connection between technical and psychical means of treating optical data-in particular, some internal "forms of vi­ sion" depend on external "forms of visual communication", which are at the disposal of interacting subjects. A system of technical and mental means. worked out historically for creating, transmitting and receiving optical information cultivated by an individual or a collective, can be defined as the visual culture of these sub­ jects. Like any other culture, the visual one can be considered from a se­ miotic point of view-as a system of both particular visual codes intended mostly for the spatial channel of information connection. and optically presented texts created by these codes. The visual codes include sign and signal systems with diverse psycho­ logical and semiotic mechanisms and, to different extents, depend on natu­ ral and cultural factors. Visual culture not only develops a number of arti­ ficially created sign systems, but also transforms several codes, which have natural routes and are formed on the biological level as means of adaptation to changes of surroundings. It is possible to consider the perceptual code as one of these natural signal-indexical systems, regulating the translation of optical data from the visual field into a perceptive image of things unfolding in the visible world (using the terms of Gibson, 1950: Chap. III). By means of this code, a mo­ saic of light and dark spots, which is formed on the sensory level. trans­ forms on the perceptual level into stereometric picture of the spatial situa­ tion.

208

11.3.4.

These two levels of vision differ from each other by their structural qualities. The structure of the visual field is correlated with the body scheme by relations such as "left-right", "high-low", "centre-periphery", etc. These relations fonn a stabile "framework" of the visual field, in con­ trast to its unstable " filling" with changeable configurations of light and colour spots. Unlike this sensory level, the level of the "visible world" contains the perceptive images of spatial forms, presented as opposed to the body of the seeing subject and separated from each other by "empty" inter-object space. These images have a quality of constancy, being inde­ pendent of unimportant variations of distance, visual angle, lighting, col­ our tints and other features of the perceived object, which remains an in­ variant of the variable conditions of seeing and "filling" of the visual field. Both sensory and perceptual (in the narrow sense) levels of vision are not reflected in common perception. The latter is perception in the broad sense, which includes as an obligatory component one more level of vi­ sion, connected with a recognition of objects of the visible world as repre­ sentatives of some class or cognitive category (as it is treated, for example, in Bruner, 1973: 7ff ). These categories are invariants already in relation to variations of object [OnTIS and their perceptive images, which can be iden­ tified with the same visual scheme. On this "apperceptual" level of vision, these objects are identified by a subject as something or somebody mean­ ingful-as a useful tool, as a civil servant, etc. The perception of the "pure world of volumetric forms" and, more so, the reception of the "pure world of light and colour spots" are abstractions from the "world of meaningful objects". They are not typical for everyday vision and need a skill of "analytical introspection", obtained by special education and being always incomplete. In the "natural" process of seeing, transits from sensory to the perceptual and then to the apperceptual levels of vision occur unconsciously and are the parts of the whole cognitive action. But in a theoretical analysis, these levels must be distinguished, as well as the visual codes serving for the translation and transformation of optical data between them. There are, in particular, codes of recognition, which mediate the processes of the visual categorization of recognizable things and, as semiotic systems, are very different from the perceptual code. Unlike them, the perceptual code mediates the transit from the field of light and colour spots grasped on the sensory level to the world of volu­ metric forms and their spatial relations developing in a perceptive image of visible space. In its system the difference between these two levels of vision is revealed as the difference between the plane of expression and the plane of contents: the first is formed by relations between the parts of

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visual field with different light and colour qualities, and the second is con­ structed as a result of their unconscious interpretation on the perceptual level as images of some external objects.

2. Perceptography as a Communicative Version of Perceptual Code This naturally fonned perceptual code is converted by human activity in its cultural versions, which can mediate not only the subject-object in­ formation connections but also inter-subject communication as well. Cul­ tural modifications of the perceptual code give the possibility of creating and perceiving depictions as such artificial means of objects' representa­ tion and communication between subjects, which stimulate the visual per­ ception of things absent in front of the spectator. In creating depictions as communicative means, the elements and structures of natural perceptual code are reflected, exteriorized and replaced by some visible substitutes. Psychical means of seeing are substituted by some physical elements, which are visible themselves. These visible spots and lines are created as if they were a projection on a plane of heterogeneous structure of colour feelings formed (or as if they were formed) in a visual field of a painter Unlike volumetric sculpture, a painted surface does not directly fix a per­ ceptual image of objects that is constant and independent of the point of view, the lightening, etc., but it reproduces only definite conditions of its appearance and a particular configuration of spots in the visual field. In a similar way, the "regular field"-forming, as a rule, a rectangular frame of depiction (see Schapiro, 1 994)-becomes a "projection" of this visual field itself with its stable structure of relations: "top-bottom", "left-right", "centre-periphery", etc. (cp. the idea of "organs projection" enveloped in Kapp, 1 877). The "picture plane" is usually interpreted not as this projection of in­ ternal visual feelings from a subject's mind onto an external surface, but as the projection onto a plane of depicted spatial objects (see, in particular, Sedgwick, 1980: 38-40). However, the latter can be received only because the flatness of the depiction serves as an artificially created optical stimu­ lus of objects' perception, and reprcxluces their "form of expression" on the subject rather than a "form of being" (according to Hildebrand's dis­ tinction of "Ausdrucksform" and "Daseinsform"; see Hildebrand, 1988: 133, 212). A picture has been treated since at least the Renaissance (by Alberti, Leonardo, etc.) as a "transparent surface"-not as a wall or a board, but as a window which is looked through, and even the Latin perspectiva was

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translated by Diller as "seeing through" ("Durchsehen") (panofsky, 1998: 664, 716-717). In a perspective depiction, a configuration of spots and lines on a pictorial surface functions not as a "distant", but as a "proximal" stimulus. They perform the function of sensory data that are not independent elements of the depicted picture, just as colour feelings in a visual field are not usually independent objects drawing attention. Both of them are something looked through in the acts of perception of the depicted world, but not something looked at. If the look is directed not through but at the pictorial surface itself, the picture "returns" in a row of other things coexisting with it in a common space. Thereby, the picture can be perceived both as a single object of perception and as a means of perception of something else. Therefore the picture on the flat surface is a "paradoxical" object with a "double space": it can be perceived, but can also show something other than itself; it exists in the real space, but can open for sight another space filled with objects, which are absent in reality in front of the spectator Ccp. Gibson 1979: Chap. 15; Gregory, 1970: Chap. 2; Hartman, 1953: 98-99). From a semiotic point of view, a configuration of spots and lines stimulating the perception of absent objects can be considered not as a single sign, but as a set of "sense-distinctive" relations together fonning a visual­ spatial text of particular kind. The word text originates from the Latin textus as well as the word textile, which allows one to see its relationship to the texture of a woven tapestry and even of a painted canvas. However, neither natural texture nor the created strokes themselves form the visual text of such a type, but rather the relations of lines and colours that are connected functionally with the processes of picture perception. Such a visual-spatial text functions as a "perceptogram", which, on the one hand, is an external record of perception or "internal drawing" formed in an artist's mind, and on the other, is a programme guiding the visual perception of a beholder. Correspondingly, it acts expressively regarding the creator and impressively in relation to the spectator, and only by this condition can it also perfonn a representative function, relating each perceptive image to an external referent Ccp. the "Organon Modell" of semiotic functions suggested in BUhler, 1934: 28). As a spatial text of a particular type, the perceptogram has a space which is "divided" into both the depicting and depicted ones. They form in the perceptographic text, respectively, the "plane of expression" constructed by a surface covered with some colour or black-and-white spots, and the "plane of contents", where they are interpreted as a space of depicted objects. This double space of the picture supposes its double vision by "reading" as a text: its plane of expression is accepted on the sensory level

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of the "visual field", whereas the plane of contents is built on the percep­ tual level of the "visible world". So the developing of the plane of contents not on the conceptual but on the perceptual level is the other main peculi­ arity of perceptographic text Like any other text, the perceptogram can be replicated as far as its semiotic means are reproducible. These means are heterogeneous and be­ long to different types. There are certainly some structures in the pictures which reveal an iconicity regarding represented objects, or the iconicity of their quantitative relations (the proportionality of linear sets, colour rela­ tionships, etc.) rather than of their "qualities" fixed by words (for example, "green" grass can only be painted without a green paint by a precisely se­ lected set of colour relations, as, especially, C. Corot and Impressionists have shown). However, the painted surface as well as its meaningful parts cannot be reduced as "iconic signs" of depicted objects and often have little in common with them in their physical or geometrical qualities. The qualification of a picture as an "iconic sign" is based, as a rule, on the recognition of the depicted objects and on the establishing of their common features. In this case, an iconicity of the picture can be no more than that of the visual scheme used for the categorization of recognizable objects. The Peircean concept of iconic sign allows the consideration of depictions as the means of representation and communication and thereby fixes their semiotic functions. But this concept is not enough for a distinc­ tion of various ways of depictions and their structural differentiation. If, for example, diverse photos, pictures, sculptures or roentgenograms of the same statesman are in equal way his "iconic signs", this concept does not give much to the differentiation of these types of depictions and to the explanation of their influence on the beholder. The application of this con­ cept does not explain also some specific features of graphic (creating on a flat surface) depictions. The picture-treated, in the broad sense, as a surface, which is covered with some spots and which shows something other than itself (cp. Gibson, 1979: Chap. 15; Gibson, 1980: xi)-cannot in principle be limited with such "iconic signs". Indeed, according to the Peirce's definition, the latter represents their denotat due to some similarity or likeness with it, whereas the flat depiction, on the contrary, must be unlike the depicted volumetric object in order to look like it In particular, the rules of linear perspective prescribe deviation from geometric identity (congruence) between the con­ figuration of lines on the depicting plane and the depicted form of its spa­ tial original. These rules demand, for example, the depiction of parallel lines converged in a point, a square as an irregular quadrangle, a circle as an oval, etc. The approach to the depiction as to an iconic sign does not

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clear these deformations, because they belong to semiotic means of other types. In regard to the represented object, these means are indexes which differ from it, but which allow the subject, who "reads" them as a visual text, to grasp its form and spatial situation. In the same time, regarding this subject, they are signals stimulating, more or less forcibly, defined percep­ tive actions, constructing in his mind a perceptive image of the depicted world. Thereby the perceptogram allows the representation of something as if it were presented to a subject It is possible due to the ability to create optical conditions of its perception and to stimulate the appearance of its spatial image in the mind of the subject, rather than by a similarity to something depicted. Despite the signal-indexical means of such perceptography being de­ rivative from the perceptual code, they can be distinguished as an autono­ mous group and considered as a special perceptographic code. As an ex­ ternal artificial modification of the perceptual code, it mediates not intra­ subjective processes of cognition, but inter-subjective processes of com­ munication. Its semiotic means differ from the means of the naturally formed and unconsciously used perceptual code, because they are selected as the results of the reflection of some sensory structures in processes of inter-subjective communication by depictions, and then transmitted in a cultural tradition. For communication by means of depictions, some features of individu­ al images have to be translated into external means understandable for other subjects. Although lines and spots painted on a flat surface are based on the structure of the naturally formed sensory pattern, their selection is connected with culturally accepted norms and ways of depiction. These norms can prescribe the use of, for example, the definite "alphabet" of colours and several geometrical figures or more complex schemes as means of visual analysis. This is the reason for such great differences between the ability to see a depicted in a depiction, and the reverse ability to translate perception into a depiction on a plane. The fonner can be based on the natural system of perceptual code and is available in early childhood, whereas the skill of graphic depiction requires mastering culturally worked out means of per­ ceptography, and it requires long years of learning. It is an education of the eye and the mind rather than of the hand-the development of an abil­ ity to analyze visible form and select some linear and colour relations, which direct the formation of a definite perceptive image. In other words, learning to draw and getting a skill to create depictions is the mastering of signal-indexical means of perceptography.

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The difference of this mastering between the creator and spectator does not mean that the latter preserves a vision independent of any cultural in­ fluence. All people obtain some ways of vision and interpretation in cul­ ture, but these ways can be determined by practical purposes and be un­ connected with the depicting activity. However, the qualified perception of depictions, created by different means of perceptography, demands the development of an ability to "read" them in the "visual language" used for their creation. But even without mastering the perceptographic code, the spectator can as a rule see something depicted on a figurative picture using only the "natural" perceptual code and the codes of recognition, whereas the creator of the depiction cannot in principle do without any means of perceptography. Unlike naturally appeared and then constantly reproduced perceptual code, the semiotic system of perceptographic code depends on definite visual culture. The means of perceptography are elaborated in different historical periods, different kinds of art or in various fonns of everyday life, and they are coordinated with diverse cultural norms and ways of vi­ sion. Thereby diverse cultural versions of perceptographic code appear: in one case the role of the main representative means is perfonned by linear contours, in other cases by colour spots, etc. H is notable that Heimich Wblfflin, when introducing the distinction between linear and painterly "fonns of vision" or "forms of representa­ tion" ("Anschauungsformen" or "Darstellungsformen"), spoke about them as "different languages" affording to express everything by their own means (Wblfflin, 1956: 22). Each of these "forms of vision" can be con­ sidered semiotically as a special way of creating and "reading" a visual image determined by visual culture, particularly as a special set of percep­ tographic means used in this culture for constructing perceptive images of depicted objects. At the same time, the dependence of these perceptographic means on culturally determined choices does not turn them into fully conventional signs (as it was supposed in Goodman, 1968). This turning occurs only if the conventional interpretation fully displaces the perceptual one, as is perfonned, for example, in ideographic or phonetic writing. But in case of perceptography, its means preserve some iconic features and are motivated by possibilities of the natural perceptual code. The visual culture only picks out within its framework some favourable elements and structures and develops, through creators and spectators, an ability to be limited by these means for building the perceptive image of the depicted object.

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3. Specific Features of Perceptographic Code As a semiotic system, the perceptographic code has specific features, which reveal themselves especially in comparison with the verbal lan­ guage system. So, the syntax of perceptograrns has essential structural differences from sign constructions, like verbal texts. If the latter are built as linearly ordered chains of discrete signs in irreversible succession, in the case of perceptography the meaningful space cannot in principle be limited by the one-dimensional order of elements, and is always two­ dimensional. Unlike the space of written text, the space of a perceptogram is reversible, because it supposes in different dimensions both "direct" and "return" movements of the "reading" look. This space is often also con­ tinual insofar as it does not demand abrupt jumps between meaningful or sense-distinctive units, in contrast to even continually written letters, which presume separation from each other. Like the discreteness of writ­ ing, the continuity of the perceptographic text is a characteristic of the semiotic "form" rather than of the "substance" of its expression plane, because the qualities of its physical bearers in both cases are of no im­ portance. If the discreteness of successive units in verbal language reveals itself in the "alphabet principle", the continual flowing of sense-distinctive shades of colours or tones corresponds to another way of organizing, which can be called the "palette principle" (see above, 1.3.3). As the pal­ ette gives the field for mixing of a number of ready paints, the percepto­ graphic code as a system of optical means gives a possibility to exceed the limits of several standard units, using the whole three-dimensional and continual "space of colours" with its fluent transits between different nu­ ances of the spectrum as well as between their more or less dark and more or less pure shades. The "palette principle" is valid also for lineal configu­ rations, which can continually vary in two-dimensional depictions of space, preserving the representative function in each of its fragments. These syntactic features are connected with the specific semantics of the perceptographic code. As has already been mentioned, its plane of con­ tents develops on the perceptual level, which permits the construction of an image of the three-dimensional and continual space; this continuity of the depicted space motivates the same quality of the depicting plane. The relations between the plane of expression and the plane of contents in the perceptographic code differ from semantic relations in verbal language and similar systems of conventional signs by its non-significative way of representation. Instead of signs' "vocabulary" with fixed meanings, this code disposes a set of linear and colour indexes of different types, the

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meaning of which is not fixed without any context, but is obtained in the system of relations with other indexes. So, a configuration of drawn lines forms a net of connections, which does not signify directly "what" is depicted, but shows "where" the bor­ ders of the depicted figures, their coverings and intersections, etc. are situ­ ated, and only the resulting shape can be recognized. In a similar way, a pattern of colour spots painted on a flat surface arranges a system of con­ trasts and nuances between dark and light, bright and dim, etc. These rela­ tions form a set of indexes of the depicted world and of signals directing movements of the look in perceptive acts. Comparing such a structure of perceptographic code with one of lin­ guistic systems, it is possible to say that perceptography has some features not of a "lexical" but of a "grammatical" type of languages, as distin­ guished by F. de Saussure (1977: 165). In the languages of a grammatical type, the motivated rules of constructing prevail over a set of conventional signs. It is the same with regard to the perceptographic code, where, for example, the linear perspective serves as a system of grammatical rules regulating the construction of linear relations, but not as a set of lines and outlines with a "ready" meaning. In a similar way, a set of relations be­ tween colour spots in the system of lights and shadows is more important for creating a perceptive image of the depicted situation than any of these spots separated from each other. (The structuralistic point of view, accord­ ing to which the whole system of representative means is more important than single elements, is actually equally applicable for pictorial representa­ tion, as has been shown theoretically by Gestalt psychologists, and has always been known on the empirical level for artists - see, in particular, Hildebrand, 1991 28, 37-38.) There are also specific pragmatic features of perceptographic code, which are connected, first of all, with its intention to activate the perceptu­ al level of the viewing subject Perceptography allows objects to be shown instead of being described. In contrast to verbal texts, where the plane of contents is developed only on the levels of notions and conceptions, the "mental address" of the perceptographic text is just the perceptual level treated in an even narrower sense-as an ability to construct images of presented forms without identifying and recognizing them (cp. Rock, 1985: 105). "Reading" the perceptographic texts supposes that the inter­ preter has other abilities than reading the verbal texts-not an ability of pure imagination, but a capacity to construct a perceptive image in the "plane of contents" of lines and colour spots functioning as the "plane of expression". Due to this ability, a spectator can see a space of the depicted world "behind" the painted plane. For him or her, the depicted space of the

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perceptograrn can be more or less "transparent". A degree of this "trans­ parency" depends on many pragmatic factors-on the purpose of depic­ tion, on the individual skills of the beholder, on the cultural tradition to use some definite means of perceptography, etc. The perceptographic code differs not only from linguistic systems but also from other visual-spatial codes, which control the translation of opti­ cal information to other mental levels. In particular, it differs from codes of recognition, which regulate acts of categorization of perceived objects, from the object-functional code regulating the interpretation of a visible spatial form as a thing with a definite instrumental function (such as a harnrner, pencil, etc.) or from the proxernic code permitting the categoriza­ tion of spatial relations between people as being "close" or "far", "inti­ mate" or "official", etc. The codes of this type have different features to the perceptual and perceptographic ones, and due to their structure, they are closer to linguistic sign systems. In particular, unlike the percepto­ graphic code, they have a sort of vocabulary-a set of stabile units (visual schemes) used as samples of recognizable forms with invariable meanings, and thereby they are systems of a "lexical" rather than of a "grammatical" type in the above-mentioned sense. The usage of the perceptographic code provides, as a rule, conditions for the recognition of depicted obj ects, as well as for the application of other visual-spatial codes. However, the perceptographic code and the codes ofrecognition are relatively independent from each other Although the categorization of the visible form can influence the perceptive image, the act of perception (in the narrow sense) is not identical to the recogniz­ ing of a familiar object and does not need it. Using the means of percep­ tography, it is possible to depict any spatial form independent of its exist­ ence, as well as independent of whether it is recognizable or not. Moreo­ ver, even this recognizing does not add any visual details, which can be seen only in the developed perceptive image. On the other hand, as this recognizing is based on the invariance of many such images, it does not require the development of any of them: the visual categorization of a spa­ tial image is possible even if it is reduced to a simple scheme. For exam­ ple, a laconic pictogram can be quite a recognizable depiction without forming a detailed picture of an object, and at the same time without turn­ ing into a fully arbitrary sign. So, the pictogram can be considered as a perceptogram, reduced to a minimum set of an object's indexes, pennit­ ting the use of the code of recognition (in contrast to an ideogram, which needs to use this code only for recognizing itself as a presented sign, but not as any represented object). One can see something similar also in the

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case of caricature, which concentrates several recognizable features of a person's image without creating a naturalistic portrait. 1.1any signs of some other codes (mimic, kinesic, object-functional and other) can be presented for a viewer in the depicted space that is created in content plane of a perceptogram . In this relation, the perceptographic code, with all its structural differences from alphabetical writing, reveals a func­ tional resemblance to it. Both of them can serve as the spatial code, being able to record the texts created by the means of other semiotic systems. Each of them transforms the elements and structures from the expression plane of the recorded text into elements of its own contents plane. The visible spatial signs of alphabetical writing (unlike ideograms representing directly concepts) represent phonemes of verbal language as units of their plane of contents. The means of the perceptographic code (linear and aeri­ al perspective, treatment of light and shade, etc.) form on a depicting sur­ face an expression plane that allow to some recognizable objects of a de­ picted space to be represented for the viewer "behind" of this flat percep­ togram as elements of its content plane. The perception of virtual objects in the depicted space functions here as a meaning of lines and spots placed on the depicting space of the perceptogram. The last is such a spatial text that has in its content plane the visible forms of depicted objects, which can serve as the units of the expression plane in some other semiotic sys­ tems: the architectonic, object-functional, proxemic or other spatial codes, whether they are used separately or together.

4. Perceptography as an Art It is not surprising that various versions of the perceptographic code develop to the greatest extent in the art sphere. Although this code belongs to other spheres of culture as well, the visual arts involve it in the systems of their expressive and representational means, transforming them accord­ ing to historically changeable norms of its different kinds. Mastering dif­ ferent possibilities of the perceptographic code is a basis of development in figurative painting and drawing. However, not all of the artificially created depictions are artistic ones. Just as not all written texts are works of calligraphy, not all pictures are pieces of perceptography as art. A visual text worked out by means of the perceptographic code gets the quality of the art of depiction only if these means and the skill of their usage become a subject for special artistic evaluation and satisfy the criteria worked out in an artistic culture.

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The art of depiction is not identical to figurative art in general, which applies diverse visual codes. Different kinds of figurative arts-painting, drawing or relief-can be considered as "arts of depiction" insofar as they are just the skilful usage and development of various modifications of the perceptographic code. Each of these arts develops its own versions of per­ ceptography for creating the artificial stimuli of the perception of objects which are not actually presented. In particular, linear drawing (for exam­ ple, Villard de Honnecourd's designs) confines itself only to outlines, rep­ resenting some borders between forms, and eliminating their tonal and colour "filling". The means of black-and-white graphics (for instance, by Aubrey Beardsley) include the differences between two polar types of spots, whereas tonal graphics (such as Rembrandt's engravings) add more gradations between the dark and the light (see Figures 11.9.3-3,4). Painting obviously also uses colour diversity and does so in a different manner. One can find in various styles and trends more linear or more colouristic paintings. An art of relief was developed due to using some indices of the perceptographic code in the fonning of volumetric representations, espe­ cially, with perspective contractions (see Figure 1.3.2-1). The treatment of the perceptographic code is of a special stylistic im­ portance for the applied arts, which, on the one hand, as a rule hold a task to decorate a surface of useful objects, and, on the other, sometimes ap­ proach decoration as a figurative picture. So the difference between two spaces-the depicting and the depicted ones-in the applied arts can be more or less strong. It may swing from maximum coincidence, for exam­ ple in the case of the flat silhouettes of figures on the surface in classical Greek vase painting, to maximum conflict between them, for example in the Baroque Age, which was ready "to repeat" Raphael's or Rubens' pic­ tures on a flat surface of carpet or even to build a depiction of a deep and concave space on a convex surface of pottery and porcelain wares. It is a peculiarity of the post-Renaissance artistic and general visual culture to prefer-even in applied and decorative art-to look "through" the depict­ ing surface, rather than to look directly at this surface itself From this point of view, the historical development of the arts of depiction, both fine and applied arts, can be treated as diachronic modifi­ cations of the perceptographic code-on the one hand, as an extension of its means by using new "visual discoveries" (in the tenns of Gombrich, 1960: Chap. IX), and, on the other, as a stricter selection. One can see how the dominating elements of the perceptographic code have changed from linear to tonal and colour ones. The "graphic" outlines of depicted figures (in ancient paintings of vases and medieval murals) were changed by de­ pictions of "sculptural" volumes due to the using of light and shadow (in

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paintings of the Renaissance). The penetration into depth was continued by "architectural" constructions of complex built space by means of linear and aerial perspective (especially in Baroque paintings) and again by a painted "dissolution" of depicted forms and their local colours in a vague milieu of many divided chromatic elements (in the paintings of Impres­ sionists).

Figure II.3.4-1. Gerrit Berckheyde.

The Great Market in Haarlem,

Oil on canvas.

1 696. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

The art of perceptography develops not only as a skill to create percep­ tive images of absent objects, but also as a skill to direct the process of perceiving. An artist constructs the relations of lines and colours in a de­ picting space in such way that they visually unifY something and a sepa­ rate something other, singling out more important elements and taking away secondary details, etc. A skilful usage of perceptographic means by an artist can at first attract the viewer' s attention to one part of a picture, lead his look in a definite direction, while at the same time "hiding" some other details ofthe picture until the next stage ofthe process of perception. So, for example, the elders from Tintoretto's "Susanna and the Elders" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) are hidden in the bushes not only from Susanna, but also, until a definite moment, from the look of the

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viewer, who discovers them only when looking at the details of the image (see colour picture 14). This skill of leading a look in a definite succession can be considered serniotically as the know-how to arrange the visual sig­ nals and indexes of the percptographic code controlling the process of looking into the picture (see more detailed on the relations between the spatial structure of depiction and temporal succession of its perception abowe, 11.2.2.2). Mastering the means of this code leads to historical changes of "forms of vision" and relations between the perceptographic and other visual­ spatial codes. For example, the perceptographic code in icon painting had to perfonn a secondary function and was of less importance for medieval visual culture than iconographic code, which connects the perceived and recognized figures with some verbal interpretations, above all from the Sacred Book. However, the later cultural transformations and seculariza­ tion of European culture was revealed in the sphere of visual culture par­ ticularly through the changing relations between the perceptographic and iconographic codes. The Renaissance, Baroque and Impressionists' paint­ ing can be considered as successive stages of the increasing role of the perceptographic code in visual culture and its release from the task to serve for translation into pictorial forms of certain sacred or secular stories and, at the same time. This becomes a ground for the liberation of the per­ ceptographic code from its subordination to the iconographic, social­ symbolic and some other codes. As a subject of artistic evaluation, the perceptographic code was inter­ esting in different epochs with its different possibilities. If mastering its means, for Renaissance and Baroque artists, was connected with the skill to make a depicting surface "hidden" from a spectator and "transparent" for the depicted world, the artists of later epochs gave up the attempts to create an illusion of its absence, but, on the contrary, drew more attention to the depicting plane. In particular, in Impressionists' and Post-Impres­ sionists' paintings, the surface of a painting became less "transparent", delaying a "transit" of the look into a depicted space and attracting the sight to lineal and colour elements on the surface (cf Figure 11.3.4-1 with colour pictures 17, 1 8 and 21). In the Cubists' paintings, the composition of these elements on the de­ picting plane becomes more important than the depicted objects. Abstract art performs the next step: the lines and colour spots on the surface are independent of the function of creating a perceptive image of the depicted space. Thereby the perceptographic code, together with other codes, the usage of which depends on creating depictions, turns beyond artistic atten-

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tion, making way for the synesthetic, architectonic and other visual codes, which do not need to use perceptography.

5. Perceptography and External Optical Means Transformations of the perceptographic code in culture are connected with the changes of the external technical means used for the creation, transmission and reception of visual images of space. Each of them trans­ mits and transfonns these images in its own way and introduces a possibil­ ity of some new "fonns of vision" in visual culture. In particular, the usage of linear contours for representation of depicted objects indeed depends on the possibilities that culture gives (as was sug­ gested by Eco, 1976: 1 94). However, cultural "graphic conventions" do not create absolutely arbitrary signs, but rather representative means moti­ vated by the ability to abstract and to exteriorize the borders between dif­ ferent patches in a visual field. This ability and its corresponding "conven­ tions" are connected with the development of ways of drawing and en­ graving lines on a surface, which have been known in culture since the Upper Palaeolithic Period. The development of "architecture with regular courses of jointed masoruy", as it was described by Meyer Schapiro (1 994: 3), prepared the appearance of the "regular field" of depiction. Modifications of "graphic forms of vision" can be correlated with such technical inventions as fresco, mosaic, encaustic, glaze, etching, etc. The invention of oil paints and the change of the palette's function (as a tool not only for a rubbing but also for mixing paints) promoted a development of the "painterly way of vision" and created the conditions for the estab­ lishinent of the "palette principle" in the perceptographic code of New European painting. In a row of technical means elaborated in culture for operating optical processes, a painted picture can be understood as an instrument, compara­ ble with such technical inventions as mirrors, stained glass or transparent windows, lenses, etc. Each of these technical means, together with its pos­ sibilities of optical transfonnation, gives opportunities for some of their own ways of vision. If, for instance, medieval stained glass windows pennitted showing the depicted figures as immaterial ideas "floating" in the rays of light, trans­ parent windows, on the contrary, help us to see an earthly "picture" behind their frame. The development of transparent windows since the Renais­ sance, as well as of glass mirrors (often having the form of windows), made a contribution to the construction of linear perspective. Besides, a mirror allows the subject to see himself as an external obj ect, and the

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spreading of glass mirrors was a condition for the development of self­ portrait paintings and for reflections on the relations between the painter and the model ("The Arnolfini Marriage" by Jan Van Eyck, "Las Meninas" by Velazquez). In a similar way, the production of lenses and "magnifying glasses" influenced the wish to peer into small details, and it is notable that Leeuwenhoek's discoveries coincide with the "golden age" of still life in Dutch paintings, where optical instruments (lens, camera obscura, etc.) were used for creating the naturalistic illusion. When photography based on the combining of lenses and light­ sensitive materials was developed, the ways of vision changed again. Instead of the relatively complete and closed model of the world, which was created in classic pictures and, especially, in medieval icon painting, photography, due to its technology, only has to fix single fragments of the spatial world. It does not "collect" the features of different things in one image-as paintings do-but takes only something partial, concrete and individual. Therefore, it reproduces the space of the world rather not metaphorically, but metonymically. The change in the ways of vision after the development of photography influenced painting itself, which began purposely to "cut" a depicted space and represent it as a fragment of space exceeding the frames of a picture (for example, in Degas' paintings). Cinematography extends these depicted spaces even more, "linking" many photograrns in time and synthesizing its single fragments in discrete or continual rows. Thereby a new "cinematographic" way of vision was developed and influenced new forms of perceptography in paintings. Painters began looking for means of the division of spatial movement into single stages and their "summarizing" in a united picture (this way of vision was especially developed by Futurists and their followers-see Figure 11.2.2-3). As a continuation of the row of technical means creating depictions like photography and cinematography, a "computerography" can also be considered. It allows the combination of different kinds of depicted spaces, to join and to separate them, to change their metric and topological properties, etc. Despite each of these technical opportunities having been known long ago to artists separately, their combination using computers gives more possibilities and freedom for visual thinking. However, "photograms" differ from "chirograms" (in Gibson's terms), with regard not only to being hand-created, but also "mind-created" pro­ ducts of an artist. They are not "perceptograms" in the full sense, because they do not exteriorize a perceptive image of any subject, but remake only optical conditions of its receiving. A "mechanical" reproduction of such conditions pennits the spectator to master only the means of the natural (as

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far as it is possible for the culturally educated mind) perceptual code, not to develop special skills of "reading" perceptograms. Nevertheless, an artistic application of perceptography in these "photograms" is possible if the picture is specially constructed as if it was made by the hand and mind of an artist, such as in case of Sergey Eisenstein, who drew the single frames of his future films as artistically ordered pictures. So, the connection between the external optical technique and the "in­ ternal implements" mediating the "technique of vision" in the percepto­ graphic and other visual codes is obvious. Both of them develop according to their own "logic" and are also determined by the conditions of the visu­ al culture. !f the latter is not ready to accept some visual ideas, then merely technical possibilities for their realization are not enough. For example, despite the mosaic technique giving the possibility for an optical mixing of colours and for the "alphabetic" principle of their arrangemen� only Poin­ tillists, based on the "irrelevant" technique of oil paintings, treated these means as the subject of special artistic elaboration. 6.

Methodological Remarks

In conclusion I would like to make some methodological remarks. The semiotics of visual-spatial codes and especially the semiotics of perceptog­ raphy is a sphere where an application of traditional semiotic conceptions comes across with "resistance" from the researched material. This is not surprising, because the main versions of semiotics are based on verbal generalizations and sign systems derived from them in the spheres of logic (Peirce and others) or linguistics (de Saussure and his followers). Both of them deal with higher levels of mental activity operating more or less ab­ stract conceptions and generalized ideas. Although the visual-spatial means of representation can afford to express such conceptual meanings as well, many of them are formed on the lower levels of the mind. This is true for synesthetic codes, mediating connections between feelings of di­ verse modalities on the sensory level, and particularly for the architectonic code, regulating relations between visual images and kinesthetic feelings of mechanical forces, weight relations, balance, etc. It is true also for the perceptual and derivative perceptographic codes, the planes of contents of which are developed on the perceptual leveL The codes mediating connections on these levels belong themselves to the signal-indexical type of information processes and are not sign-codes, if the concept "sign" is accepted in a narrow enough sense (see 1. 1 . 1 and 1.3. 1). These "non-sign" means of representation and communication can remain nevertheless in the sphere of semiotics, if the latter is not limited

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by Saussurean and even by Peircean projects and is extended to all code means of information. In this connection it is appropriate to remind our­ selves that, besides logical and linguistic projects of general signs science, there are some other semiotic projects that have appeared within the frames of other disciplines. Visual semiotics, and especially the semiotics of pictoriality, can be connected with psychology, where, for example, the idea of the "universal sematology", accepted in BUhler's "Sprachtheorie" (1 934), was grown. An even greater interest in the semiotics of visual­ spatial means comes from aesthetics, which by its separation in A. Baum­ garten's work (1 750, § 13) has already provided "Semiotica" as its neces­ sary part, and which is to be considered, following B. Croce, as a "univer­ sal science of expression". One can find many "protoserniotic" ideas in art theory, which from Alberti to Gombrich have researched the means of visual representation. It is natural, therefore, that research into the sphere of art or into the psychology of visual perception is included in the context of pictorial semiotics (see, particularly, Sonesson, 1992; 1 995). At the same time it is also true that semiotics of the visual-spatial codes in gen­ eral, and the semiotics of perceptography specifically, is not identical to the conceptions of psychologists, aestheticists or art theorists. Their fruitful ideas can be developed and get more exact explications within the domains of these branches of semiotics. However, this is possi­ ble only under the condition that a pertinent set of concepts is elaborated in the sphere of visual-spatial semiotics itself It is hoped that this paper has taken some steps in this direction.

II. 3 . 5 . ON SYNESTHETIC CODES

1. Synesthetic Codes as a Subject of Interdisciplinary Studies Synesthesia IS an involuntary connection between externally influenced sensations and quasi-sensory images of other modalities that do not have a direct external stimulus. Such a connection between sensations of different modalities is first of all the subject of psychology, where the "mental addresses" of synesthesia are most clearly defined. Being a connection between "real" (evoked by an external stimulus) and "imaginary" (appearing without such a stimulus) sensations, synesthesia cannot be a polymodal perception that is a result of an effect on several modalities together At the same time, synesthesia includes such sense experiences as "colour hearing", which correlates musical tones with certain colour sensations. In a similar way, it covers connections of visual sensations with quasi-sensory images of other modalities: sound, thennal, flavour. For example, colours can be "sonorous" or "deaf', "wann" or "cold", "rich" or "vibrant", etc. In psychological terms, one can suggest 5 x 4 20 intermodal connection types based only on the traditional notions of the five senses and assuming that sensations of each modality can be connected with any of the remaining ones. Taking into account that the known "five senses" characterize the sensory system in quite a rough way and that intramooal connections can be added to intermodal links, the number of such types will be even greater. From this variety only one class will be considered below: visual synesthesias, awakened by external optical stimuli. Involuntary connections of visual stimuli with multirnodal images are included in the sphere of what is referred to as "subjective semantics" (see, for example, Artemyeva, 1 999; Petrenko, 1 997). In particular, studies of reactions to shape and colour by the method of the semantic differential also include synesthetic images in the list of characteristics connoted by the visual stimuli. Among them are thermal (hot-cold), tactile (smooth�

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rough, blunt-sharp, soft-hard), sound (loud-muffled), and gustative (sweet-bitter, stale-fresh) images (Osgood et a!., 1957: 290ff). However, the phenomenon of synesthesia is interesting not only for psychologists, but also for representatives of other disciplines, in both hu­ manities and sciences. The very polyrnodality of sensory responses con­ tains grounds for their interdisciplinary study, since these reactions are divided, as pointed out by W Wundt, into physical (sight and hearing), mechanical (touch) and chemical (smell and taste). Within the field of natural sciences, there are also studies of the biological aspects of synes­ thesia, and its roots can be found even in the simplest tropisms and uncon­ ditioned reflexes to optical signals of the external environment described by ethologists and zoo psychologists (see, for example, Lorentz, 1970). A possibility to express one feeling through other ones was studied by George Berkeley in An Essay Towards a New Theory o/ Vision (1 709). He showed that some sensations can be mediated by others, that tactile images can be awakened by visual ones and that communication between them can be considered as a kind of language (see Berkeley, 1978: 49-136; 1 39-147). This kind of connection between visual and tactile sensations is involved not only in the cognitive visual perception of the world, but also in the communicative processes of its representation through images. However, the most focused attention to the phenomena of synesthesia in both its cognitive and communicative aspects is typical for the psychol­ ogy of art and aesthetic perception. Back in the 1 9th century, psychologi­ cally oriented "aesthetics of empathy" ("Ein/uhluing") considered synes­ thetic feelings of visible spatial forms as their "natural symbolism", which could not reduce these fOnTIS to be spontaneously associated with certain meanings, but this was only intuitively grasped (Vischer, 1 873: 27-28; Vischer, 1 887: 1 87; Volkelt, 1 876: 85-100; Lipps, 1903: 4 1 ; 1906: 2232). Such "symbolism" can be found, for example, in emotional and motor reactions to a visible fOnTI, which is revealed to a person as a dynamic concentration of forces. This fOnTI makes a viewer "ascend", "fall", "sway", "jump", and feel the pressure of gravity and the strength of sup­ port together with the "rising" and "descending" lines. Theodor Lipps, in his detailed Aesthetic Mechanics, even introduced a peculiar "dictionary" of dynamic meanings of various two- and three-dimensional forms able to act as units of a specific "language of forms" (Lipps, 1 897, 1 903-1906). In a somewhat different aspect, visual synesthesia problems were touched upon in classical art studies of "vision forms". In particular, Hein­ rich Wblfflin saw the difference between "linear" and "painterly" vision, among other things, in the different involvement of tactile sensations in visual perception (Wblfflin, 1 930). Even earlier, Adolf Hildebrand pro-

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posed distinguishing between the sculptor's "near vision" associated with kinesthetic sensations and the artist's "far vision", in which motor sensa­ tions give way to purely visual fealings (Hildebrand, 1991 [1 893]: 23-26). Alois Riegl (1901) reinterpreted Hildebrand's distinction between the visual forms in the historical plane as the diversity of "artistic will" domi­ nating in a particular culture. According to Riegl, the preference given to the "haptic" perception of body masses or "optical" perception of the space free from them depends on a tactilely oriented "objective" or visual­ ly oriented "subjective" "artistic will". The latter is associated with other areas of holistic culture and is historically changeable. The development of spatial arts proceeds from the stage of near, flat-tactile perceptions of im­ penetrable masses (in the art of ancient Egypt) through one of tactile­ optical perceptions of closed bodily forms oriented to the middle distances (in ancient Greek art) to a purely optical perception of space in ancient Rome, which later, in Christian art, increasingly turns its focus toward infinity (Riegl, 1901 20-25). According to August Schinarsow, this is a "strange theory" suggesting that "ancient Egyptians were myopic touchers, the Romans-long sighted observers, and only the Greeks-normally seeing people" (Schinarsow, 1905: 25). However, Riegl's theory only looks so extravagant when con­ sidered as psycho-physiological characteristics of different peoples, and not of the cultural norms regulating their acts of perception and form shap­ ing. Riegl's concept of "artistic will", as well as Wblfflin's "forms of vi­ sion", refers, first of all, not to the individual preferences of optical or hap­ tic ways of perception, but to culturally set preferences. Together with the theoretical studies, an explication of sensations by practicing artists is also essential for understanding synesthetic connec­ tions. In particular, Wassily Kandinsky saw the artist's task in "listening to the internal sound" of the very "language of forms and colours" and intui­ tively comprehending their "inner necessity". In the book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (191 1), he explicitly described various types of visual syn­ esthesia, which correlate visual sensations to quasi-sensory images of oth­ er modalities. For example, he compared the colour red with the sound of the pipe, light blue with that of the flute, dark blue "with low notes of the organ", etc. (Kandinsky, 2001 [191 1 ] : 92-93). At the same time, accord­ ing to Kandinsky, . . . some colours can give the impression of something uneven, prickly, while others can be perceived as something smooth, velvet, so that you want to nm your hand over (dark ultramarine, green chromium oxide, kraplak). (Ibid: 62)

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11.3.5.

Along with sound and tactile types, Kandinsky also identifies other types of colour synesthesia, such as kinesthetic ones. If you draw two circles of the same size and fill one with yellow and the other with blue col OUT, even with a brief concentration on these circles you can see that the yellow circle radiates movement from its centre and almost seems to approach a person, while the blue one acquires a concentric movement (like a snail crawling into its shell) and moves away from a per­ son. The first circle seems to pierce the eyes, whereas in the second case the eyes seem to be submerged into the circle. (Ibid: 62)

Similar observations have also been made by other artists (see, in par­ ticular, Klee, 1971; Itten, 1978; Mondrian, 1974; Doesburg, 1 999).

2. Visual Synesthetic Codes as a Semiotic Subject Different approaches to the problem of synesthesia from the side of psychology, aesthetics and art history can have a certain common moment that can be revealed by semiotic notions. The field of synesthetic connec­ tions, which seems hard to differentiate, becomes more discernible with the help of semiotic concepts. Considering the fact that semiotics deals not only with conventional signs but also with the signal-indexical level codes of natural origin, synesthesia is its rightful subject. If the phenomenon of synesthesia is considered in concepts of broadly understood semiotics, it can be described as a complex of special signal­ indexical codes. These codes differ from the systems of arbitrary signs, because the conventions are not essential to their functioning. Sensorial images belonging to one modality fonn signals as expression plane units, evoking quasi-sensorial images of other modalities. They also function as indexes of some qualities not included in the sensation, but which are available for senses. Quasi-sensorial images evoked by them without a direct external stimulus of these qualities form the content plane in these codes. One can talk, for example, about audio-visual codes that relate some auditory sensations to certain visual images of phenomena without an optical connection or, conversely, about visual-audial codes, where the expression plane includes visual sensations and the content one includes auditory quasi-sensorial images. On the one hand, synesthetic codes differ from the perceptual code, which is involved in the construction of a united perceptual image based on sensations of different modalities. On the other hand, they also differ from conventionally introduced connections between multimodal units of

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sign systems-for example, between conventional signs of writing or mu­ sical notation and, respectively, images of phonemes or musical tones. At the same time, the idea of a pitch level, being the basis of the musical no­ tation principle, can serve as an example of synesthetic experiences. In a similar way, the letters of an alphabet can be related not only to phonetic, but also to colour images, thereby becoming expression plane units of a synesthetic code. This paper is limited to the visual synesthetic codes which form a sepa­ rate subclass of semiotic systems. The fact that the expression plane of this subclass is made up of visual sensory images, such as colour spots or con­ figurations of lines and other spatial forms, makes it special. It is already clear from the above that, according to the types of optical stimuli in­ volved in the organization of their expression plane, visual codes can be divided into chromatic and morphic ones. The former regulate the reaction to colour stimuli, while the latter regulate that to the forms. This distinc­ tion has a connection both with the natural differentiation of two types of analyzers-"bulbs" and "sticks"-and with cultural differences between the art of painting associated with colour and other spatial arts that can do without it. Another reason to distinguish between visual synesthetic codes is the difference in the way optical signals are interpreted in their content plane using quasi-sensory images of different modalities. In this respect, it is possible to distinguish between visual-tactile, visual-taste, visual-olfactory and visual-audial codes. For example, chromatic synesthesia will belong to different visual codes in those cases when colours are perceived, respec­ tively, as "soft" or "hard", "sweet" or "bitter", "sonorous" or "muffled". A special subclass is formed by the visual-thermal code, within which all colours differ in their "warmth-coldness". Taking into account the distinction between the morphic and chromatic types, a series of visual codes is combinatorially possible on the basis of morpho-audia4 morpho-tactile, morpho-olfactory, morpho-jlavour, mor­ pho-therma4 chromo-thermal, chromo-audial, chromo-tactile, chromo­ olfactory, and chromo-jlavour synesthesia. Visual-synesthetic codes also include a visual-kinesthetic one that re­ lates visual sensations to images of moving (for example, colours that are "deepened" like blue or that "jump out" like yellow). Together with such chromo-kinesthetic code, there is also morpho-kinesthetic synesthesia. In its morphic version, this type acts as an architectonic code linking visible spatial forms with such properties as gravity and lightness, permeability and impermeability, stability and instability, etc. (see above, 11. 3 . 1 . 2).

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Finally, one can even talk about "visual-visual" synesthesia, keeping in mind not the relationship between different modalities, but the connections between [onn and colour as different visual categories. Thus, according to Kandinsky: . . . one form emphasizes the significance of some colOUT, while another one makes it dull; [ . . . ] sharp paint in a pointed form strengthens its properties [ . . . ] colours that prone to deepening, strengthen their influence on fOlllld fonns. (Kandinsky, 200 I : 67; cf other relations in Braun, 1987: 156-157)

Synesthetic codes are based, first of all, on natural connections between phenomena perceived by the sensations of different modalities. For example, it is highly possible that tactile and kinesthetic types of synesthesia are genetically related to the anticipation of the physical contact of a human body with a visible object, while taste and olfactory ones are related to an anticipation of the forthcoming chemical contact. For example, such anticipations make a visible angular shape felt as "sharp", a rounded one as "smooth" or an impression of different colours as "poisonous" or "sugary". It is clear that these speculative distinctions require empirical evidence and that not all of the codes that are acceptable in such abstract combinatorics are equally expressed and used. For example, the warmth and coldness of colour, being so obvious and important for the art of painting, can be understood as an expression of the chromo-thennal synesthetic code, which is widely spread for the reason of its natural origin. At the same time, morpho-thermal synesthesia (e.g. in the case of angular forms, which are felt to be "hotter" than rounded ones) are by no means obvious, and approaches to it need to be supported by cultural conventions. Similarly, the connections of a visible form and smell, hearing or taste sensations are possible, but are not as pronounced as connections with tactile sensations (hardness or softness, roughness or smoothness, etc.). The reason why directly sensed optical stimuli and their quasi-sensory meanings have weaker or stronger connections can be explained by the fact that these stimuli may intersect in integral situations in which they are often involved and with which they acquire an indexical connection. The "expectation" of such holistic situations is developed in individual experience and can be based on genetically transmitted instincts. For example, "sharp" comers of a visible fonn stimulate the expectation of a sting, while "hot" colours stimulate that of a burn. The optical stimulus is then a part of some "frame", other parts of which are activated when they appear on the signal-index level and are associated with the corresponding emotional reactions.

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Therefore, together with cognitive and motor components of synesthet­ ic codes' content planes, affective components are also involved in their organization. These are differences in the emotional tone of the sensations, which evoke various synesthetic reactions. Obviously, these emotional connotations are especially important for art, which uses the expressive means of synesthetic codes most actively (see below, 11.9.5). Not all synesthetic connections are equally "natural". For example, visual-tactile and visual-kinesthetic synesthesias are more organic for vis­ ual perception than for visual-auditory ones, which are more conditional and dependent on culture. Not all possible synesthetic combinations are equally compulsory either. The connection between the colour and the feeling of warmth and cold seems so obvious that the division into warm and cold colours is usually described as the same objective characteristic as lightness or saturation. The connection of colours with tactile character­ istics for example, in its relation to oppositions such as hard-soft, sharp­ ' blunt, smooth-rough, etc., is by no means so obvious or well-recognized. The same can be said about their connections with taste characteristics or smells. Such relations are much more variable and more dependent on in­ dividual differences, on the one hand, and on cultural nor.ms, on the other. These norms make it possible to unite semiotic means of synesthetic codes and use them in acts of inter-subject communication. Due to this fact, the means of synesthetic codes with natural roots can be culturally modified, and get involved in its "artificial selection" as well as in the field of art. Transfonning from cognitive means into communicative me­ diators, signals and indices of these codes are involved in the organization of various types of spatial arts' artistic forms, giving them a number of expressive possibilities that cannot be achieved by other means. Emotional reactions sometimes represent not only a result, but also a means of synesthetic connections' arrangements. The emotional compo­ nent affects another type of difference between the codes, which is related to the ways of arranging relations between the expression and content planes. While all these codes refer to the signal-index type of semiotic systems, synesthetic connections therein are constructed in different ways. These connections can be based on the principles of metonymy and meta­ phor. For example, connections between qualities visible from afar and sensed through direct contact are constructed on the metonymical princi­ ple. In this case, the for.mer become indexes of the latter because of their contiguity. They can also act as signals of reactions preparing for such a meeting. In particular, such a kind of connection arises when colours are felt as "warm" or "cold", forms as "stable" or "unstable", etc. Thus, such

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codes as chromo-thermal, chromo-flavour, morpho-tactile and rnorpho­ kinesthetic are based on the principle of metonymy. It is a different case when connections between sensorial and quasi­ sensorial images are based not on their similar qualities, but on similar emotional tones of the evoked feelings. In such cases, the similar emotion­ al tones of the caused sensations become the basis for synesthesia and, consequently, for the ability of these sensations to serve as signals for aris­ ing emotions. For example, such are the synesthetic connections of dark colours' "low" sounds, "heavy" masses, blunt forms, and a sense of bal­ ance and rest, as well as those of bright colours' "high" sounds, "light" masses, sharp forms, and feelings of imbalance and movement. Such a fusion of rnultirnodal sensations and the mutual transfer of emotional in­ fluence should no longer be regarded as metonymy, but as a "sensory met­ aphor". This group will include, in particular, such codes as chromo­ kinesthetic, chromo-audial and morpho-acoustic. The relationships between the expression and content planes' members in metonymic and metaphorical types of codes are developed in different ways: in the first case, directly recorded sensations evoke quasi-sensory images, which lead to emotional connotations. In the second case, on the contrary, sensory images are directly related to emotional reactions, arous­ ing them as signals, and this signal connection in its turn is the basis for combining them with images of other modalities. These two types of synesthetic codes also reveal different internal structures. In particular, the chromo-thermal code contains elements of continuous colour space in its expression plane, and in its content plane the grades of signified warmth-coldness also fonn a continuous field. At the same time, in the chromo-audial code, both the "alphabet" of separate colours in the expression plane and their acoustic correspondences in the content plane represent sets of discrete units not connected with continu­ ous transitions. Natural visual synesthetic codes are influenced by visual culture, are involved in it and are included in the complex of expressive means used by spatial arts. Here, these codes can enter different kinds of relations, where they stay together or apart, unite in "unison" or in a "counterpoint" and "compete" with each other. For example, visually "heavy" elements of an architectural fonn, expressed by the means of the morpho-kinesthetic code, can look even "heavier" with the help of a dark colour and, con­ versely, be visually "lighter" with the help of light ones, which is due to the synesthetic capabilities of the chromo-kinesthetic code. All the above lets the synthesis of different synesthetic codes, which can be based both on the agreement and the opposition of the created impressions.

11.4. SPATIAL TEXTS

11. 4 . 1 . ON STRUCTURAL PECULIARITIES OF

SPATIAL TEXTS

1. The Concept of the Spatial Text When speaking of spatial carriers of meaning, we can find at least three possible interpretations of the concept of the text. Firstly. the text can be interpreted in traditional linguistic terms as a sequence of units of verbal language (phonemes and morphemes) and the speech constructions built from them, which are recorded by means of graphic signs. In this case the differences between the spatial means of communication and the temporal ones are reduced to a minimum . The various visual-spatial properties of the record do not influence the identity of the text in a linguistic sense. For example, the peculiarities of handwrit­ ing or typeface. the positioning of the writing on a page. or the colour of the ink cannot be considered as characteristics of such a text, if one and the same sequence of linguistic units is fixed in all of its versions. Secondly, the concept of the text can be interpreted in a broader, semi­ otic sense as an aggregate of signs put in order and made meaningful ac­ cording to the norms of a certain fixed sign systems. In this case, the ver­ bal language should be viewed only as one such system and, accordingly, the linguistic comprehension of the text should be considered as a particu­ lar case of the semiotic one. Moreover, even those written texts that pre­ serve one and the same sequence of verbal signs will vary, if we take into account the lack of coincidence of the typeface code (for example, Antiqua or Gothic types), the object-functional code (for example, an address in­ scribed on an envelope and the same address recorded in a pocketbook), differences in the social-symbolic code (a record in a passport or an en­ graving on a memorial plaque), etc. As each spatial code sets its specific norms for picking out the mean­ ingful elements and for their ordering, it is possible to find diverse "forms" in one and the same "substance of expression" (in Louis Hjelmslev's terms), that is, strictly speaking, diverse texts. Depending on the composi-

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tion of the codes used for the comprehension of texts, the latter will in­ clude or exclude certain peculiarities of information carriers. The semiotic comprehension of a text thus becomes relative and correlated with the set of sign systems considered essential for interpretation in each given case. The only constant characteristic distinguishing spatial texts from non-texts in this sense is their correlation with a given group of codes whose norms are applied in the same way by competent interpreters. The latter requirement, however, can be lifted if we proceed to the third interpretation of the concept of the text, which is even broader than the semiotic one. We shall call this third way of comprehension the her­ meneutic one. It corresponds to the position of the interpreter who still or no longer keeps a fixed means of interpreting a text and allows for the possibility of applying alternative codes. Here, the text is a potential source of all kinds of different meanings-a source unbound by the norms of definite codes. Such a text may contain not only code elements, but non-code ones as well. This is especially important when we deal with various spatial models representing an object through the similarity of its internal structure with the structure of what is being represented. This group includes various images, such as pictures, photographs, maps, etc. The broader the accepted concept of the text, the less it has in common with the linguistic treatment of this concept, and the more peculiarity can be observed in the semantics, pragmatics and especially the syntax of spa­ tial texts. The semiotic and henneneutic concepts of the text are applicable to various spatial means of meaning expression. Any carriers of sense can be considered as spatial texts, if they have a plane of expression built up by means of spatial forms and relations. The most varied products of human activity will in this semiotic sense turn out to be spatial texts: household objects and architecture, chess positions and the way the cards lay in pa­ tience, etc. Moreover, many natural objects will be placed into this catego­ ry since there is a cultural code for their structuring and comprehension, such as the arrangement of the stars in the sky in an astrologer's interpreta­ tion, the lines on a palm in a chiromantist's interpretation, etc. In order that any area of space may turn into a spatial text in a semiotic sense, meaningful elements and structures (the syntax of the text) should be established, and their correlation with meanings (semantics) and nonns of usage for interpreters (pragmatics) should also be defined (cp. Morris 1971a). Thus the semiotization of space is realized: the structure of spatial texts includes only meaningful forms and relations, and excludes any fea­ tures of the spatial objects, which do not influence meanings.

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2 . Semio-topological Peculiarities of Spatial Texts The peculiarities of spatial texts to a considerable extent depend on the topological features of space. Its three-dimensionality and reversibility, the difference between the openness and closeness, the variety of kinds of symmetry and some other topological properties have as much influence on the structure of spatial texts as one-dimensionality and irreversibility of time have on the structure of speech chains. The research of spatial texts cannot therefore be restricted to some me­ chanical borrowing of linguistic models. It requires an analysis of many specific properties of the spatial syntax absent in the grammar of verbal language. As the serniotization of space can be performed according to various codes, it is necessary not only to consider the lack of coincidence between spatial and temporal syntax, but also to ascertain the difference between the dissimilar types of spatial texts. It is possible to speak about a specific field of the semiotics of space­ semio-topology. Its task is the analysis of topological peculiarities of syn­ tactic structures in various types of spatial texts. Sernio-topology deals with the discreteness and continuity, openness and closeness, homogeneity and heterogeneity, dimensionality and other topological properties of syn­ tactic structures in spatial texts. These properties are important for semio­ topology as semiotic qualities rather than mathematical ones, but only to the extent to which they are necessary for syntax. This branch of the semi­ otics of space includes only what belongs to the "fonn of expression", not to its "substance" in spatial texts. It does not deal with the topology of physical carriers of infonnation or of their mental images, and considers only those spatial structures that are responsible for the transmission of sense according to the rules of some spatial code.

3. The Semio-topology of Written Texts The dependence of the topology of syntactic structures on the spatial code is vividly illustrated by the analisys of these structures in written texts. If we consider writing in the narrow linguistic sense-as only a rec­ ord of verbal units and their sequence-then its syntactic structures will be subordinated to the structures of speech. The rules of writing and reading introduce into the space of a written text the topological properties of speech, which is developing in time. These rules reduce to a minimum the differences between the three spatial dimensions, endowing them with their only function-to substitute the relations of temporal sequence. The

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linear order of phonetic writing does everything to eliminate the "exces­ sive" spatial dimensions and assimilate the spatial structure of the text as much as possible to the temporal organization of speech signs. In addition to the linear order, the written text acquires another property characteristic of time: irreversibility, or a unidirectional quality, since reading it in re­ verse order is prohibited by rules. However, we have only to go from the linguistic point of view of a written text to the semiotic view of it to see that the spatialization of speech adds some new expressive possibilities to the means of language. The text as a spatial formation is no longer indifferent to the two­ dimensional structure of the page or to the three-dimensional structure of the book; it now reveals significant differences between the front and back, open and closed positions, etc. The space semiotized according to diverse codes and used for the in­ terpretation of a written text will manifest different topological properties. For example, two dimensions are necessary and sufficient for the type code correlating alphabetic units with definite configurations of lines. The addition of the third dimension is not relevant to the semiotics of the type code-thus, a variation of the letters' thickness does not change their meaning. However, the thickness of letters is not indifferent for another semiotic system of architectonic code, correlating their spatial shapes with dynamic images of visual heaviness and lightness, stability and instability, etc. The third dimension in this system is a semiotic as well as a physical characteristic.

4. Semio-topology of Pictures Of all the spatial texts the least spatial is writing, because its structure depends on the temporal sequence of speech. The possibilities of spatial representation are more involved in various types of flat depictions (in­ cluding paintings, drawings, photographs, etc.), which can be considered as spatial texts in the broadest sense. The difference between a picture and a writing record as two types of representation is usually associated with the difference between the se­ mantic rules regulating the ways of their interpretation. However, no less important are the differences between the rules regulating their syntactic structures. The space of a picture belongs to quite a different semio­ topological type than the space of a written text taken as a pure linguistic construction. In contrast with the one-dimensional, irreversible and dis­ crete structure of the latter, it has a non-linear, reversible and continuous structure.

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Really, the two-dimensionality of the representing space is the inalien­ able property of the plane of expression in the picture, without speaking about the three-dimensionality of the represented space in the plane of contents. If a picture were reduced to one dimension, it would lose the ability for representation, in contrast with the linearly regulated written text that preserves its meaning even on a telegraph tape. Along with two-dimensionality, the picture acquires freedom from lin­ ear ordering as well. Due to non-linearity, it reveals in full measure the reversibility of the serniotized space that admits syntactic constructions including the reverse order of significant elements as well as the direct one. Although the artist does organize a certain sequence of perception, this perception presumes neither line-by-line reading, nor any other re­ stricted trajectory of the look Both the artist's hand in the process of de­ piction and the viewer's eye in the process of perception return constantly to the same points, approaching them from various directions and in dif­ ferent sequences. Thus, in the picture, the property of the reversibility of space can be detected. A picture also possesses such a sernio-topological property as continui­ ty: a representing space can retain correlation to a represented space in the smallest parts of the picture. In contrast, there is a lack of the function of representation in sufficiently small parts of the space of a written text. The space of a picture can also be discrete : for example, some mosaics or paintings by Pointillists have a discrete structure in the "fonn of expres­ sion" (unlike, say, the space of a television screen, which has a granulated structure in the physical "substance", but is continuous in its "fonn of ex­ pression" as a representing space). Nevertheless, the continuity is more characteristic proprty of a picture's space than its discreteness. Such continuous structure of pictorial space have a different principle of relations between the elements than in discrete texts (cf Eco, 1976: 176). Instead of the finite alphabet of linguistic units in writing, there is a continual spectrum of colour shades, flowing one into another in a paint­ ing as well as there are smooth transitions between more dark and more light paints or between more or less saturated colours. Thus, instead of the alternatives between the mutually exclusive signs, there appears a possibil­ ity to blend any colours in various proportions in all three of these dimen­ sions. The quantitative distinctions supplement the qualitative ones. The choice between "yes" and "no" is added to by the selection of relations between "more" or "less". The "palette principle", contrary to the "alpha­ bet principle", allows one to operate not only with contrasts but also with nuances.

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5. Two Ways of Text Fonnation It is possible to see a radical divergence between the spatial and tem­ poral semiosis discerned behind the difference of the semio-topological properties of a painting and a piece of writing, since written texts repro­ duce the temporal structures of speech in space. The one-dimensionality and irreversibility of these structures are corre­ lated with the "alphabet principle" that makes possible the successive selection of discrete signs in time and their j oining on the "axis of combi­ nation" (in Roman Jakobson's terms). On the contrary, spatial semiosis generates the "palette principle" that is more linked to the non-linearity, continuity and reversibility of space (see above, 1.3.3). These properties pennit one to grasp a set of relations between the parts of the whole pic­ ture in the visual-spatial perception. If a written text is oriented towards a sequential sorting out of parts that precedes the arrival at the whole (a suc­ cessive synthesis), then a picture is oriented towards a simultaneous syn­ thesis, in which, in reverse, the whole is grasped before the separate parts are distinguished. The psychological difference between the two types of perception is reflected in a semiotic difference between two opposite principles of text formation. Along with texts whose fonnation principle is the combination of predetennined parts, there are other texts formed by the reverse action of dividing a whole into separate parts with subsequent differentiation of these parts. This type of formation of spatial texts can be seen not only in pictures and related forms of representation owing to the iconic similarity of structures, but also in the fonnation of meaningful object forms, in the laying out of territories, the planning of urban space, etc. The syntactic structures of such spatial texts are formed by a system of marks, which divide the continuous space into areas endowed with differ­ ent meanings. The points, lines and surfaces, indicating the borders of one-, two- and three-dimensional fragments of space in spatial texts, perform the function of these marks respectively. The geometrical elements can also be considered as semiotic ones. A hint at this is to be found as early as in Eu­ clid's EW1XE:la This title can be translated as "letters" as well as "ele­ ments". Moreover, the initial element of geometry, a point, is denoted there with the same word as a sign, CJ1}j.1£lO v. Such a "semiotic" shade of Euclidean terminology appears to be quite pertinent, if we see in geometric elements not natural objects or even signs, as Galileo supposed, of the "book of nature", but means of the space arrangement and formation of spatial texts, created in culture.

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The function of geometric elements in spatial texts fonned by several visual-spatial codes is similar to that of alphabetic units in verbal lan­ guage: all of thern are means of the discrimination ofrneaning, perfonning a function of "figures" (using the tenn of Louis Hjelmslev). But the struc­ ture of spatial texts is fonned from these elements differently. In one case, there is a junction of separate elements, whereas in others, there is the dis­ junction of continuous space. 6.

Texts of Behaviour Space

The geometric elements in Euclid's treatment mean nothing other than limits in space: the point is the limit of the line, the line is the border of the surface, etc. They also function in the serniotized space as indices of lim­ its, marking where the movement of one or another body, hand or eye should terminate a push, a turn or a stop. The space marked out with a network of these indices turns into a fig­ urative text if it is interpreted by rules of perceptographic code, and the marks are perceived as outlines of depicted figures, their foreshortening and other signs of spatial relations. However, the same principle of dis­ secting space by a system of meaningful borders lies in the basis of texts of world of things, architecture, urban planning, etc., where these borders serve as signals and indices regulating actions in space. Unlike the illu­ sionary space of contemplation produced by figurative texts, the texts of the space of action create not perceptive images of the represented objects in the plane of content, but the action images of behaviour in this space. The links of such images with visible spatial structures are regulated by some specific dynamic codes with their semantic and pragmatic rules. Of course, the spatial texts formed in an environment of objects and architecture possess their own syntactic peculiarities. Unlike the two­ dimensional space of a picture, and especially a linear written text, the anisotropic space of environment includes a third dimension-depth. The latter brings in additional semio-topological opportunities creating the prerequisites for an expressive comparison of open and closed volumes, inner and outer spatial areas, interiors and exteriors, front and reverse sides, etc. At the same time, three-dimensional syntactic structures in the space of objective and social activity reveal some similarities with the structures of figurative space, on the one hand, and with that of written texts, on the other. While the texts of the objects enviromnent have the same principle of formation as figurative texts-space dissection and marking-they are similar to written texts in their ability to develop in time consecutively,

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step by step. Thus, the key way of their perception is not a simultaneous but a successive synthesis. Depending on the nature of a spatial zone and the interpreter's aims, each of these principles of perception and comprehension of the object­ spatial environment can be dominant. For instance, in the city space, its different parts envisage not only different patterns of behaviour but also different ways of "reading" the spatial texts regulating this behaviour. For example, a motorway sets quite different rules of behaviour to a drivers and pedestrians, as well as the visible signals are also perceived by them in a different way. For a car driver, the city streets and street crossings, along with cars moving there and road signs, are organized into a spatial text, which tends to a linear structure. For a tourist walking in a pedestrian zone, the city is opened by its "views" like a picture, although it is not reduced to its two-dimensional structure. Extending the idea proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein of "language games" to the comprehension of the city space, we can assume that different sections of this space are intended for different visual "language games", like a tennis court and a football pitch are intended for different sports. However, the visual "language games" in the objects environment are conducted by its inhabitants in a new way each time, since they perceive and comprehend it according to the tasks of their behaviour. Boys playing football in the street can regard the comer of a house or a lamppost as a goal; a tourist can admire the city on the carriageway, etc. In different vis­ ual "language games" and in different interpretations, the same sections of space are "read" in different ways and, strictly speaking, should be looked upon as different texts. Thus, the interpretation of spatial texts of the ob­ jects environment not only depends on the syntactic structures of these texts, but also has an influence on them. The objects environment sets neither the unaltered semantics nor con­ stant syntax of spatial texts formed by its elements. To a certain extent, it is closer not to syntagmatics but to paradigmatics of the verbal language; like the latter, it provides for a set of opportunities from which one has to select a new option each time. But what is present in the paradigmatics of the language in a latent fOnTI, in absentia, in the objects environment is given in praesentia, in the fOnTI of concrete objects, buildings and spatial sections intended for different purposes. Due to the space reversibility, each new pattern of behaviour in the objects environment may have a new sequence of links between its meaningful elements as well as a new com­ position. In other words, these elements may be organized to give rise to a new spatial text with new their succession that becomes actual at this par­ ticular moment.

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This ability to realize some of the alternative opportunities in spatial structures is inherent not only in the objects environment. It may also be found in a picture, which assumes different "routes" for its viewing, and even in certain written texts which are not intended for consecutive read­ ing (for example, various dictionaries, encyclopaedias, etc.). As one can see, although various types of spatial texts look different, they have certain common properties connected with specific features of space and of spatial serniosis.

11.4.2. PARTICULAR QUALITIES OF SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF SPATIAL TEXTS

1. Semantic Peculiarities of Spatial Texts Together with the syntactic peculiarities that are considered above (11.4. 1) spatial texts have also specific semantic and pragmatic features. In particular, a specific two- and three-dimensional syntax of spatial texts that are formed by coexisting elements predisposes some other con­ tent than a one-dimensional and irreversible time axis. Whereas the latter is naturally filled by narrations structured as the development of stories from a beginning through a middle to an end, spatial constructions are more suitable for the expression not so much of something changeable, but of something abiding. Formed by coexisting objects, spatial texts can fix firstly the invariant and the stable in the flows of events or changes. The orientation of spatial texts on "being", rather than on "becoming", since ancient times has been distinguished in not only their fonn, but also their content (cf Lotman, 1 969). This content, already in pre-written spatial texts and in early written monuments, is, first of all, neither narratives of transient events nor a se­ quence of subjective experiences, but a record of states and laws believed to be unshakable or obligations that must be inviolable. Tattooing or scars on the body, fixing the social status of a member of a tribe, records on the tablets of laws established for perpetuity by earthly rulers or taken as an eternal divine institution, safekeeping of things that should not change with time, something that can always be returned to and, moreover, that is something that can never be abandoned. The spatial form is necessarily given to a tombstone, which remains on the "banks" of the temporal flow and serves as a sign of the transition from time to eternity. A domination of the stable spatial forms is also typical for the spatial arts (cf Lessing, 1957 [1766] : 1 87), and the special means should be used in order to repre­ sent in them some temporal relations (see above, 11.2.2.3). .

244

11.4.2.

Figure 11.4.2-1 . Stela of Hammurabi (upper part). Basalt Susa, XVIII c. E.C Lou­ vre, Paris. The stela contains the engraved by the wedge writing "legal code" of Babylonian king Hammurabi and his bas-relief image front of the sun god Sha­ mash, who gives power to the king.

It is noteworthy how an attempt to translate the evangelical texts into a spatial structure, for example, in the iconography of medieval paintings transfers the accents from the narrative of events to the demonstration of the spatial "carcass" of the world. The relations of the centre and the pe­ riphery, the top and the bottom, and other spatial constants form pertinent syntactic structures for the semantic "framework" of ideas about the struc­ ture of the world. In comparison to a line of narration, which describes the events in time, this structure can create a visual image of the universe, which is accessible to perception (see colour picture 4). Such a system of representations is embodied in the spatial texts of ar­ chitecture and object environment At the same time, semantic structures find their most adequate embodiment precisely in spatial syntax, with its topological peculiarities. Thus, for example, the syntactic heterogeneity of the structure of a space with a distinguished centre through which a verti­ cal axis passes with absolutely opposite top and bottom is connected with semantic heterogeneity. The absolute opposition ofthe top and the bottom, the anisotropy of the axis connecting them, expresses the inviolability of value relations. In the concentrically organized space, the central area is usually related to higher values than the peripheral ones. Such centres of social or cult "attraction" can arise around a common hearth, altar, or tem-

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pIe, as well as around a social leader. Other, peripheral areas of space re­ main unclassified, "worldly", occupied by social outsiders, which does not exclude the emergence also in them of their own hierarchy. On the contra­ ry, the equality of individuals in a social space is manifested in the fact that the equivalence of the places they occupy makes this space symmet­ rical. Such, for example, is the social space of the ancient polis, unfolding around the central city area-the agora-where citizens, even by the very structure of the space, were defined as equals (see Vemant, 1986: 15, 67). Thus, both equality and social hierarchy are expressed in the topological features of the structure of the architecturally formed social space. In systems of significant places formed by spatial texts of the social­ symbolic code, one can find semiotic means capable of constructing ana­ logues of logical judgments in which a propositional function is realized: X is P. A significant place, in these cases, contains an indication of some social property, social value and can be considered as a predicator (P). A significant form (X) located in this place, for example, a monument, per­ forms nominative functions, pointing to some subject or to some event. However, spatial structures open up possibilities for the expression not only of one judgment, but also of a whole series of them, although given as an aggregate of simultaneously expanded spatial relations. One of the features of the spatial structure as a text is the ability to represent a com­ plex of many relations at once. For example, a system of seats in a court­ room creates a variety of different positions and oppositions, allowing the identification of certain groups of people who are present and contrast them to other groups by the means of proxemic code (cf Hall, 1 963). The expression of a complex system of social relations is possible through a network of spatial positions of people and objects. Such a net­ work can form a spatial text, which is able to express not only judgments with one predicate according to the scheme "S is P", but also a whole complex of logical judgments with multiple predicates. These judgements are formed by the scheme "a R b", considered in the logics of relations, which is, according to Hermann Weyl, more directly expressed by spatial constructions than by verbal successions (see Weyl, 1934: 35). Along with logical concepts, spatial texts are able to express what Pia­ get called "infralogical" concepts, in particular, ideas about the purpose of objects and about possible actions with them. The special object­ functional code and the texts of the object environment organized by it specialize in this. Even more specific is the semantics of images as S-texts regulated by means of the perceptual code: their content plane is built on the level of perception, which has no analogues among texts created with the help of other codes.

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11.4.2.

2. Pragmatic Peculiarities of Spatial Texts A special way of connection between interpreters through spatial texts is revealed in how these texts are created by senders, in how they are per­ ceived and comprehended by their recipients, and also in the fact that a more or less prolonged gap [OnTIS between the processes of their creation and reception. In all these aspects, the pragmatic specificity of spatial serniosis as a process that is specially organized in time is affected. Unlike speech and other temporal forms of communication, spatial serniosis does not need the co-presence of the sender and the receiver of the message in a single communicative act where the text is produced. Since spatial value carriers do not disappear immediately after their gener­ ation, the communication process with their help tends to disintegrate into acts of creating and receiving messages that occur at different times. Because these acts are separated in time, they can, firstly, have differ­ ent durations-the act of creating a spatial text can take many years, but the act of its perception and comprehension is incomparably shorter. Sec­ ondly, because of the reversibility of space, both the creation and percep­ tion of spatial texts allow different sequences of actions; they can start and end in a variety of places, and the movement of the look or the body in these processes can be carried out in different successions. Finally, the discrepancy in time of the acts of creating and receiving a spatial message also allows the intervals between them to have different durations, which makes possible the connection not only of contemporar­ ies but also of people belonging to different generations and historical ' periods. Spatial texts can outlive their creators for a long time, corne out of the contexts in which they were created, and be included in completely different contexts, where they acquire new meanings. The contact between the senders of the spatial text and its recipients, possibly belonging to an­ other generation and another historical epoch, often becomes deferred. This deJeJTed contact can occur at any point in the existence of the text and does not need the creation or recreation of spatial carriers, but the readiness of the interpreter to perceive and comprehend them. As soon as visual-spatial texts are not destroyed immediately after their creation, they appear in the same row with each other, synchronously co­ existing with other texts that were created at different moments or periods. These coexisting texts do not force an immediate reaction to themselves, as audio-visual carriers of meanings do, but "patiently wait" for a reader and interpreter. In order for the spatial text to be included in the communicative pro­ cess, it must be actualized. The peculiarity of spatial texts is that their ac-

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24'i

tualization is performed not by the sender of the message, but by the recipient. This applies not only to different types of spatial texts (object forms, architectural constructions, pictures, etc.), but also to all types of temporal texts (books, melodies, films, etc.) that are recorded with the help of spatial carriers. Their recording in a spatial form makes it possible not to re-create them before each new reading (in contrast to, for example, the spatial-temporal text of a theatrical piece that is performed every time by live actors from the beginning to the end). The actualization of a spatial text requires some mental and, often, physical actions aimed at its "reading" and understanding. Like any purposeful actions, they are caused by some motive. The text chosen by the subject for reading has some "personal senses" for him that do not coincide with the unified values fixed in the code, but are only expressed with their help. In order to reconstruct the meaning of the spatial text, the subject must be externally and internally ready for its perception and comprehension. External readiness means the ability to visually perceive a significant spatial object, to have access to it, which is always possible in a certain context. Internal readiness presupposes the possession of a certain skill to "extract" from its visible semiotic fonn, to select the relevant elements and to interpret them. In other words, this is the readiness to "read" the spatial text with the help of those semiotic systems according to which it was created. The reading of a written text, for example, is the actualization of a spatial medium and the reproduction of a voice message constructed in time and written in space. Similarly, the perception of spatial texts of any other kind is not a purely free contemplation. It has a directional and selective character and can be regarded as reading, literally or figuratively. Such purposeful and selective perception is regulated by visual-spatial codes, each of which for this purpose sets its own way of selecting meaningful elements and structures and, in its own way, introduces a semiotic fonn even into the same substance of expression. Along with the syntactic rules of organizing the expression plane and the semantic rules of its connection with the content plane, more or less fixed pragmatic rules for directing perception ("reading") and comprehending spatial texts when interpreting them are fonned in each such code. However, the way of actualization of the spatial text depends on its character, and on the problem solved by the interpreter. Reading the text in which the story is recorded presupposes a more consistent translation of its characters into a time series than reading a dictionary or an encyclopaedia. The "reading" of traffic signs by a driver on a highway is more rigidly detennined in time than any acquaintance with them by a pedestrian

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strolling through the neighbourhood. In some cases, the interpretation of spatial signs is ordered in full accordance with the logic of a meaningful temporal process. In others, its course is initially ambiguous, admits variants, and corresponds more neither to a narrative that moves from beginning to end, nor to a logical transition from a premise to a conclusion, but to a free contemplation of a picture unfolding simultaneously in different directions, even if it "prompts" the sequence of peering into the image. Thus, the order of the actualization of spatial texts is not only determined by their syntactic structure, but also depends on both semantic and pragmatic factors, each of which influences the perception and interpretation of these texts in its own way.

11.5. CATEGORIES OF SPATIAL SEMIOTICS

11.5 . 1 . ON SEMIOTIZED SPACES

Introduction: Space as a Semiotic Subject The category of space is formed in natural philosophy and sciences as an ambiguous concept. There are many descriptions of it in mathematics and physics, such as Euclidian and non-Euclidian geometries or diverse physical models of space. Theoretical versions of "conceptual spaces" in sciences are separated from empirical [OnTIS of "perceptual spaces", open­ ing differently in visual. tactile or kinesthetic feelings (see Russell, 1948: Part III, Chap. VI; Poincare, 1983: 42-44; Camap, 1 922). A distinction of the "optic" and "haptic" ways of space perception was important also for the researchers of art, who noted a dominance of these ways in different spatial arts (Hildebrand, 1 893), their inequality in different historical peri­ ods (Riegl, 1901), and, on the whole, in different "forms of vision" (Wblf­ flin, 1 9 1 5). A differentiation of these forms in architecture and figurative arts in their historical evolution was discussed by many other researchers (see, particularly, Tarabukin, 1 993-94; Gabrichevsky, 1 923). A historical mutability of the spatial vision gave reasons to consider diverse ways of perspective as special "symbolic forms" (panofsky, 1 927). The creator of the "philosophy of symbolic forms", E. Cassirer, reconsidered a Kantian thesis on a space as a priori a fonn of contemplation into the theory of diverse "modes" which represent space differently in language, myth, reli­ gion, art, science and other spheres of culture (Cassirer, 1 923-29). The "fonn" of the space varies depending on whether it is conceived as a mythical, aesthetic or theoretical order (Cassirer, 1985). Cassirer connect­ ed a transition in philosophy from a "natural" to "cultural" understanding of concepts of space and time with moving the focus from how they exist to what they mean in culture. This link of the category of space with ways of its understanding and its relating to the symbolic forms of culture brings this category to the concepts of modem spatial semiotics. The semiotics a/space has been forming since the 1 960s not as a uni­ fied theory, but rather as a "round table" at which representatives of dif­ ferent disciplines have been trying to find a common language in relation to the meaningful spatial fonns in architecture, urbanism, visual arts and

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also, on the other side, in literature. As it develops, it is increasingly de­ fined as a special branch of semiotic studies with its own subject and appa­ ratus of concepts (see above, 11. 1 . 1).

1. Autonomous Spaces 1.1. Space and Spatial Relations

Although the concept of space is not given empirically and can be con­ structed only on a theoretical level, spatial relations are available for sen­ sual cognition. Such qualitative relations as contiguity and separation, inclusion and exclusion, isolation and intersection, as well as the quantita­ tive relations closer and farther, longer and shorter, wider and narrower, etc., are tangible and perceptible. Everything participating in any spatial relations becomes thereby a spatial object Every spatial relation connects at least two spatial objects. Several co-existing spatial objects connected with each other with fixed spatial relations form a configuration. This configuration is saved as long as these fixed internal relations are retained, whereas some external rela­ tions can be changed; it is disintegrated if these internal relations are trans­ formed. Therefore, the spatial relations can be defined as those which form and transform one configuration or another depending on their appearance or disappearance in it. However, spatial relationships themselves are not spatial objects, and it is not right to ask of them the question "where are they?" The question is admissible only as: "where are the objects entering the spatial relations?" Spatial configurations can also coexist and enter into spatial relation­ ships between each other, as well as replace each other in time. Their complex can have some qualities preserved by changes to its constituents. Such qualities as dimensionality, continuity or discreteness, openness or closeness, isotropies or anisotropies, reversibility or irreversibility, etc. can be invariants of such complexes not changing by variations of particu­ lar spatial relations or configurations built by them. We shall call "space" a formation of constant or variable spatial relations and the configurations built by them, if this formation has a set of constant properties like the above-mentioned qualities. 1.2. Autonomous Spaces and Modes of Their Existence

If a set of these invariants of the space is viewed as a law for a com­ plex of its constituent relations, a formation of such relations is rightly

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regarded as an autonomous space-a space that has its own law of for­ mation. Depending on the combination of their properties, spaces differ by their type of autonomy. Diverse types of autonomy are described, for ex­ ample, in the elementary, projective, affine and other systems of geometry. Each of them, in its own special way, builds a theoretical model of a ho­ mogeneous space, finding in it the properties that are invariant under a given group of transformations (Klein, 1956; Cartan, 1 956). The autonomous spaces also differ between each other by a mode of existence (on the distinction of a quality of relations and their modality, see Cassirer, 1923: 28-31). The real space of physical bodies, the concep­ tual space of geometric constructions or the perceptual space of visual images belong to diverse modes of existence-real and ideal, theoretical and empirical. A body moving in the physical space can fly neither into an abstract mathematical space, where disembodied imaginable objects are already mentioned as "bodies", nor into a pictorial space, where "bodies" are represented for a viewer by the artificial stimulation of perceptual im­ ages. Therefore, a fly depicted in still life and a fly creeping over the sur­ face of a canvas cannot meet each other in the same space. These spaces differ in their way of being and cannot be reduced to any one of them. Between the conceptual and perceptual spaces described by theoreti­ cians, one can also single out one more mode of mental existence. This is an apperceptuaZ space correlated with imagined schemes of spatial con­ figurations. Like perceptual images of space, it can remain non-reflected, but on the other hand, like conceptual models, it contains general schemes for building spatial images. For example, a chess space is built not on the perceptual or conceptual levels but on the apperceptual level as a scheme of a possible layout of chess pieces. Such general schemes regulate the fonnation of autonomous spaces in diverse spheres of culture. Like a chess space, spaces of a picture, of a theatre scene, or of a book page, are built by its own laws related to its own cultural nonns.

2. Anthropomorphic Spaces and Their Variety 2.1. Anthropomorphic Spaces

The concept of autonomous spaces is applicable to physical objects as well as to their psychical images, to scientific descriptions as well as to nonscientific ideas, which are researched by the cultural sciences. While

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mathematical and physical sciences discover such laws of spatial organiza­ tion, which are independent of anthropomorphic ways of their representa­ tion, the cultural sciences are oriented the opposite way (see, particularly, Cassirer, 1985; Eliade, 1994: 22-24). The human ways of such representa­ tion are more interesting to them than the depersonalization and unifica­ tion of space, which gives a seemingly universal applicability of mathe­ matical and physical models to all spatial objects. Instead of abstract mathematical descriptions of space as a continuum of an infinite number of zero-dimensional points, the cultural sciences prefer to investigate­ typically for a "naive" perception-distinctions between impenneable bodies and their permeable interspaces as well as between various mean­ ings of diverse places or of different directions. Such heterogeneity distin­ guishes the anthropomorphic space comprehnded mainly on infralogical levels of psyche from the unified continuum of points in the mathematical models of space created only on a conceptual level. Perhaps the most important feature of anthropomorphic space is its re­ lationship with the coordinate axes, connected with the body of the up­ right-walking human. While the mathematical and physical models of space are focused on the extraction of invariants independent of any se­ lected reference systems, the sciences of culture conversely pay attention to the anthropocentric coordinates formed by the axes of "top-down", "right-left", and "front-rear". While the principle of relativity allows the study of the motion of bodies in physics and the properties of figures in geometry regardless of their position in space, the anthropomorphic way of vision, in contrast, emphasizes and often absolutizes such oppositions as top and bottom. In particular, the idea of space relativity is inorganic to mythological, religious or artistic thinking. Together with the absolutizing of axes directing the human body's ori­ entation, the anthropomorphic space often gets such characteristics as ani­ sotropy, since its directions are not equivalent to each other, and connected with its asymmetry primarily in a vertical plane. The contrast between the top and the bottom is already physically connected with the direction of the force of gravity and its overcoming by the vertical orientation of a hu­ man. In comparison with the vertical plane, the horizontal one is more symmetrical, because it gives more possibility for a free rotation of the human body. However, it is also often polarized in the anthropomorphic space by opposing left and right, front and rear The inequivalence of di­ rections as well as of the centre and the periphery creates heterogeneity in the anthropomorphic spaces as well.

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11.5. 1 . 2.2. Anthropomorphic Features in Ideal Models of Space

The invariant for many anthropomorphic spaces' systems of coordinate axes-"top-down··. "right-left" , "front-rear"-is manifested in different variants. Such physical differences of the spatial directions for a human influence the ideal models of space on sensoria4 perceptual, apperceptual and even conceptual levels of the psyche. In particular, an egocentric space that every person has imbedded into his sensorial organization is correlated with an internal scheme of the body, containing these axes. This scheme of the body is correlated with the kinesthetic feelings of the subject as well as with his visual field formed by the same axes. The stable framework of the visual field is "filled" by unstable optical configurations of colour patches with varying contours. The images of things as objects contraposed to the subject in the space that is external for him are already constructed on the perceptual level of the psyche. This level is also actualized in the perception of personal spac­ es of other individuals, which a subject can imagine as an external projec­ tion of his egocentric space. These external objects also remain related to the same subjective coordinates of anthropomorphic space. Visual images of the objects created in the mind of a subject are con­ structed not only under the direct influence of these objects on the sensori­ al and perceptual levels, but also on the above-mentioned apperceptual level by the imagination of these objects without any contact with them. In particular, artefacts of the human environment, from housewares to architectural buildings, are often interpreted by the anthropomorphic way as projections of the human body and its parts coordinated with the three main axes of its space. Clothes, dishes, furniture and other items are not only morphologically correlated with this body, but also comprehended by analogies of it having "legs", "handles", a "neck", and so on. The anisot­ ropy of anthropomorphic space applies to things including those in these objects. A liquid remains in a vertically oriented cup and runs out from it in the horizontal position, and so on. The difference of "left-handed" and "right-handed" objects is also marked, for example, in the cases of a shield and a sword. The environment of artefacts also displays the differences of a longitudinal or transverse orientation, as well as the distinction between the "front" and the "reverse" sides, etc. In a similar way, architectural forms are located along three non­ equivalent axes of anthropomorphic space. Since ancient times, their building and proportions have been compared with the building of the hu-

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man body (cp. Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture, V3, Chap. I). The symbolism of architecture is also traditionally connected with the interpre­ tation of these diverse axes. The architecturally organized space ofthe house, the temple or the city, as well as the valuative oriented geographical space (especially in the archaic consciousness), also gets its forms and senses according to the same selected coordinate system (see, for example, Eli­ ade, 1994 108-1 1 2). The anthropomorphic construction of space allows the bringing togeth­ er of spatial objects of diverse types and sizes-the microcosm and the macrocosm. For example, the configurations of stars can be anthropo­ morphically interpreted as "Sagittarius", "Twins", "Girl", while some parts of the earth can be treated by analogy with parts of the human body: mountain ranges like bones, rivers like blood vessels, etc. (see Leonardo, 2000 157-158). In the mythical and religious ideas of different peoples, a universal spatial model was common for a long time for anthropological, sociologi­ cal or cosmological objects of different sorts and sizes. This was a "world tree" scheme with its three-tenn division in the vertical plane and four­ membered division in the horizontal plane (see Toporov, 2010). In this driomorphic model, a general scheme of the anthropomorphic space re­ mains, but it acquires an objectified and supra-individual character. There are also the objectified versions of the anthropomorphic space in several natural-philosophical concepts of the cosmos. So, the natural­ philosophical conceptions of atomists contain characteristics of the subjec­ tive perception of the spatial dualism of atoms as impermeable spatial ob­ jects and of permeable emptiness (kenon), where they can move (Democri­ tus). Aristotle, after Heraclitus, Pythagoreans, Plato and other ancient phi­ losophers, described the cosmos as a living being, where top and bottom, left and righ� centre and periphery differ (Aristotle, 1981 b: Book II. Chap. 2). Thereby the mythological projection of an initial structure of the hu­ man microcosm to macrocosm remains in these natural-philosophical con­ ceptions. Even quite scientific models of geographical space have a structural correlation through the oppositions of "East-West" and "North-South" with the anthropomorphic spatial schemes "right-left" and "top-bottom" (as it is on a geographical map with the rectangular coordinate grids and the "wind rose"). Finally, even the physical and mathematical models of space and coordinate systems moving away from the anthropomorphic notions about space created by them ultimately also remain tied with the ideas of "our body" (see Poincare, 1983: 190, 1 99).

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11.5. 1 . 2.3. Anthropomorphic Spaces in Human Activity

Anthropomorphic spaces are included in diverse aspects of human ac­ tivity. So, a space of object action has an anthropomorphic character. In it, there is a private space of actor, a space of transformed object and a "front" of their interaction, where an instrumental action occurs with a tool. A space of social action has a similar structure. Instead of the ob­ jects, it includes the bodies of other subjects, and instead of technical in­ struments, such means of communication serve in it as, in particular, forms of architectural buildings or housewares. Ritual and game spaces modify the spaces of instrumental and social actions transforming their semantics, but save a structural basis. A space a/theatre action can repro­ duce all these autonomous spaces as represented objects. Such representa­ tion is also in the space of contemplation, where, however, any external actions are completely excluded. Such is, for example, the space of the picture, where its organization retains some common structural features of anthropomorphic spaces, particularly the anisotropy of the main axes and boundaries correlated with them. Unlike the space of action, which un­ folds predominantly in the horizontal plane Con the desktop, on the town square, on the playground and so on), the contemplation space is oriented mainly vertically Cas a picture, cinema or TV screen, etc.). It is noteworthy that a written text is oriented mainly horizontally, as long as it remains in the space of a writing action, but it transits to vertical orientation when it is included in the space of a reading action.

3. Semiotization of Space 3.1. On the Natural Conditions of the Space Semiotization

If an anthropomorphic space is structured and interpreted according to one or more semiotic systems, it is semiotized in a certain way. The ways of the semiotization of space can be very different and belong even to dif­ ferent levels of semiosis. When distinguishing the signal-indexical and sign levels of semiosis Csee above, 1.3.1 and 1.3.1), one can discern natural and cultural levels of space semiotization. Before some cultural norms of the structuring and interpretation of spatial relations are established or accepted, certain natu­ ral conditions should be met. A huruan as a living being should be physi­ cally and psychically included in definite spatial and temporal circuru-

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stances of his existence. As an animal symbolicum (following Ernst Cassi­ rer), the human is not only a subject of cultural semiotic activity, but also a biological organism adapted to natural conditions of his being. As Jakob von Uexldill showed, various species of animals form their own pictures of spatial and temporal relations-their own Umwelt (UexkUll, 1956 [1 940]). Each of these diverse internal pictures of spatial relations forms its own autonomous space, in the tenns used here. These pictures are formed spontaneously, in the natural processes of the adapta­ tion of organisms to their habitat The result of these processes depends on both peculiarities of the spatial environment and features of a given spe­ cies of organisms: the fishes living in the deep sea naturally see the space in another way than the birds flying in the sky or the animals living on the land. If semiosis is understood widely enough and includes the processes of mediated infonnation connections that occur in the living being at the lev­ el of signals and indexes, one can speak about natural semiosis. Insofar as some spatial relations are signals and indexes that influence the behaviour of animals, natural spatial semiosis at this level takes place. If it is true for animals, it remains so for the human, insofar as he is an­ imal symbolicum, who is able to react non-arbitrarily to some natural sig­ nals and indexes, which are available to him as parts of his Umwelt (see 1.4.1). Even in his infancy, some spatial structures are fonned in his psy­ che at the infralogical level, due to which a child can orient himself in the space (see Piaget & Inhelder, 1963 [1 959]). Although definite cultural influences participate in the child's development from birth, they do not cancel out the influences of natural factors. In particular, the natural perceptual code connecting streams of optical data with perceptual images of objects in the space is formed by a child spontaneously in processes of movement. Some synesthetic reactions also have such an involuntary character, although a sensitivity to them can later be intentionally developed. By the teenage years, the formation of one more spatial code on the genetic basis has already completed: that is the natural somatic code, which regulates certain gender reactions of males or females to the bodies of each other. All these natural codes belong to the signal-indexical level of semiosis, which is involuntarily formed in biological organisms, including the hu­ man, as far as it is an animal too. At this level, the spatial relations are semiotized without the arbitrary activity of the human as a purposeful sub­ ject

258

11.5. 1 . 3.2. The Cultural Level of Space Semiotization

Unlike the signal-indexical level of involuntary space serniotization, which is common to animals and humans, the level of arbitrary signs is available only for the human formed in culture. It is only at this level that the criterion suggested by U Eco. the possibility to lie. is relevant. be­ cause it is only at this level that a subject of semiotic activity fully appears. As a subject of such activity, the human can serniotize the space that becomes its object in this case. The semiotization of space is then a gen­ eral activity and partial acts transforming spatial relations into the means of one or several semiotic systems. In any case, a space is semiotized, if some meaningful elements in it together with their meaningful relations are selected, formed and interpreted by the norms of a certain semiotic system-a spatial code. This system establishes, firstly, how the formation of meaningful spatial relations and their configurations perfonns; second­ ly, how the formed elements and structures are interpreted; and, thirdly, what the norms of using these semiotic means are. Thereby, the semiotic system of a spatial code has syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules (in the terms of Morris, 1971a). In Louis Hjelmslev's tenns, the semiotization of space can be de­ scribed as the bringing into a complex of spatial relations of a semiotic form understood as the "form of expression" and the "form of content" connected with each other by the rules of a semiotic system . Due to this semiotic form, some meaningful spatial objects presented for an interpret­ er as elements of the "substance of expression" represent certain objects that are the "substance of content" for a given semiotic system. Thereby, the semiotization of the human space connects the selected ways of presentation of spatial objects with their ability to represent defi­ nite content in communicative acts between people. If the physical space precedes the human as a condition of his existence as a biological being, the semiotization of space by cultural norms and their orientation in it forms the conditions of the comprehended behaviour of the human as a subject of social activity. The semiotization of space has external and internal sides in relation to the interpreting subject. Its external part is connected with more or less important transfonnations of bodily objects and their conversion into spa­ tial texts. Some graphemes can be put on a surface or some walls can be erected between definite areas. Such physical transformations of bodily objects can be great or even colossal, such as the building of the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wan of China. However, even the most grandiose transformation of bodies means nothing to someone who does not com­ prehend it as a sign or a text constructed and interpreted by the norms of a

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code. In the acts of space semiotization, its physical transfonnation is only a prerequisite for such comprehension. In several cases, the semiotization of space can be limited only by a mental structuring of meaningful spatial objects. So, if the natural formed configurations of stars in the sky are treated as "signs of the Zodiac", the formation of their meaningful struc­ ture is performed only by an internal mental method. At the same time, this internal structuring and interpretation is an ob­ ligatory condition of any space semiotization. This internal side is con­ nected with the mastering of a spatial code by semiotic means, i.e. with the ways of selection and interpretation of meaningful spatial configurations. Any semiotization of space would be impossible without the forming by subjects of a readiness to vision and understanding meaningful spatial con­ figurations in accordance with the norms of some semiotic systems. These systems set mental schemes of selection and interpretation of meaningful spatial configurations, and they belong to a proto-information that has to be pre-formed into mind of the subject a priori, before he will receive a posteriori information by the means of spatial semiosis (see above 1.3. l . l .2). 3.3. Semiotization of Space as General Conditions and as Concrete Acts

The semiotization of space by a human can be considered in general as an activity in the organization of conditions for spatial semiosis or, more concretely, as local acts bringing a semiotic form into certain spatial rela­ tions by cooing or as an "extraction" from a spatial carrier of infonnation by acts of decoding. The difference between the conditions for acts of spatial semiosis and these acts themselves can be partly comparable with the Saussurean diver­ gence between langue and parole. Just as langue is a collective establish­ ment that is assimilated by individuals and precedes concrete acts of speech, the concrete acts of human communication by the spatial bearers are based on the collective elaborated means of spatial semiosis. The im­ personal ways of space semiotization give the conditions of local acts in personal communications between the subjects by the means of spatial semiosis-the spatial codes and the texts built by them. However, spatial semiosis also has an intennediate fonn of semiotiza­ tion, when a locus is prepared as an autonomous space for creating various spatial texts of a definite kind in it. A process of such a transfonnation can include not only the formation of the properly spatial texts, but also the forming of spatial conditions for them-of some pre-semiotized spaces.

260

11.5. 1 . 3.4. Semiotization of Space as an Activity

An analysis of the serniotization of space as a way of human activity supposes a distinction of the elements of this activity: its subject, object, means, targets and results. The subject of space serniotization is who brings a semiotic form into a complex of spatial relations. Both individuals and whole collectives can act as such a subj ect, bringing different contributions into the results of serniotization. While individuals mainly organize concrete acts of coding and decoding by definite means of spatial serniosis, collectives mainly form semiotic means-spatial codes-which are generated in culture, transmitted from generation to generation and appropriated by individuals. The objects of the serniotization are the spatial relations, from among which the meaningful units are selected and connected with certain mean­ ings. These objects can belong to a physical substance or be only mental images. Both of them are described above as the external and internal sides of semiotization. The target of the semiotization is the creation of diverse spatial texts that mediate the communication between the subjects of this activity and can represent its objects to them in a certain way, giving them definite senses. The purposeful semiotization of space does not exclude the invol­ untary appearance or disappearance of some new ways of selecting and interpreting meaningful spatial objects; a semiotized environment is there­ by formed spontaneously. like verbal languages that are "naturally" devel­ oped. The means of the semiotization are the spatial codes defining the norms of fonnation and interpretation for a semiotized space. These codes contain a semiotic form bringing in space: fonns of expression and of con­ tents which are different from their substances (in Louis Hjelmslev's tenns). The forms of expression characterize syntactic ways of fonnation and transformation of meaningful spatial configurations, whereas the forms of contents relate to semantic rules of their interpretation. These codes differ depending on the ways of space semiotization that they estab­ lish: how they are structured in its plane of expression, how they set mean­ ings in the plane of content, and how they determinate connections be­ tween units of both these planes. The results of the semiotization are its realized targets. That is, on the one hand, an external product, i.e. spatial texts-such configurations of meaningful spatial relations that obtained a certain semiotic form. On the other hand. there is an internal effect-the senses got by a subject as the results of the interpretation of the spatial texts. and the mental complexes

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of images which are correlated with perceived spatial texts and with the semiotic form regulating them . Each of these general elements of semiotization is included in the pro­ cesses of their fonnation and functioning. The means of the semiotization-the spatial codes-must be fonned: (1) as naturally generated systems of signals or indexes Cas perceptual or synesthetic codes); (2) as semiotic systems of signs, signals and indexes, elaborated in culture (for example, demarcation, object-functional or so­ cial-symbolic codes); (3) as natural codes transformed in culture Cas per­ ceptographic or architectonic code). The fonned codes function in con­ crete acts of coding and decoding in processes of spatial semiosis. The subject of the activity is formed, firstly, as an individual or collec­ tive, which has a readiness to participate in semiotic process as a sender or receiver of a message. For this, this subject should obtain (in processes of cultural evolution, of individual learning, etc.) some spatial codes as a proto-infonnation, which give a possibility to manage information proper­ ly. Secondly, this subject should really participate in the acts of sending and/or receiving spatial messages. The objects of the semiotization are spatial relations transfonned in the process of forming semiotized spaces and spatial texts by using a spatial code. For example, if a distance between some people as physical objects is a condition of their existence in the physical world, the using of a prox­ emic code permits giving certain meanings to these distances, turning them in the act of their semiotization into signs of social relations between these people. An external transfiguration of spatial relations and the internal mental transformation of senses arise as results of space semiotization. A continuation of the process of space semiotization can also include re-semiotization-changes to either the content or expression planes of spatial texts, or even in both of them. A full de-semiotization of space is also possible, not only as the result of a total destruction of the created texts, but also as the result of a total loss of any semiotic system participating in the constitution of its semiotic form.

4. Structural Peculiarities of the Semiotized Spaces 4.1. Autonomy and Separation of Semiotized Spaces

The semiotization of space often needs a transfiguration of concrete spatial objects that has the appearance of autonomous spaces as a partial

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11.5. 1 .

result. The autonomy of serniotized space follows from using a certain code. In virtue of dependence on the code, a serniotized space is by defini­ tion an autonomous one, because each spatial code sets its nonns of the organization of relations between meaningful units, and these nonns can be considered as a law of space structuring in the system of this code. Re­ ciprocally, although not every autonomous space is serniotized, a space can obtain this quality of autonomy if a law of its organization is formed by the norms of a spatial code. However, autonomous spaces can coexist. If they belong to the same mode of existence and have common properties, the autonomous spaces can enter spatial relationships with each other in the frame of a complex space and can be considered as its parts. The definite spatial relations be­ tween these parts are formed as long as their specificity as autonomous spaces is not taken into account, and they are taken only as areas of a larg­ er space. So the pictures in a gallery can be regarded in terms of their spa­ tial relations with each other (right-left, above-below, etc.), if they are tak­ en only as objects of manipulation in the space of the gallery without tak­ ing into account the differences between the spaces depicted in each of them. If the diversity of spaces is accounted for, it is possible to speak about separate spaces, which have several specific properties, but can enter spatial relations between themselves by the condition that they be­ long to the same modus of existence and have sufficiently common prop­ erties for coexisting in an embracing "hyperspace". The semiotized spaces are often separated from each other by the bar­ ders as indexes of their autonomy and apartness. An example of such sepa­ rated spaces are the geographical maps collected in an atlas and entered into it as parts of a complex "hyperspace" of the book, without merging with each other. In a similar way, a lot of chess boards at a tournament remain as a summation of separate spaces despite a common type of au­ tonomy, and they do not unite in one chess space: a piece from one of them cannot "jump" into a gaming space of another. These separate spaces differ between each other, even if they belong to the same type of autonomy, not only due to external borders but also thanks to their internal properties. The first of these properties is a unified order of places and of spatial objects, each of which has definite ordinal relationships with another. For example, such relationships are between chess pieces of one board and not with those of the neighbouring chess­ boards. The second property differencing separate spaces is a common unit of measurement and a scale of quantitative relations unified by it for all spa­ tial objects and their distances in the same space, such as geographical

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maps with different scales that fonn different separate spaces. Contrari­ wise, an ancient Egyptian depiction of a large figure of Pharaoh and little slaves have a common unit of measurement, and due to their meaningful contraposition it becomes possible in a single semiotized space. One more property of a separate space is a unified genetic connection between its conditions in diverse moments. That means such connections as those when the elements and structures of the following states are the results of the previous transfonnations. A separate space in this case is linked with a separate time, where some events occur. For example, a chess game takes place in a separate space, and moves in them belong to a separate time; other garnes, even on the same board, have already been played in other separate spaces and times. None of these three features is necessary, but each of them is sufficient to distinguish separate spaces between each other. A mismatch of at least one ofthese features allows one to speak about the different separate spac­ es, even if they belong to one type of autonomy and mode of existence. F or example, a theatre scene remains the same separate space until three classical "unities"-time, place and action-are respected; if the genetic connection of conditions is interrupted and a new action begins, it unfolds in a new separate space. 4,2, Anthropomorphic Properties of Semiotized Spaces

1.1any of the semiotized spaces can be considered as anthropomorphic ones, because they are oriented on a visual channel of connection and cor­ related with an anthropomorphic coordinate system . However, generally speaking, the concept of semiotized space can also regard such objects as molecules of DNA correlated with genetic code or electronic bearers of information, which go out behind the anthropomorphic space. In cases when a semiotized space displays anthropomorphic features, it is connected first of all with the ordering of this space according to the main axes of anthropomorphic coordinates: "top-bottom", "left-right", "front-rear". Such a correlation can be indirect and have a conventional character: the "top" of a page in a book is, as a rule, clear from its format, independent of its actual location in relation to the plumb line or water level. The book can lie on a horizontal table, stand angled on a reading desk, or even turn together with a man lying down-no movements re­ garding the horizon change its conventional "top" and "bottom" and their correlations with the "top" and "bottom" in the individual space of a read­ ing man. A somewhat different case is when the directions of these axes set the orientation of the human body, as it is in main cases of architectural

264

II.H.

buildings. However, in all cases of conventional or unconventional con­ nections of such an invariant system of anthropomOIphic coordinates in semiotized spaces with the main axes of human body, these coordinates can be considered as a universal structural basis of these spaces in their diverse variants. This basis is common for diverse semiotized spaces correlated with the construction of the human body and unites them in a special class of an­ thropomorphic semiotized spaces. The structural similarity pennits texts regulated by diverse semiotic systems, but connected with spaces from this class, to be easily translatable into each other. So, a little vessel, a costume or a whole cathedral, interpreted by different codes but associated through the common scheme of the "world tree", can not only have comparable syntactic structure, but also semantic analogies (Toporov, 2010). They can all be considered as variants of spatial models representing the human as a "microcosm". Conversely, they can also represent a "macrocosm", as a projection of the human, or the socium, a social cosmos

as

a particular

being comparable with the human.

Figure 11.5.1-1. Frank O. Gduy. Dancing House, or Ginger and Fred. Prague. 1994-1996.

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The basis of these spaces can be given as a single structure, for exam­ ple, in the rectangular format of a sheet of paper or a flat depiction. How­ ever, it can also be distributed by many local elements that are coordinated and can separately represent an entire system of anthropomorphic coordi­ nates. So in architecture, verticals and horizontals are repeatedly repro­ duced in the set of elements-walls and floors, pillars and beams, etc.­ each of which can present the basic system of anthropomorphic coordi­ nates and thereby be its index. Playing with these basic elements and meaningful deviations from them can give a strong expressive effect, such as the "Dancing House", or "Ginger and Fred", in Prague by Frank O. Gehry (see Figure 11.5.1-1). 4.3. Semio-topological Properties of Semiotized Spaces

The semiotized space obtains diverse semio-topological properties de­ pending on how the spatial codes set constructions of syntactic structures (see abeve 11. 1 . 1 .3.4). These properties depend on the ways of the semioti­ zation of space and can be revealed via researching operations, which help to understand whether definite changes in a text's structure influence any changes in its meanings or not. These operations can be connected with changes of the spatial orders of meaningful units. So, depending on minimal numbers of successions, where the meanings of spatial units can be changed, diverse semiotized spaces have different semantic dimensionality. For example, a simple writ­ ten text can be ordered in a linear one-dimensional space (like a telegraph tape), and this is sufficient for all its meaningful constructions. Any other dimensions are not obligatory and are redundant for alphabetic writing, although it is usually embodied in two-dimensional paper, a three­ dimensional book and can be presented even by buildings. Otherwise, the space of a chess board is an essentially two-dimensional formation; it can­ not be reduced to one dimension and it does not need the third dimension. Unlike these spaces, the space of an architectural building or a vehicle like a car or a train envelops three dimensions, none of which can be semanti­ cally reduced to other ones. A number of semantically relevant dimensions can be added, if three axes are not enough for ordering the independent meaningful relations between elements of a spatial text. For example, when a spatial construction is interpreted by means of architectonic code, it can contain meaningful differences ordered not only by the "top-down", "right-left", and "front-rear" axes, but also diagonally. Variations of spatial order help to find some other properties of semi­ otized spaces. If the same spatial fOnTIS can be ordered in other dimensions

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11.5. 1 .

without changing the sense, the space has a semantic isotropy. If the change of the dimension influences some changes of the sense, the serni­ otized space reveals its semantic anisotropy. For example, a written text can save its sense not only in a horizontal order, but also in vertical suc­ cession, or even if it is rolled into a circle (as with medals, coins or round seals). In contrast, in the architectonic code, the vertical dimension is linked to meanings other than the horizontal ones: only vertically oriented forms are opposed as the carrying and carried elements, whereas in the horizontal dimension the same elements are built into the rows of equiva­ lent units. Unlike the previous case, the properties of semantic reversibility and semantic irreversibility can be detected in the limits of the same dimen­ sion, depending on the changing or not-changing of the sense after the change of direction, where a succession of meaningful units is ordered. The same examples of a written text and an architectural building also have opposite properties in this relation. If a written text, as a rule, loses its sense and manifests its irreversibility by reading it in the reverse order, the space of an architectural building contrariwise saves its sense as a rule by being able to be "read" from any side and thereby manifesting its reversi­ bility. (One can notice, by the way, that reversibility is typical for spatial semiosis, whereas the irreversibility of a spatial text is an indirect index of its connection with temporal semiosis.) The properties of isotropy and anisotropy as well as reversibility and irreversibility are detected through operations of symmetry: transfer, re­ flection, rotation, etc. Therefore, it is possible to consider them as evi­ dence of a symmetry type that characterizes a given semiotized space. It is obvious that anisotropic and irreversible space reveal the property of asymmetry in contrast to isotropic and reversible ones. Together with these "qualitative" properties connected with the order and symmetry of texts' settings in the semiotized spaces of various types of autonomy, there are also "quantitative" properties depending on possi­ bilities of adding some meaningful units to other ones. So, the property of the semantic openness of semiotized spaces is man­ ifested in cases when the ways of text fonnation permit an unlimited addi­ tion of new meaningful components. Otherwise, the semiotized space is semantically closed. For example, the rules of writing allow a principally unlimited continuation of written texts, whereas the rules of a chess game do not penn it any extension of the chessboard space. The semiotized space can be semantically continual, if it is possible to find or put at least one more element that influences the sense of the text between any of its meaningful elements. Contrariwise, the space is seman-

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tically discrete if its fragmentation has a limit, beyond which any changes of any more small parts do not influence the sense. So, the semiotized space of geographic maps is continual, whereas the space of a chessboard is discrete. Several spaces have gaps dropping down from them, such as an archi­ pelago excluding any water areas between its islands or the space repre­ sented on screens by web cameras selectively established in several points of a large room. We will say that semiotized spaces have in such cases a semantically non-cohesive structure. Otherwise, they have a cohesive structure, even if the neighbouring parts can by demarcated by borders, but do not have gaps. The combinations of these semio-topological properties differ by their differently semiotized spaces. For example, the space of texts formed only by the means of alphabetic writing is semantically one-dimensional, dis­ crete, isotropic, irreversible, non-cohesive and open. However, a space of a crossword is semantically two-dimensional and closed, preserving the properties of discreteness, non-cohesivity, isotropy and irreversibility. Unlike them, the space of a geographical map is semantically two­ dimensional, continual, cohesive, anisotropic, reversible and closed. A set of definite properties from this group forms a semio-topological profile that characterizes a class of semiotized spaces. These properties and their combinations can also be found by the spa­ tial texts developing in the corresponding spaces (see above, 11.4. 1). How­ ever, the semio-topological profiles of spaces and texts in them, as well as the semiotized spaces and spatial texts themselves, are not always coinci­ dent

5. Semiotized Spaces and Spatial Texts 5.1. Relations Between Spaces and Texts

Although the semiotization of spaces is connected with the formation of spatial texts, neither of its results-spaces and texts-are identical to each other A semiotized space is still not a definite text but a possibility to fonn spatial texts of a definite kind; it is a complex of conditions by which the texts of this kind can be fonned. If there is a spatial text, a se­ miotized space is also there together with it, at least in the relations be­ tween its elements, but a semiotized space does not connect uniquely with a certain spatial text. It is correlated with the texts created in it, because it is coordinated with a spatial code that sets its own conditions of text form­ ing. However, the semiotized space does not coincide with a text, because

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the same space can contain many spatial texts coexisting at the same time or successively changing each other. For example, various papers in a journal issue are presented by differ­ ent spatial texts included in a united space of the book. However, this space differs from the spaces of these texts-at least because the sernio­ topological profile of the separate space of the book differs from the pro­ files of the texts. More precisely, a written text is reducible to a linear suc­ cession of signs, whereas any book is an essentially three-dimensional formation. In a similar way, the spatial texts in the space of a picture are not coincident with this space. The frame of the picture limits not partial texts, but an entirely separate space that can save its invariant properties independently of the changes of variable texts with various semio­ topological profiles. 5.2. Pre-semiotized Spaces

Serniotized spaces can be created, in part, before certain spatial texts fill them. These texts can arise in the specially prepared places (loci) that become serniotized spaces as long as their organization is regulated by semiotic systems and can be separated from their surroundings, if the con­ ditions described above (4. 1) are fulfilled. So, diverse types of cultural spaces are formed: spaces of religious ritual or official ceremony, a theatre stage or circus arena, a sports ground or chess board, a clean sheet of paper or stretched canvas, a cinema or TV screen or computer display, etc. In such cases a separate space has already been prepared, although definite texts are still not fonned or can be changed by other structurally similar texts (by other theater performances on the same stage, other chess games on the same board, etc.). Such separate spaces, not even filled by certain texts, are semiotized only partially and are a condition for full semiotiza­ tion. One can call them "pre-semiotized spaces", if they provide a more or less fixed set of places, where meaningful units of spatial texts can be lo­ cated. The pre-semiotized spaces are prepared for filling by spatial texts, and not being these texts themselves, become completely semiotized when certain texts fill them. These pre-semiotized spaces often have some external borders separat­ ing them from non-semiotized spaces or from spaces semiotized in another way. So, the borders of a theatre stage, of the frame of a picture or of a geographic map serve as special semiotic means of the demarcation code indicating a change in the ways of space semiotization. The semiotic functions of these borders extend also to some internal features of a separate space. So, the pre-semiotized space of a picture can

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give different meanings to elements differently related to the borders of its rectangular frame, setting the meaningful differences of centre and periph­ ery, upper and lower comers, left and right sides, etc. (see, particularly, Arnheim, 1974: Chap 1). The constant relations between these places give grounds to the concept of the "regular field" characterizing some special qualities of separate spaces, which are already levelled, bordered and or­ dered in a definite way before any marks are put on it and influence their meanings (see Schapiro, 1994 [1968]; Daniel, 1979; Daniel, 1 990). Together with these external indexes of space separation, there are some internal elements participating in the construction of spatial texts created in the frames of these spaces. Pre-semiotized spaces can contain definite elements using peculiar sign constructions for the organization of spatial texts. Among their peculiarities there is a two-layer constitution of expression plane (not coincident with the double articulation in verbal language of A Martinet)-this is a possibility to give meanings not only to some bodies or quasi-object units (like letters or pictograms), but also to their places. Pre-semiotized spaces often contain complexes of indexes that point to meaningful differences between the places that can be filled by meaningful units of spatial texts, when the semiotization of these spac­ es is completed. So, the ordinal relations between units of a spatial text can be fixed by some added constructions. For example, tables as specific spa­ tial texts are delineated by cells, which form a two-dimensional structure, where a layout of signs gives them some supplementary meanings. A stave can serve as another example of a stabile structure of a pre-semiotized space signifying ordinal relations, where the vertical placement of musical notes marks their "height", their horizontal order means their temporal succession, while the form of the notes itself significates only the duration of sounds. In a similar way, by the means of a demarcation code, the walls of a house, together with the floors, form a stabile carcass of borders sepa­ rating rooms from each other. 5.3. Carcass and Basis

We shall call such a stable bordered structure of places, wherein varia­ ble elements of two-layer spatial texts are included, a carcass. In particu­ lar, the borders of interiors and exteriors of architectural buildings form the spatial carcasses for various functional areas in social or instrumental spaces. One can differentiate, within carcasses, the structures of places consid­ ered as entrances and as loci. The former gives meanings only to ordinal relations between ordered units, but not to metrical differences of their

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places. The second type of carcasses includes ordered loci and loci inter­ preted differently by their borders as some extended spatial objects. So, for example, a cell of a chessboard or of a crossword is by its semiotic func­ tions an entrance, because its size means nothing (in particular, Pythago­ ras' theorem does not act within a discrete chess space), and therefore a board without pieces or an unfilled crossword is a carcass of the first type. Unlike them, a distribution of rooms in a hotel is formed by a carcass of the second type, because the sizes of the rooms have meanings and values as well as their placements. If in the first case the carcass of places can be represented as a chain or network of dimensionless points, in the second case it is more similar to a lattice as a construction of borders between intervals of a certain size. These carcasses can have only syntactical functions or can have their own semantics. If, for example, the same cells of a chessboard mostly do not have any semantics (except for the cells of the last horizontal for pawns, which there can turn into another chessman), the cells of Mendele­ ev's periodic table have their own certain meanings. Pre-semiotized spaces have, as a rule, some fixed indexes of an an­ thropomorphic basis that help to coordinate a given separate space with the individual space of a viewer. These indexes can be often coincident with some elements of carcass. Nevertheless, carcass and basis are differ­ ent structures. Although a carcass can be prepared in a pre-semiotized space, it is a syntactic construction in two-ply spatial texts, where it participates in the ordering of their elements. Several spatial texts can remain without any internal carcass, such as an inscription written on wet sand or a light pic­ ture projected into the night sky. Therefore, a carcass is a facultative part of spatial texts. Unlike it, the basis is an essential element of the anthropomorphic space and of the semiotized spaces as long as they preserve a link with it. The basis of a separate space is a complex of visual indexes, due to which this space is connected to an anthropomorphic space of a viewer by the expressed axes "top-bottom", "left-right" and, in three-dimensional spaces, "front-rear". The basis can be presented by a picture frame, by a rectangle of a piece of writing paper, by the horizontal and vertical planes of furni­ ture, of architectural structures, of urban fonnations, etc. The basis can be manifested through the carcass: a rectangular frame of a table contains, as a rule, verticals and horizontals as axes of the basis. However, firstly, not all spatial texts have a carcass, and secondly, even if it has, the carcass can differ from the basis or be formed as a counterpoint to it (see, for example, colour picture 20).

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Semiotized Spaces and Spatial Codes 6.1. Mono- and Poly-semiotized Spaces

As is clear from the previous sections, a space can be semiotized by a more or less large complex of semiotic systems. We will call such a sepa­ rate space mono-systemic, which is semiotized with the help of only one spatial code. Such a space is always an autonomous one, because the code sets a law of its ordering. For example, the board used for a chess game is mono-systemic, semiotized by the rules that set definite semio-topological qualities of the board space: two-dimensionality, discreteness, closeness, cohesion. If the same figures on the same board are used for checkers, the law of the space is changed, and the space loses its quality of cohesion (in the sense set out in 4.2), because only black cells and diagonals remain possible for the placing and moving of checkers. Each of these game sys­ tems sets its own mono-systemic semiotized space, and therefore they are alternative ways of space semiotization. However, other cases are also possible, when a separate space (i.e. the space where a unified way of ordering, scale of measurement and continu­ ous connection of states takes part) is semiotized by more than one semiot­ ic system. In these cases, it is right to speak about poly-systemic semi­ otized spaces. For example, a page of a dictionary, where translations from one language to another one are given, is semiotized by at least two semi­ otic systems used together. If the meaningful differences of fonts or any other ways of designation are also used, the page is poly-systemically se­ miotized while remaining, at the same time, a separate space. Therefore, many complex spaces are fonned in culture, and several semiotic systems take part in the semiotization of each of them. The spac­ es of a ritual, of a theatrical stage, of a picture or, even more notably, of a moving picture, etc. are, as a rule, poly-systemically semiotized by a num­ ber of semiotic systems used together. 6.2. Conjoined Semiotization of the Architectural Space by Diverse Codes

The spaces formed by architectural constructions of different ways are also, as a rule, semiotized by several spatial codes used together. For ex­ ample, the elaborated form of the triumphal arch in ancient Rome (Figure 11.5.1-2) can be described semiotically as a type of complex architectural text in a space semiotized by at least three various semiotic systems: archi­ tectonic, demarcation and social-symbolic codes.

On Semiotized Spaces

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Figure 11.5.1-2. Arch of Constantine 1n Rome. AD 3 1 5 Architedmic code gives the means foc expression of focces acting between the bearing and bearable elements in the cmslruction of the arch The means of the demarcation code express the functim of the arch as an aperture, thrcugh which a transit occurred between \¥{o areas of socially sffiliotized spaces that were essffitially different foc the ancient Rcrnans (see Knabe, 1985

1 1 2) The means of the social-symbolic code that are

described by Vitruvius as "deccrum" make the arch prcperly triumphal, indicating transit thrcugh it as a "tnumph" and the participants in this ritual as "victors" If this decorum contains any figurative elEments, their interpretatim can use also the semictic means of icmographic, proxffilic, kinesic and cther vioual codes, applied to the interpretatim of depictims Inscriptims m the arch are manifestations of a writing code that link the means of spatial semiosis with vernal language A ccmbination of spatial codes in the same SEmiotized 'Pace has

already been described for Renaissance Rome by A -Ph. Lagcpculos, who shows that the same object-the Vatican-can be treated at the same time as "a head" by its interpretation in the syotem of the anthrcpcmorphic code and as "a coomic centre" by its interpretatim in the systEm of the cosmological code (see Lagopoulos, 1 993)

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However, even the space of everyday life is semiotized, as a rule, by diverse spatial codes. So, the space of a living house semiotized by the means of the demarcation code is a complex of loci, delimited by a system of barriers (walls, partitions, screens, etc.) and, along with them, a number of openings (doors, windows, passages between barriers, etc.). The same space, semiotized by the means of the object-functional code, is structured and interpreted as a complex of rooms designed for definite functions (apartments, workrooms, bedrooms kitchens, halls, corridors, etc.). These rooms can be also semiotized by the means of the social-symbolic code, such as "male" and "female" parts in a traditional folk dwelling, rooms for owners and for servants in a noble homestead, palaces and huts, etc. By the means of the architectonic code, the spaces between the floor and the ceiling as well as between the walls create impressions of a force field that give a vastness for free movemen� like a hall for dancing and a sports hall, or, contrariwise, "squeezes" and "pushes out", like narrow corridors and tunnels. One code can dominate in diverse cases: the work space in a fac­ tory is mainly semiotized by the means of the object-functional code, the allocation of seats for guests at a banquet is ordered mainly by proxemic and social-syrn bolic codes, etc. A space semiotized by several codes does not have a united semio­ topological structure. Each of the codes can set its own semio-topological profile, which can be coincident or not coincident with each other. So a space semiotized by a complex of codes potentially contains a complex of semio-topological profiles, each of which is actualized insofar as a code is applied to the structuring of corresponding texts. 7.

Relations between Semiotized Spaces

7.1. Similarity and Differences of Semiotized Spaces

Semiotized spaces can be compared with each other, if there is a com­ mon ground for this comparison. The semiotized spaces differ, obviously, by the ways of semiotization-those codes which regulate the structuring and the interpretation of meaningful elements and structures in them. The spaces of a written text and of a theatrical stage differ primarily by the systems that set their semiotic forms. These differences and similarities can be clarified using concepts of autonomous and separate spaces. The semiotized spaces can be identical or different according to their autonomy type. A degree of their differences depends on that, how much they diverge in their semio-topological (ST) qualities, and on what these qualities are. Semiotized spaces having a

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common profile of ST -qualities belong to the same type of autonomy and therefore they are identical in this relation. For example, a picture and its reproduction in a book belong to the same type of autonomy, because they have a common ST -profile. At the same time, the serniotized space of this picture (two-dimensional, closed and in several cases discrete) differs from the space of the depicted objects, if the latter is, conversely, three­ dimensional, continual and open. There will be even more differences of ST -profiles if a comparison is made of the profiles of the same picture and a written text, even if the lat­ ter contains a description of the former. The qualities of linearity (one­ dimensionality), non-reversibility and discreteness differentiate a spatial structure of such texts from the two-dimensional, reversible and continu­ ous space of the picture, although the qualities of anisotropy and sometime of closeness are common for both these cases. The semiotized spaces can be compared also by the degree of their separation, depending on its completeness. The features of the separa­ tion-a special way of ordering, a special unit of measurement and an in­ dependent succession of situations-can take part in various combinations. At the same time, the divergence in at least one of these points evidences the separation of each of the compared spaces between each other. In the case of the reproduction of a picture in a book, both these spaces are separated in their own way, at least because each of them has its own measure of quantities. In the case of two neighbouring chess boards, a ground of separation of their spaces is the ordinal difference of places in them. In the case of two motion pictures alternating with each other on one and the same screen, the separation of their depicted spaces is based on the differences of the chains of events represented in them . 7,2, Structural Relations between the Semiotized Spaces

Semiotized spaces enter into structural and functional relationships with each other. The strnctural relations between them include diverse ways of combinations and their separation. The combined spaces can just coexist in relations of neighbourship independent of each other in the frame of a "hyperspace"-a space wherein they are reduced to loci without taking into account the factors determining their autonomy. For example, a combination of diverse semiotized spaces takes place in a newspaper sheet, where the written texts of notes, photographs, maps, diagrams, crosswords, advertisements, etc. introduce their autonomous and separate spaces. If their semiotic peculiarities are not taken into account, all these spaces can be considered as loci of a united space of this sheet-for in-

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stance, from the point of view of a typographer. However, if the same ty­ pographer starts to read the printed page, he will have to use various semi­ otic means for the interpretation of its diverse areas, as each of them will be opened as a separate space with its own laws of organization and ways of interpretation. Depending on the modus of view of this newspaper sheet, it will be opened either as a homogeneous printed page, or as a se­ miotically heterogeneous space divided into separate spaces with various ST -profiles and autonomy types. Unlike cases of neighbourship, where differently semiotized spaces remain separated and independent of each other, they can be closer tied in cases of inclusion and intersection. The relation of inclusion is realized if one semiotized space becomes a part of another semiotized space. If the same newspaper turns out in the space of a theatrical stage or a movie screen, its separated spaces are included in the context of a perfonnance with its own semiotized space and time. The included spaces continue to be semiotized by their own ways, and at the same time, they are involved in a new meaningful spatial and temporal situation, where they obtain some supplemental senses. The relations between the semiotized spaces become even more com­ plex in cases of their intersection. In these cases, both (or more) semi­ otized spaces have a common part, which may coincide with the expres­ sion or content planes of one of them. For example, relations between the space of an interior and spaces of mosaics or frescoes placed on its walls enter into relations of intersection, if they have common parts. So, the se­ miotized space of a wall painting is included in the architectural space by its plane of expression. A separate depicting space in this case becomes a part built into the space of the interior, although they can be semiotized by diverse codes, belong to different types of autonomy and have not-identical semio­ topological profiles. It is possible, if the decorative qualities of a paint­ ing-a rhythinical order of paints and lines, their scale, layout, etc.-have to be coordinated with the rhythins and scales of the architecturally ar­ ranged space and are saved independently of any pictorial meaning. The content plane in a wall painting is, as a rule, also not random and connect­ ed with the meaning of the room where it is placed, such as in a temple' s murals. However, the space depicted in the same murals, for example in medieval Catholic or Orthodox cathedrals, as a rule does not show a visual extension of the interior, and can be treated as transcendent in relation to the real architectural space. Thereby, a mural picture, included in the space of the interior by the depicting space in the expression plane of painting, is excluded from it by its depicted space in the plane of content Therefore,

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one can say that, i n such cases, the space of the interior and a combined space ofthe painting, consisting of depicted and depicting spaces, have the depicting space as a common part, where they intersect In another way, the relations between the depicted space of a mural and the architectural space of a room are formed in cases when the former is treated as an illusory continuation of the interior. This takes place in many cases of mural paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque, such as the walls and ceiling of the Bridal Chamber (Camera degli Sposi) in Man­ tua, painted by Andrea Mantegna, or the walls of the "Hall of Perspec­ tives" (Sala delle Prospettive) in the Villa Famesina (Rome), painted by Baldassarre Peruzzi (Figure 11.5. 1-3).

FigureII51-3. B Peruzzi. Sala delle prospettive.Villa Famesina, Rome. 1518--1519.

In such cases one can speak not only about the including of a depicting space in the space of the interior, but also about including of the space of the interior together with all its dwellers in the space depicted in the muraL Here, a real architectural space is presented as a part of a space, illusorily represented in the content plane ofthe depiction. Then, the intersections of serniotized spaces are realized together at two levels in both planes of ex­ pression and of content: on the one hand, the depicting space of a mural is included syntactically in the space ofthe interior, whereas the latter, on the other hand, is included semantically in the depicted space of the muraL

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Contrary to such an illusory continuation of the interior space in mu­ rals, the depicted space of a picture-albeit equally illusory, coming over a frame towards to a viewer and painted as a trompe 1 oeil---does not belong semantically to the interior space, where this picture hangs. Although theorists and practitioners of easel painting, since its appear­ ance in the XV century, have often compared the separate space of a pic­ ture with the space of a window or a mirror, which also cut a fragment of a non-bordered environment and enframe it, there is an essential difference between fhese spaces (cp. Eco, 1986). Both the real space behind a win­ dow and the virtual space "behind" a mirror remain connected with the space of a viewer and have a correlated order, scale and genetic ties with events of a present situation. Unlike them, the depicted space of an easel painting does not belong to the same space where the viewer stays, and represents to him another situation not connected with it either by ordinal relations, or by sizes, or by events. The depicted space has, as a rule, its own order system, often its own scale of measurement, and the events rep­ resented in the picture are independent of events behind it (as with a win­ dow) or in front of it (as with a mirror). A picture showing something ab­ sent behind or in front of it can represent the depicted as if it were present­ ed to a viewer. Nevertheless, it is quite separate, in the sense described above, and is not included in the space of the interior. Contrary to the space of an illusory mural (like those by A Mantegna, B. Peruzzi, etc.), the depicted space of an easel painting and similar flat depictions (draw­ ings, engravings, photos, etc.) does not intersect with the space of the inte­ rior, but is semantically separated from it. To separate the depicting space from the space of the viewer is some­ what more difficult It would seem that he could take the picture in his hands, hang it on one wall or another or roll it up. However, a material object in his hands is not coincident with the depicting space of a painting or a drawing as a semiotic formation. Unlike the physical object, and like the depicted space, the depicting space cannot be rolled up or be otherwise mechanically changed by its semiotic form. Either any changes of this form are syntactical transfonnations leading to changes in semantics, or they are just physical damage able to destroy the picture. Conversely, if the semiotic fonn of a picture as a spatial text is preserved, the depiction can be reproduced in other material carriers, like a reprcxluced written text. In this relation, the engravings reprinted in many copies of a book are not different from reprinted written texts in the same book Therefore, fhe de­ picting space of a picture, regardless of the technique of its realization, is separated, independent from the space of a viewer and from the space of the interior, where he is located. This dividing is a common property of '

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pictorial spaces, uniting them with other spaces of contemplation: moving pictures, theatrical performance, etc. Unlike the space of contemplation, which excludes the space of a viewer from itself, the spaces of instrumental or social actions intersect with the personal space of an acting human in one way or another. So, design creates the object forms that suppose definite ways of their inclu­ sion in the personal space of individuals. Their connection with any parts of a human body is regulated not only physically, but also semiotically: the donning of a military unifonn has another meaning to putting on a sports kit; a ring on one finger rather than on another means a marital sta­ tus, etc. Whereas small designed objects are included in the personal space of individuals, the latter in its turn is included in architecturally planned so­ cial space. Architecture and urban planning create a relatively stable divi­ sion of social space, where diverse places signify various social positions of the individuals who occupy them. An intersection of social and personal spaces becomes a marker even of a changeable social role of a person: a parishioner, a viewer, a cheerleader, a customer, etc. The cases of inclusion and intersection of differently semiotized spaces form a class of intensively heterogeneous hyperspaces that are unlike the class of extensively heterogeneous ones. If the latter are formed due to the joining of separated spaces entering in the relation of neighbourship, the former arise when the included or intersected homogeneous spaces are combined in the same locus of physical space. Depending on the ways of space semiotization, this locus can be treated in different ways and there­ fore contain autonomous spaces of different types. In particular, using the terms of 1.3.1 .5.2, one can say that the space of an H-text can be consid­ ered as intensively heterogeneous if there are several S-texts in it, either coordinating with or excluding each other. So, the space of the triumphal arch of Constantine in Figure 11.5.1-2 is intensively semiotized with help of the demarcation, architectonic, object-functional, social-symbolic and some other codes that collaborate in the creation of a united sense. 7.3. Functional Relations between Semiotized Spaces

The structural relations between differently semiotized spaces are cor­ related with thefunctional relations between them . In particular, unlike the neighbouring spaces independent from each other-as in the case of a newspaper sheet discussed above-one semi­ otized space can be functionally dependent on another, if the existence of one of them is a condition of the appearance of another. So in the same

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painting, the depicting space is the condition for the creation by a viewer of a perceptual image of the depicted space, which can be semiotized in its turn by some other codes regulating the interpretation of spatial relations between the depicted objects or persons. The depicted and depicting spac­ es have diverse "modes of existence", and the perceptual image of the de­ picted space depends on sensorial signals received from the painted sur­ face of the picture. Thereby, a visible space of the painted surface stimu­ lates a perception of another visible space "behind" it A canvas covered with paints begins to be perceived, paradoxically, not as an object in space, but as a space, in which there are other objects. Both depicting and depicted spaces are connected for the viewer even more closely than two sides of a piece of paper, which de Saussure fa­ mously compared with two planes of language (Saussure, 1977: 145). In­ deed, in the picture, the planes of expression and of content are situated literally on the same side, and they differ only due to the two ways of viewing---on this site or through it. The connections between a three­ dimensional depicted space and the two-dimensional depicting space are regulated by the means of the perceptographic code (see IDA and 11.6.3). It is obvious that the dependence of the depicted space on the depicting one entails their coordination with each other-as the depicted space ap­ pears as a result of a certain organization of the depicting space, the latter becomes able to do this because it is designed for the achievement of this result However, the depicting space has to be coordinated not only with the internal depicted space, but also with the external space of a viewer. Though both the pictorial spaces are separated from the personal space of the viewer, they have to be visible by definite conditions. These conditions are correlations of basic anthropomorphic coordinates in all these separate spaces. In a similar way, a multitude of separate spaces of pictures in a picture gallery can be confonned between each other due to the unification of this spatial basis. For the workers who hang the pictures on the walls of the gallery, each canvas can remain a piece of space of their object actions, which are also related to the same basic system of anthropomorphic coor­ dinates. So, all three spaces-the external space of an object's actions, where the canvases are moved; the space of the depicting surface, where the plane of expression develops; and the depicted space, created in the con­ tent plane of a perceptographic code-can, while keeping their differ­ ences be coordinated in the most literal sense, due to this common basis ' of anthropomorphic coordinates. The frame of a painting serves as the means of such coordination, inso­ far as it sets the vertical and horizontal axes of the anthropomorphic space

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either directly by its rectangular form or indirectly by its connections with these axes. It is also stratified correlatively into three levels: an external frame that can be moved together with some other pieces of furniture, a frame as a semiotic means of the demarcation code that indicates transit from the space of action to the space of contemplation in the picture, and an "internal frame" formed by the borders of the depicted objects and in­ dexing the limits ofthe represented space. Among the functional relations between the semiotized spaces, the re­ lation of representation is the most important for semiotic studies. One space can mimetically represent another one for a viewer, if it contains some elements and structures that, on the one hand, are different from the represented objects but, on the other, can evoke some notions and images about them. In this case, the representation is realized in the fonn of spa­ tial modelling (see below, 11.6.1).

Figure 11. 5 . 1 -4. David Teniers the Younger

Painting Gallery in Brussels.

The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in His

1 647-165 1 . Prado Museum, Madrid.

Diverse ways of such spatial modelling are used in various fields of human activity. There are, for example, geographic and astronomical maps

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in scientific knowledge, patterns, schemes and plans of projected construc­ tions in architectural or technical planning, and the representation of bod­ ies and their spatial relations in paintings, drawings and other graphic arts. Each of these ways of space representation develops its own conventions and semiotic norms, forming its own relations between the representing and represented spaces. So, the separate space of geographic maps pre­ serves ordinal and some metrical relations between the represented ob­ jects, but does not preserve their absolute size and reproduces them by a proportional shortening of the quantities in a definite scale according a cartographic system as a code. At the same time, the saving of a standard size of modelled objects is often obligatory for technical samples and pat­ terns. This demand is again not relevant for sculptures that model three­ dimensional objects. Moreover, the distances between the represented ob­ jects are not saved in the bas-reliefs creating their separate spaces due to a linear perspective as the means of the perceptographic code (starting, at least, from the times of Ghiberti and Donatello-see Figure 1.3.2-1) and giving these spaces the properties of a pictorial space fonned in paintings. Both sculptures and paintings represent spatial objects that can equally be or not be in the reality, and their ability to lie satisfies U. Eco' s criterion of semiotic means to lie about the represented. A represented space as well as some of its partial loci can itself repre­ sent any other spaces, such as in pictures where the depicted space is rep­ resenting a picture gallery with paintings: each of them represents any other space. This is, for example, in the series of paintings by David Ten­ iers the Younger: "The Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in His Painting Gal­ lery in Brussels", where a space of the gallery is represented as halls con­ taining many pictures with their own separate spaces (see Figure 11.5.1-4 and colour picture 13). The relation of representation can be doubled and multiplied in a picture, if a space represented in it itself represents another space. It is in these cases right to distinguish various degrees of represen­ tation (cp. "degrees of umeality" in Sandstrom, 1 963). The representation is also realized in such cases as a reproduction of the architectural form by other buildings in other places. So, commis­ sioned by Napoleon, Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine transferred the architectural forms of the triumphal arch of Constantine from Rome into the centre of Paris, changing its "decorum" to a message on his triumphant victories and adding a real ancient quadriga. This way of space semiotiza­ tion, together with similar architectural forms, had already been repeated and represented after the victory over Napoleon himself in St Petersburg (Russia) by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi in the triumphal arch built in 1 8 1 4 for the triumphant return of the victorious troops (see Figures 11.1.5-

282

II. S . 1 .

A&B ; see also the Triumphal Arch (completed 1 828) by Carlo Rossi in St. Petersburg in Figure 11.8.4-1).

S,

A

B

Figure II. S . 1-S, A&B. A. Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine. Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris. 1 806-1 808. B. Giacomo Quarenghi. Drawing of the triumphal arch in st. Petersburg. 1 8 1 4 .

Conclusion Thus, the concept of space can be interpreted in the frame of spatial semiotics as one of its key categories that differs from concepts of the same name in physics, mathematics or other disciplines. Semiotized space is an autonomous complex of spatial relations correlated with one or sev­ eral semiotic systems. It can be mono -systemic, if only one semiotic sys­ tem regulates the syntactic norms of organization of spatial texts in it and the semantic norms of their interpretations. It can be also poly-systemic, if several codes participate together in the creation of meaningful configura­ tions and their interpretations. The mono-systemic space is semiotically homogeneous, and has a clear semio-topological profile. The poly­ systemic space is heterogeneous and less defined, because diverse codes can determine various sets of semio-topological qualities in the texts regu­ lated by them. However, the space semiotized by several codes together can nevertheless remain separated from other spaces by its external bor­ ders and by internal ordinal, metrical and processual peculiarities. Semi­ otized spaces have, as a rule, a connection with axes of basic anthropo­ morphic coordinates. They can also interact with each other in a different way : in relations of dependence or independence, of coordination or discoordination, inclusion and intersection, simple, double or more com­ plex representation, etc.

11. 5 .2. FORM AS A CATEGORY OF SPATIAL SEMIOTICS

1. On the Category ofFonn Form is a polysemantic concept. As a philosophical category. it has at least two different meanings. In ancient philosophy it was treated by Plato and Aristotle as an ideal scheme, eidos, opposed to amorphous matter. In Gennan classical philosophy. G. Hegel"s "form" was understood as a way of expression opposed to expressed content. These kinds of approaches stayed alongside that of A Hildebrand (1893: 20), who distinguished the "fonn of being" (Daseinsform) and the "form of influence" on a viewer (Wirkungsform), considering the latter to be more important in spatial arts. The Platonic and Hegelian approaches to the category of form were in another way combined by 1 . Hjelmslev (2006 [1 943]), who defined sign function as a connection between/arm of expression and form of content opposed to substance of expression and content. Such a semiotic specification of the [onn concept remains essential for spatial semiotics focused on significant relations between spatial objects. It continues the change from the natural-philosophical research of space "as it exists" to cultural-philosophical studies of "what the space means" for a human, which was initiated by A Hildebrand (1 893) and noted by E. Cassirer (1985 [ 1 930]: 93). Not limited by the research of what diverse spatial objects mean, semiotic studies also explore how these objects are connected with their meanings in processes of serniosis, included in di­ verse spatial texts and regulated by specific spatial codes. Although the concept of fonn can be used in spatial semiotics in its general semiotic sense following Hjelmslev (as is discussed in Tschertov, 2003), this concept acquires a specific sense here. In spatial semiotics, "fonn" is revealed as a meaningful configuration of spatial elements taken in their qualitative and quantitative relations, whereby it is recognizable and distinguishable from other forms. As a qualitatively definite configuration, the fonn is a whole that has parts correlated with each other in a particular way; it is perceptible and conceivable as a system of internal relations between its structured ele-

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ments, which are able to maintain their internal connections, independent­ ly of changes of relations to external spatial objects. Due to this invariabil­ ity, the same form can be selected and reproduced in different substances of material objects and ideal images of diverse subjects in their communi­ cative acts according to the spatial code nonns. Its quantitative definiteness depends on the proportions of these parts. However, a pure spatial [onn does not have a definite size, because many objects of different sizes can have the same spatial form. So, only an em­ bodied form acquires its full sense and can be related to a human scale. As a meaningful configuration, a semiotically understood spatial form is always connected with a sense: it either itself represents another object or certain actions of a subject, or it is involved in such representations as a sense discernible unit. Such an obligatory connection of a spatial form with its meaning makes the category of spatial semiotics different from the categories of the same name in many other disciplines, where diverse spa­ tial forms are taken independently of this link. In contrast, a form in spatial semiotics is always considered in the perspective of one or several spatial codes, i.e. systems of norms regulating spatial semiotization: its structur­ ing and interpreting by definite rules (see above, 11.3). A spatial form can be included in semiotic systems and communicative acts in two ways. On the one hand, it can be a represented object belong­ ing to the content plane of a spatial code. On the other hand, it can be one of the representation means belonging to a semiotic system 's expression plane. As an element of the content plane, a spatial form is represented, for example, in figurative painting, but is excluded from the content plane in non-figurative arts. At the same time, a spatial form always acts as means of a spatial code's expression plane and thereby can be considered as a universal category of spatial semiotics.

2. Relations with Other Categories of Spatial Grammar As already said, "form" considered in spatial semiotics, does not coin­ cide with concepts having the same name either in a geometrical or in physical sense. A semiotically interpreted spatial form is a grammatical category of various spatial codes. Constant relations of fonn as a general category of spatial semiotics with its other categories can be the subject of spatial codes' "universal grammar". In this sense, the category of form is involved in relationships with other universals of spatial semiotics, such as body, place, border, lo­ cation, semiotized space, etc. Each of these notions belongs to the same group as the category of fonn considered in a spatial grammar system.

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What is more, in this system they are understood as semiotic concepts, rather than as notions of geometry, physics or any other disciplines. Con­ nections between the elements of this group are included in a conceptual framework of the spatial grammar and constitute its essential part. In particular, a significant body as a universal category of such a grammar is a perceptible and recognizable spatial object connected with reproducible schemes of formation and interpretation according to the norms of a spatial code. Depending on this code, these objects can be re­ lated to their meanings due to spatial forms, magnitudes, materials and other features. The spatial form is therefore only one of the factors giving a body its meaning in the content plane. Nevertheless, it is an essential element of the expression plane as at least a sense distinguishing index. Due to its form, a body is qualitatively different from some formless mass and from bodies having other fOnTIs. A particular form also enables a subject to distinguish this body as a separate object of perception and in­ terpretation. Quantitatively, a significant body has not only the proportions given by its form, but also a definite size, which is absent in a non­ embodied form. < . . . > (see above, 11. 1 . 1.2.3 and below, 11.5.3). A set of places where significant bodies can be located is a semiotized space, if relations between its spatial objects are subordinated to the nOnTIS of a spatial code. Such a space is autonomous as long as these nOnTIS es­ tablish a special law of its organization. It is also a separate space, if it is separated from other spaces arranging a special environment for the ob­ jects that stay or change inside, which includes arrangement in a particular order, a special scale of measurement and an internal connection of states independent of any external events (such as separate spaces of different chess games). A separate space can be considered as a locus of an embrac­ ing space, if it has definite borders and a definite spatial form as well (such as a format of a picture or a chessboard). A common feature for a space and a form is that both of them are composed of spatial relations. However, a spatial form is an exact configu­ ration of quite definite spatial relations, whereas a space is a set of places where these relations can be differently formed and where their diverse configurations can appear. Space does not exist outside spatial relation­ ships, but no spatial form exhausts the space.

3. Semiotic Functions of Fonns in Spatial Codes A significant spatial fOnTI can have varied semiotic functions depend­ ing on the ways it is interpreted by the norms of diverse codes in different cases. It can serve as a signal for a subject to act. For example, a barrier is

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a signal to stop or change the moving direction according to the norms of a demarcation code. Its spatial [onn is also an index that shows a meaning change of the spatial area located behind it Both of them are related to the situation where the form is presented. Each index refers to something con­ tiguous in space and time, and each signal is a stimulus for an action or a reaction of a subject to a presented situation. Such a joining of indexical and signal functions is a usual situation for many other codes. In particular, in the system of the object-functional code, an object's form can also have a signal function if, aside from indicating possible in­ strumental actions with a fonned object, it also evokes an impulse to use it as a tool in a presented situation. Both the indexical and signal functions of an object's form are two sides of the same coin, when it reflects particu­ lar features of a presented situation and causes a subject's reaction to them. However, a form can also serve as a conventional sign representing something far beyond this situation. It is not necessary to perfonn an in­ strumental action represented by an object's form to create a sign connec­ tion between this fonn and an interpreting scheme as its meaning. An oject's form repeatedly reproduced and embodied in the collective experi­ ence becomes a sign of its instrumental function for a subject who can recognize and interpret this form according to the established pattern of a purposeful action with the object (cf Barthes, 2000 [1964]: 267). If the mental scheme of instrumental action serves as a designatum (in the terms of Morris, 1971 [1938]: 19-21) of the object's form, this action itself be­ comes a denotatum of the same form. Such a denotatum may not neces­ sarily be present in diverse cases, while an object's form as the object­ functional code sign has its designatum always independent of the real usage of an object. When a form is interpreted with several semiotic systems used togeth­ er, it can also be treated as a polysemantic symbol. The object's form that denotes an instrumental function can at the same time connote particular social functions of the people using this object. In the latter case, the same form becomes a unit of a social-symbolic code connecting it with definite social functions of people acting with these objects. Thus, a military uni­ form denoting direct functions of clothing connotes at the same time a social role and the rank of the individual wearing it. An object's form can also serve as a mythological, religious or artistic symbol and express hu­ mans' views on themselves, on society or on the world structure. A spatial object form can also serve as a model of a different thing sim­ ilar to it to some extent. In particular, in the mythological mind, a vessel, a suit or a building can be interpreted as a model of the world, structured

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according to the scheme of the "world tree". Their axes, set by the opposi­ tions of "top-bottom", "left-right", "centre-periphery", etc., enable the modelling of many non-spatial structural relations (see Toporov, 2010). Some spatial forms can serve as spatial moods of time. A good exam­ ple of time representation through spatial forms is a clock in its diverse historical modes. It not only provides diverse ways to measure and index actual time, but its different forms (sundial, clepsydra, sandglass or me­ chanical) can also serve as symbols representing diverse periods of histor­ ical time and even diverse mythological and natural-philosophical ideas about it-for example, a sand clock can model an image of time by St Augustine (see Tchertov, 2014: 138-148).

4. Ways of Reception and Comprehension of Forms in Diverse Spatial Codes Each spatial code sets its own nonns that regulate ways of vision and comprehension of spatial configurations. The differentiation of spatial codes is connected with distinctions between these ways. The vision of spatial fonns can be perfonned on diverse psychic levels. A fonn can be fixed on the sensorial level in a person's visual field as a configuration of coloured spots and boundaries in between them, correlat­ ed to an internal scheme of the subject's body. A form can also be repro­ duced on the perceptual level as an ideal model of an external object sepa­ rated from and opposed to a human's body. A form can also be represent­ ed on apperceptual level of vision without any external stimulation as a scheme of a recognizable and imaginable spatial object Each of these ways of vision can serve as a basis for the expression plane in various spa­ tial codes. In particular, unlike the object-jUnctional code, where the expression plane is built by perceptual images of recognizable objects, synesthetic codes have a lower, sensorial level as the basis of the expression plane (for example, when interpreting visible angular forms through tactile images: "prickly", "rough", etc.). Conversely, in the social-symbolic code, the basis of the expression plane is located on the higher, apperceptual level, where an object is recognized. On the other hand, spatial forms can be comprehended differently by a human as by a subject whose activity has diverse modes. Not only logical concepts and verbalized notions, but also some elements of "infralogical" (in the terms used by Piaget & Inhelder 1963 [1 959]) levels of mental ac­ tivity-perception or planes of actions-can become the meanings of spa­ tial forms. For example, the perceptographic code, on the basis of the

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same sensorial level in its expression plane, provides the means to create in its content plane a shifted perception of objects absent on this surface, as if they are behind it (see in more detail above, 11.3.4). Together with their comprehension in the cognitive modus of visible spatial forms' interpretation, they can be interpreted in projective and val­ uative aspects. Interpreted in the projective modus, visible spatial forms are included in the dynamic codes connecting these forms with images of moving formed on diverse psychic levels. Thus, the architectonic code connects spatial forms placed into the anthropomorphic space with definite kines­ thetic feelings ofrnechanical forces acting there. Means of the architecton­ ic code enable visible spatial [OnTIS to express mechanical forces through the signs of previous impacts through the indexes of functioning in the present (for example, as support or as weight) or through symptoms of possible future changes (for example, indexes of stability or instability). Another dynamic interpretation level in the projective way of compre­ hension is connected with spatial forms by the means of the object­ functional code described above. As has been said, this code connects arte­ fact forms with the type of meanings that contains particular instrumental action patterns elaborated in culture and mastered by individuals. Spatial fOnTIS interpreted in the valuative aspect can also have affective meanings (cf the concept of "emotive meaning" by Ogden & Richards, 1 923). This way of interpretation is typical for the mimic code that con­ nects particular relations between parts of a face in the expression plane to diverse emotional states in the content plane (for example, different forms of the mouth in antique masks for tragedy and comedy). In a similar way, on the same signal-indexical level of semiosis, the haptic code connects such affective reactions to particular kinds of touches of diverse body parts between different people, e.g. a kiss, a stroke, a slap, etc. (see Kreidlin, 2002). Thus, various ways of vision combined with diverse ways of compre­ hension result in diverse structuring and interpreting modes of spatial forms.

5. Morphology, Morphogenetics and Syntax in Spatial Codes It is clear from the above said that diverse spatial codes introduce their "semiotic form" differently in norms of forming and interpreting spatial configurations. They set their own norms of selecting significant spatial forms in the expression plane and their connections with meanings in the

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plane of content. Therefore, the same object can be viewed and interpreted by the means of several spatial codes and its diverse parts can be different­ ly singled out as bearers of meaning. For example, a spatial form of a cup can be structured and compre­ hended by means of different spatial codes. The system of architectonic code enables one to visually single out particular "supporting" and "sup­ ported" parts in it. The semiotic means of the object-functional code ena­ bles one to interpret it as a liquid container and a vessel for drinking. At the same time, this cup can be interpreted by the semiotic means of the social-syrn bolic code as a prize to be awarded to champions. Such a wide range of ways to interpret diverse elements of a complex spatial construc­ tion is typical not only for applied arts or architecture, but for pieces of other kinds of art as well. If the same spatial object can be differently divided by diverse codes, different meaningful units are singled out after each segmentation of this kind. Each code provides a meaningful form with its own units that can be studied in morphology as a special part of its spatial grammar This part in a spatial code's grammar system should contain a doctrine of a meaningful form together with its structural and functional characteristics in the ex­ pression plane. Though it is doubtful that this notion can be applied to linguistics (Saussure, 1977 [1916] : 167-168; Hjelinslev, 2006: 51), it is more appropriate for spatial semiotics which preserves an object-spatial dualism typical for a visual perception of the world and differentiates in­ ternal relations between parts of a form from external relations between the whole forms. The wide notion of morphology, referred by J W. Goe­ the to various objects of live nature (1957 [ 1 8 17]: 1 04f), is applicable to meaningful spatial forms deliberately created by a human. Forms of artefacts are selected in cultural evolution just as organic forms are selected in that of nature. However, unlike natural forms, the forms of artefacts are created by a human as ideas that are culturally se­ lected, deliberately embodied into material obj ects and assimilated by oth­ er people as reproducible schemes. Historical changes of these meaningful forms can be studied by "morphogenetics". The latter is understood here as a part of a "historical grammar" typical for a certain spatial code deal­ ing with diachronic changes in artificially created forms regulated by this code. Although the category of significant spatial form is universal for di­ verse codes, each of these codes has its own morphology and a definite complex of meaningful forms called morphemes. We shall call mor­ phemes the morphological units of a spatial code, further division of which does not produce any other meaningful units in this code system (for ex-

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ample, the neck of a vessel). These morphemes can be combined into more complex morphological constructions (for example, a whole vessel). Thus, in the field of the object-functional code, one can speak about the mor­ phemes combining with each other differently in diverse morphological constructions in whole forms of things (cf. Semper, 1 863 : § § 99- 1 13). Morphemes and morphological constructions are the units of a semiot­ ic system and the parts of correlated spatial texts, rather than physical ob­ jects. Shards of a broken jug are not the morphemes which its form disin­ tegrates into, although its discarded handle can still be recognized by the means of the obj ect-functional code, if an appropriate scheme is applicable to it.

c

Figure II . 5 .2-1 . Form-shaping morphemes and their combinations in the object­ functional code. A. 1-5. Morphemes, shaping the forms of vessels (a jug, a teapot, etc.). B . Expressed articulation and, conversely, fusion of the morphemes of the jug in different versions of the obj ect-functional code.

c. Set of obj ect forms composed of the morphemes of an obj ect-functional code.

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As a semiotic unit, fOnTI is only a scheme used to select the elements necessary for the sense expression. This scheme can be embodied in vari­ ous copies that can be identified since they reveal common features, such as the same letter, cup, table, etc. Therefore, the same object's form, for example, that of a ladle, can be recognized regardless of its usability, as it is in a drawing where it cannot be picked up from, or in the configuration of seven stars in the constellation of the Little Bear that is certainly impos­ sible to be used as a tool of object action. Together with its morphology, the grammar of spatial codes also has quite a developed syntax, regarding relations between significant units of the expression plane. Unlike morphology, spatial syntax deals with rela­ tions between meaningful forms and places, i.e. with locations of fOnTIS in spatial texts. In particular, in the same object-functional code, the syntax field includes significant relations between the forms of things as well as their relations with an acting subject. The relations between morphology and syntax, which are quite im­ portant parts of spatial grammar, can vary in their dependence on a code. Morphology is the most important grammar part in the system of the ob­ ject-functional code. In the system of the social-symbolic code, it shares its importance with syntax. It is less essential for the semiotic system of the architectonic code, and it completely gives its place to syntax in the system of the perceptographic code. Thus, various ways of vision combined with diverse forms of compre­ hension provide plenty of modes to structure and interpret spatial fOnTIs. This diversity is even more varied in art, where many spatial codes are used together, creating heterogeneous spaces with polysemantic forms, and where the semiotization of space and time can be correlated with other semiotic systems.

11. 5 . 3 . PLACE AND FORM IN SPATIAL GRAMMAR

1. Meaningful Place and its Species Meaningful place is one of the specific categories of spatial semiotics. Although spatial objects can literally take place anywhere. not any being at a place becomes meaningful and influential on the fonnation and ex­ pression of senses. A place is a meaningful object, if it is included in a spatial text as its unit that is regulated by one or by a complex of spatial codes. Such a meaningful place can be considered as part of a serniotized space and differ from non-semiotized places that have only physical, not semiotic, existence. It can be also counterposed to places with other mean­ mgs. As in the case of a meaningful form, a connection of the meaningful place with a sense can be twofold. It can be direct signification fixed in the system of a code. For example, a throne or an honourable pedestal for champions are places that give the person who occupies them a certain meaning. The connection of a place with a meaning can be also indirect, influencing only its choice. For example, the horizontal line in the letter L is put in a different place than in the letter T and therefore influences the choice of one or other phoneme as a meaning of a given grapheme. The polysemantic word "place" can be applied to different objects. There is a difference between ordinal and extended places. The concept of ordinal place is only qualitatively related to a bundle of external relations of a certain spatial object, without taking its size and volume into account. Contrariwise, the concept of extended place is useful in cases when the quantitative features are taken into account, and a limited part of the space is meant. Extended places can be open or closed. The open places have a certain centre and a related periphery that is not limited. On the contrary, the closed places have definite borders that can be permeable or not per­ meable, but in any case form certain limits of the place. Correspondingly, there are reasons to differ kinds of place as diverse grammatical categories: entering, surroundings and locus.

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The entering (the entry point) in this system of terms is a grammatical category corresponding to the concept of an ordinal position. The place in this case is considered not as a quantity, but as a certain node in the net­ work of its external spatial relations, and with which a certain meaning is associated. Interpreted as a point, it is a place conceived without any inter­ nal quantitative characteristics. A place treated as an entry point can be a chair in the stalls of a theatre, an area in a city, the city itself in a country or a whole planet in outer space. Another category is surroundings, which define place alternatively. The latter is, however, in this case already not only qualitatively but also quantitatively part of the space that adjoins a certain centre more or less closely. Such a centre can be indicated by a bonfire in the forest, a banner on a battlefield, a temple on a hill, etc. At the same time, this extended place does not have definite external borders and is grouped only through relations to this centre. If an extended place has a certain external border, it already belongs to another category, which will be called by the term locus. While a point is a place formed by a bundle of relations that intersect in it, the locus is the place formed by the boundaries separating it from other places as a seg­ ment of a larger space. Like the surroundings, the locus is a place where other places-individual points or smaller loci-can be located. Any of its parts can be considered as a locus too, if it is also an extended space with defined external borders. The difference between a locus and a point (entering) is not ontologi­ cal, but purely grammatical. This is a difference between two ways of be­ ing included in a grammatical construction. One of these ways supposes taking into account only the external relations of a place to other ones. The other way allows some internal division of a larger stretch into partially extended places. Therefore, the same spatial object can be treated both as a point and as a locus, depending on the grammatical construction. One and the same city, for example, can be represented on the map of a country as a dot, without internal divisions, and on another map as a locus with com­ plex internal divisions into separate districts, streets, squares and other objects, each of which can also be viewed as a significant place.

2. Mutual Relations between Place and Form Categories Under some conditions, a spatial form and a delineated place (locus) tum out to be mutually reversible categories. A form can be considered as a place or a set of places. Every spatial form and morphological construc­ tion retains an identity and difference from other forms insofar as their

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parts remain in their places and do not change a configuration of their rela­ tions. Forms have not only such structural connections with places, but they can also functionally serve as certain places. The shape of a bench indicates a place for sitting, which is different from a bed as a place for lying, or from the stairs as a place for movement up and down. On the other hand, the place taken within its borders reveals a special form (for example, the outline of a country on its state emblem, interpreted as a rec­ ognizable form). The reciprocal changes of "figure" and "background", well known in the psychology of perception, also demonstrate a mutual reversibility of form and place. An unfilled locus can itself be interpreted as a figure, and what was considered as a figure before, in a new way of vision will turn out to be a background. This reciprocity of form and of place (treated as locus) remains even when the place is interpreted, according to Aristotle, as tapas: "the border of the encompassing body" (Aristotle, 1981a: 1 26). In this case, the place also turns out to be the reverse side of the [onn and can itself be consid­ ered as some kind of "anti-form", which to the original [onn is in the rela­ tion of "anti-symmetry" (cf Shubnikov, 1951). In the professional jargon of modellers, the form is precisely the "enveloping body" in which the place for the cast figure is left and which has exactly the same boundaries as this figure. A place can be thought of as "separable" from the forms filling it and accessible to other embodied [OnTIS, if a preservation of its external rela­ tions with other places is taken into account, and it is represented as a "non-shifting vessel" (Aristotle, 1981a: 132). But, a moving body can be thought as a "portable place", as is the case with the same example of a vessel, if its spatial form is considered as a place for fluid. A place can also be conceived as absolutely rigidly connected with the body, because the body is always in a certain place and therefore, like its form, the body always "carries" its place with itself (on this paradox of Zeno, see Hegel, 1993 283). Thus, the difference of a spatial form and a place (locus) is relative and connected with the difference in the methods of selecting the correspond­ ing objects, to which the meaning is assigned in the system of a particular spatial code. One and the same spatial object can be treated both as a form and as a place, depending on the mode of its vision and comprehension. Just as the distinction between a figure and a background depends on the mode of vision, so the interpretation of some part of the space as a form or place depends on the method of semiotization. For example, a page of a pocketbook can be interpreted as a recognizable form that itself

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takes some place among other pages or forms of other objects and, at the same time, be treated as a place within which some records can be made. In the same way, a chair in the stalls of a theatre is a recognizable form which is endowed with the function of "place" in relation to other chairs; a picture frame is an object located among other objects in the interior and at the same time the place within which the image is located, etc. Like the difference between the varieties of place, the distinction be­ tween form and place is not ontological, but grammatical. It is connected­ with the mode of inclusion of a spatial object in a semiotic construction­ as a separate object, presented for distinguishing, recognizing and reveal­ ing its meaning or as spatial conditions characterizing the circumstances of this presentation. This is a difference in the categories of spatial grammar. In the case of "fonn", a certain configuration of parts is essential, and their relations to the external arrangement are irrelevant. In contrast, the catego­ ry "place" focuses on the way of entering into the network of external spa­ tial relations. In the first case, the question what is presented is appropri­ ate, whereas in the second case, the relevant question is where is this presentation happening.

3. Meaningful Connections of Places and of Forms In the organization of meaningful relationships between fonns and places, their functions can be distributed in a different way. In particular, whereas the dominant units of one type have a certain context-independent meaning, the units of the other can serve as sense-distinguishing indexes. Both these cases are possible in interactions of meaningful forms and places in syntactic constructions using them as units. There are two types of connections between them: the formation of places and the placement offorms. The formation ofplaces is an organization of a point, surroundings or a locus, which influences their meanings due to some meaningful forms. A place formed in one way acquires a different meaning compared with a place arranged in another way. A place for cultic actions is made different­ ly to a place for commerce; a place for court hearings is formed in another way to a place for sports games, etc. Accordingly, the spatial design of a temple or a market square, a court building or a playground expresses the different functions of these places through the differences in architectural forms, by which these places are fixed and separated from each other. On a different scale, but according to the same grammatical principle, a judge's chair is formed differently to a dock's bench, a throne differently to an armchair in the boudoir, etc. Applied ar� design, architecture, and

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urban planning are to a large extent aimed at the formation of places, al­ lowing them to connect with certain values. Forms can distinguish one place from another as separately existing indices, signs and symbols. Functions of indexes are given, for example, to house numbers or numbers in a wardrobe. Inscriptions, emblems, flags and the like mark a significant place with the help of meaningful forms of di­ verse signs. These signs also function as symbols (in the above sense, see 1 . 3 . 1 .3.4), if their connotative meanings are also taken into account. Distinctions of meaningful places between each other are manifested by the diversity of their semiotic means. Among these means, there are some borders indicating these places and separating them from significant or insignificant places of the environment (for example, a picture frame, a pedestal of a statue, a box of a television set, etc.). Other semiotic means used in this function can be peculiarities of its design, colouring, etc. Like a meaningful form, a meaningful place, as a rule, is very regular. As a significant place, there may be such different spatial objects as, for example, an aligned platform, a smooth sheet of paper, a picture frame, a shop window, a theatrical scene, a TV screen, etc. All of them share a common ground-places intended for the demonstration of some signifi­ cant moving or static forms (things, people, their images, records, etc.). Their functional likeness is expressed in their structural similarity: the presence of the border of a regular form, and an internal organization with the participation of significant relations between the top and bottom, left and right, front and rear, centre and periphery. Meaningful places with such structural and functional features are called a "regular field" by some theorists (see Schapiro, 1994 [1968]; Daniel, 1979; 1990). This structure is most clearly expressed by the means of rectangular borders of a given place, serving as its markers. Often, places with other external outlines (for example, an oval) in their internal structure remain correlated with the vertical and horizontal axes. It is characteristic that the distinction between "vertical" and "horizontal" directions has a conditional character and is associated with the grammatical values of the axes and the boundaries of the site, and not with their actual orientation in the space of objective action. A picture can hang "crooked" or lie flat, but maintain the difference between its vertical and horizontal axes. Like meaningful formations of places, a reciprocal way-a meaningful placement offorms-also serves as a method of creating a syntactic con­ struction in spatial semiosis. Depending on the place, the same form re­ ceives different meanings. A sculpture of a person placed in a city square becomes a monument signifying a high social valuation of the person. The same sculpture in a cemetery marks a burial place of this person, and in an

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art museum, it presupposes a valuation of the artist's work, perhaps even irrespective of the represented person. Therefore, it is also possible that a form and a place already endowed with a meaning correspond with each other in such a way that their con­ nection gives them a new meaning, which they did not have separately. In this case, both types of significant spatial elements enter into a relationship that can be fixed by such a grammatical category as a location. Location, in this sense, is a meaningful relationship of form to place, i.e. such a rela­ tionship between them which gives their combination a new meaning that is absent from each of them separately. In spatial texts, a meaning can be given not only by the filled places, but also by the places that remain or become empty-if they are related to certain forms that could occupy them, but are absent there. Such a mean­ ingful absence at a certain place can be seen, for example, in the cases of a significant removal from the pedestal of some former monument. Such "gaps" differ from simply unfilled spaces, in that their connection with the absent forms is meant We will call such significantly empty places lacu­ nae and treat them as a reverse case to location-as a "negative" connec­ tion between a place and a form. Both "positive" and "negative" connections between significant forms and places relate to the field of spatial syntactics. If the meaningful form and place are the elements of significant spatial constructions, then the location and lacuna derived from their juxtaposition, are already the sim­ plest types of syntactic constructions-the syntagmas of spatial texts.

4. Disposition and Distribution In more complex cases, when a number of forms and places enter into a complex of meaningful relations and line up into a multi-element syntac­ tic construction, there are two different ways for the meaningful placement of forms. In the first case, the meanings depend on the mutual relations of the forms in their configurations. We will call this type of syntactic rela­ tion the disposition of fOnTIs, understanding it as a complex of the mean­ ingful relations between some variable units from a set of forms. A well­ known example of this way of meaningful placement is alphabetic writing. Here, the letters are a set of fOnTIs, which are able to construct various texts depending on their mutual relations to each other and independent of their placement in relations to other things. One more example is given by a chess game: a direct contact of a pawn with the opponent's figure locat­ ed diagonally in front of it on the nearest cell threatens to take this piece, regardless of the chessboard part on which they are placed.

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Another type of placement is fhe meaningful relation of forms to plac­ es when these places influence the form's meanings. For example, in the same chess game, a pawn reaching the last horizontal can turn into a queen, independent of its relations to other chess pieces, only depending on its location regarding fhe chessboard. The latter contains a set of differ­ ent places-64 cells-and the relations of chessmen to them belong to another type of syntactic construction than their relations to each other. We will call this type of syntactic relation fhe distribution of forms, bear­ ing in mind their meaningful allocation regarding a relatively stable set of places-whether fhese are the cells of a chessboard, a sports league's standings or something similar. Thus, in cases of disposition, the place of a form in a grammatical con­ struction can be entirely determined by its relation to other forms, and out­ side these relations could not exist (for example, the place of a letter in a word written on the sand). In cases of distribution, a place enters into some predefined set of relations with other places, and it can have a stable mean­ ing, regardless of the forms occupying it (for example, a tribune saves its meaning as the place for any speaker, irrespective of any of them personal­ ly). The places can also remain semantically neutral to the forms occupy­ ing them and participate only in fonning a syntactic construction with them (such as wifh most of the chessboard cells in relation to most figures on them, or fhe cells of a crossword that shall be filled by some letters). Both of these ways of forming syntactic constructions-disposition and distribution-can be used separately or in connection with each other. This depends on the spatial code regulating their relations.

5. Place and Form in Semiotic Systems The dependence of the category "place" and its relationships with the category "fonn" concerns various aspects. Like the category "fonn", the category "place" can be attributed to the units of a significant spatial con­ struction, related to different levels of its organization. As has been said, the meaning of the configuration of the sense-distinguishing elements de­ pends not only on their combination, but also on the mutual relations in the entire form (for example, the place of the arc in the letters p and b). The meaning of a morphological construction depends on the place of a spatial morpheme among other morphemes (for example, in the system of the object-functional code, the places of the hollow cone on fhe top or bot­ tom of the vessel influence the interpretation of a form-see Figure II.S.2I). The meaning of a syntactic construction depends on the place of a morpheme in the syntagma (for example, in the same object-functional

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code, an open or a closed vessel lid gives different meanings to the syntac­ tic construction). The meaning of a whole text depends on its location (for example, a name in an address book or on a tombstone). Therefore, one can differentiate: (1) the place of a sense-discriminative element in a spatial morpheme; (2) the place of such a morpheme in a morphological or (3) syntactic construction; and (4) the place of a text in a semiotized space. These are the meaningful elements of diverse types be­ longing to different grammatical levels of various spatial codes and per­ forming diverse semiotic functions. Variations of these functions in spatial constructions of different types are even larger, if one is to take into account that they can participate in semiotic processes of diverse levels and perfonTI functions of signals, of indexes, of conventional signs or of polysemantic symbols. In these cases, diverse ways of place semiotization differ If places are formed not by single semeions (signals, indexes, signs, symbols) but by complex syntac­ tic constructions, they can differ also as texts of diverse types: L-text, S­ text, R-text or H-text (see above, 1.3.1 .5.2). A place can function also as a separate semiotized space. Depending on the codes applied for its semioti­ zation, it can be mono- or poly-semiotized space. Depending on the code, the placement of forms can perform diverse functions. As discussed above, the social-symbolic code gives possibilities to construct analogues of verbal sentences due to the combinations of form and places (see above, 11.3. 1 . 4). The place can serve in such constructions as a predicate of the proposition (a ring on a finger, a flag over a building, a monument on a square, etc.). Another situation regards the case of the architectonic code, where the change of a placement can influence a change of the meaning, but not the grammatical function. For example, one and the same square plate can be interpreted in the system of this code as a carried weight at the top of a column (its abacus) and as a carrying part at its bottom (its basis). Rudolf Arnheim (1974: 10-12, 1 8-19) describes the interesting exam­ ple of the displacements of disks in a square, where various places as­ signed them diverse dynamic meanings: more or less stability. Using the terms of this paper, one can say that in these cases, different syntactic con­ structions created by the indexical means of the architectonic code depend both on the distribution of the forms (discs) regarding the borders of the square and on the disposition of these fOnTIS in relation to each other. Similar syntactic constructions can also be built in paintings, where the displacement of the depicted figures' regarding of the frame influences their meaning (see, for example, colour picture 16).

11. 5 .4. BORDERS AS A CATEGORY

OF SPATIAL GRAMMAR

Borders are one of the key concepts of spatial semiotics. A special de­ marcation code is developed in various versions for the indication of mul­ tiform borders in diverse spheres of culture (see above. 11.3.4). In this code, the borders are elements of its content plane. However, the category of borders is no less important for other spatial codes, where they are in­ cluded in the plane of expression, and its concept correlates with other categories of their grammars. With all the particularities of each of these codes. the borders have some general features everywhere that allow them also to be considered in the frame of the universal spatial grammar. On the way to a semiotic understanding of a spatial boundary. we will proceed from the "naive" common understanding of a border as a place where one thing ends and something else begins. It therefore follows that: (1) the border is a certain place; (2) at this place there is a separation of one from the other of them; (3) the border is adjacent to both; (4) it is lo­ cated between them ; and (5) both. adjacent to the same boundary, are ad­ jacent to each other. It is true that, with regard to the last point, there are possible variants: in the first case, "that" and "the other" directly touch each other's borders, in the second case they corne into contact with a common border that does not belong to either the "one" or the "other". These options are associated with the difference between the functions of limitation and delimitation (see Rodoman, 1999: 28). In the case of limitation, the boundaries separate a certain spatial object (body, territory) from all of its surroundings; in the case of delimitation, they divide it into parts-zones, regions, etc. The borders separating the obj ect from the enviromuent belong to the object, not to the enviromuent, such as a lemon peel, the body of a car, a wall of a house, etc. If the objects move, then the boundaries that belong to them move with them. Understanding the boundary as a part of the object limited by it can extend to immovable territories; for example, the sea­ shore is a part of the land and is conceivable also as its border. In this

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sense, one can "serve on the border" on diverse sides of the dividing line, being on the territory of one or the other of the neighbouring states. Lan­ guage consciousness in such expressions fixes the notion of the border as the edge of the territory, the place beyond which it ends. In neighbouring states, these places are different and do not coincide not only with each other, but also with the border strip that lies between these territories and does not belong to either one. Such a strip is an example of a different interpretation of the concept of a boundary as a spatial object that lies between other objects and divides them. Such cases refer already to the type of such boundaries that do not belong to the objects that are delimited with their help; these are "zones of no-one-from-two ownership" (Kagansky, 200 1 : 534). In any case, the boundary is a special spatial object, which has a certain length, shape and location. Although a boundary is always connected with a certain place, "where one ends and the other begins", it can be marked not only by a fixed locus, but also by a body located at that place, or by a "quasi-object" part of the body-surface, contour or point What exactly "one" and "the other" are can be clarified in various ways, in particular, in the categories of spatial semiotics. In these catego­ ries one can speak about the boundaries of significant bodies, significant places (loci) or separate semiotized spaces with other bodies, places or spaces. Then the boundary, already a category of spatial semiotics, can be defined as the place of change in the meanings of contiguous bodies or places in a semiotized space, or the place of change in the entire strncture of the significant spatial relations characterizing a given separate space. It is not every spatial border that performs semiotic functions. It can be, for example, the natural boundary of a geological formation or a body-like, say, a nut shell. Similarly, artefacts that satisfy the notion of a spatial border do not always enter into a network of semiotic links and can remain only a material-energy barrier for physical movement beyond them, such as a darn. Taken as elements of the expression plane of spatial texts, borders can be considered as both something that limits significant bodies and places, defining their forms, and that divides meaningful constructions formed from them. In the grammar of spatial codes, this distinction corresponds to the morphological and syntactic aspects of the semiotics of borders. In the framework of the morphology of spatial codes, the category of the border is considered in relation to the fOnTIS of significant bodies and places (loci). The border of a significant body is a surface that delineates its shape and has a certain size, shape and configuration of parts. This sur­ face can be an external or internal part of the body shape (like a house or a

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vessel). Both can be regarded as the place where the body ends and some­ thing else begins-another body, place or a separate space. Since the surfaces that demarcate the body differ from each other, one can speak about the borders of the body in the plural. The grounds for dif­ ferentiating surfaces as body borders can be differences in their location, distance or boundaries between them. Thus, the faces of a cube, delimited by the ribs and deployed in different directions, fonn its borders. It is more difficult to distinguish borders on the continuous surface of a ball, but poles and equator can be distinguished there also as different parts of its boundaries. If this surface is delineated, say, as a globe, the borders ap­ plied to it will no longer separate the body of the globe from other bodies, but divide the significant places on its surface. Obviously, a significant place can have its borders as well. It is legiti­ mate to speak of the borders of a place only with respect to a locus, stable or mobile ("shell"), since neither the ordinal location (occurrence) nor the surroundings have any borders, by definition. If the locus is a place with a finite extension, then its borders will be the limits of this extent, beyond which nothing can be placed in it They can coincide with the inner bor­ ders of the body enclosing it, as in the case of shells, or are formed by the bodies adjacent to it and the surfaces that limit them. With this under­ standing of the border, it is no longer identified with the edges of the lo­ cus, which remain its parts, but is regarded as a part of some other body that is contiguous with the given locus. In this way, the borders of the lo­ cus differ from the boundary of the body, which always belongs to it and moves along with it. The spatial forms of both body and locus are coincident with the con­ figuration of their borders. Nevertheless, the categories of "form" and "border" are not identical. Between them, there are qualitative differences, even if they quantitatively coincide in the spatial objects. Borders are something that is always between something and something else, they al­ ways separate or divide (and therefore, at least negatively, link) some dif­ ferent formations. The form (understood as a spatial figure) is a certain configuration of spatial relations in their definite quality and quantity, a totality of the relationships of the spatial parts with each other and with the whole. The form is not related directly either with what it limits, or with that/rom which it limits. It can be introduced into a certain substance and be extracted from it (for example, in a picture or a sculpture)-unlike the borders that cannot be separated from a certain substance. The border is always connected with definite substrates, which are limited or divided by it At the same time, a fonn (a square, a circle, an octahedron, etc.) is al­ ways identical to itself, independent of the borders of certain objects of a

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given form. In contrast, the borders of different things, even if they have one and the same form, are always different. Therefore, the enveloping and enveloped bodies can have a common form and at the same time dif­ ferent borders, as is the case with sculpture casting. If the borders of an individual body or place remain the subject of spa­ tial morphology, then the borders between the bodies are already a catego­ ry of spatial syntactics. It fixes not the forms of individual carriers of meanings, but their relationships in some significant spatial construction. Significant bodies and places come into relationships regulated by code and as a result form syntactic constructions of spatial texts. In these syntactic constructions, such a division becomes significant if the internal borders between their parts turn out the elements independent from them. This is true if the bodies are such parts, as in the cases of seams, cracks, ditches, etc. It is right also when some neighbouring signif­ icant loci are divided by all kinds of walls, barriers and other significant bodies created as borders between diverse areas of space-from the layout of rooms in a large building to the separation of compartments in a purse. The layout of a city, breakdown of parks and gardens, marking of play­ grounds, etc. are in the same row, where the borders are not bodies, but significant places-for example, avenues and streets dividing the micro districts in a city. In a similar way, borders are fonned between separate spaces of differ­ ent kinds: between spaces of actions and contemplation (a picture), be­ tween different spaces of contemplation (diverse pictures), or between playing spaces (neighbouring chess boards). They are formed by bodies (for example, a frame for a picture or a mirror) or by some graphical in­ dexes (for example, the contours of a drawing or lines that delineate a playing field). The borders of a separate space can be called a "frame", understood in a wide semiotic sense-as a body or place, indicating a transition from one separate space to another. These are not only the frames of paintings, but also the framework of all sorts of other semiotized spaces, including sepa­ rate spaces of schemes, tables, maps, and so on.

II. 5 . 5 . ON SEMIOLOGY OF COLOURS

1. On the Subject of Colour Semiology The world of colour has a complex structure. One can speak about col­ our from the viewpoint of physics, physiology, psychology, culturology, aesthetics, art history, etc. To the extent that colour turns out to be the ob­ ject of interpretation and correlates with the meaning, one can speak of colour hermeneutics. If the interpretation is based on some system of norms, according to which colours are associated with certain meanings, these norms become the subject of colour semiotics. Unlike hermeneutics, semiotics is aimed at generalization, that is, not at isolated cases of inter­ pretation but at the discovery of common nonns and ways to express ' meanings in different cases. At the same time, within the framework of semiotics, there are grounds for distinguishing between serniographical and semiological levels of se­ miotic knowledge. At the semiographical level, the norms of a particular system of semiotic means are declared or described. At the semiological level, the methods for the fonnation of these means in different semiotic systems are elucidated, and the principles of their formation are compared (see above, 1. 1 . 1). The distinction between semiography and semiology is also reasonable within the framework of colour semiotics. At the level of semiography, the meanings of colours in a particular semiotic system are fixed. The semiol­ ogy of colour is no longer interested in what a particular colour means in a separate semiotic system. It studies how colours can become bearers of meanings, how different colour codes are arranged, and how various visu­ al texts can be created with their help. This message relates to the field of colour semiology. The main part of colour semiology is included in the sphere of visual semiotics that deals with the bearers of meanings presented to the eye. The main subject of this part is visible colour as a phenomenon open to the human's vision and interpreted in accordance with certain nonns.

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In addition to visible colour, semiology can also be interested in con­ ceivable colour reflected as a visual idea or an abstract concept with the help of verbal language. In these cases the bearers of meaning are verbal designations or descriptions of the visible colour that is displaced to the content plane and can be implied to a greater or lesser degree. For exam­ ple, different political movements such as "white", "red" or "green", as a rule, do not assume the construction of too direct colour images. The col­ our code here turns out to be a "secondary" semiotic system, built on ver­ bal language and dependent on its application, since its signifiers appear only as signified verbal expressions, and their visual character can be re­ duced. In situations when the bearer of meanings is a visible colour, both cases are possible. Colour code may depend on verbal conventions (for example, the colour of state flags) or it may not In the latter case, it can be considered as a "primary" semiotic system (for example, with synesthetic colour connections with heat or cold).

2. On the Differences in Colour Codes and their "Psychic Substance" As it is clear from the foregoing, even if one confines themselves only to the area of visible colour as a bearer of meanings, it is still possible to speak of various colour codes. In different cultures, historical epochs and spheres of activity, different colour codes develop. For example, colour codes of medieval heraldry, of the modem national flag system or colours of sports clubs do not coincide, even if genetic connections are traced be­ tween them. In these codes, the meanings of the individual colours, the composition of the significant elements, the rules of their disposition and the fields of their application will be different Therefore, colour codes can differ in the number and quality of their "alphabet units", in the semantics of these units in plane of content, in syntactics in plane of expression, and in their pragmatics related to the specific application of each of these codes. As in other semiotic systems, in colour codes expression and contents are interrelated. Syntactics characterizes interrelations only of those col­ ours that matter within this code, and vice versa, semantics characterizes the meanings of only those colours that can be included in its expression plane. Without such a connection between the syntactics and the semantics of codes it would be impossible to use them pragmatically in practice. Differences in the semiotic form of colour codes are in this or that way correlated with that "psychic substance" (in Louis Hjelmslev' s terms), in which their expression and content planes are formed. For the codes that

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regularize the transfer of meaning through visible colours, the mental "substance of expression" is the colour that images formed at different levels of vision: sensorial, perceptual or apperceptual. At the sensory level of vision, colour sensations are fixed in different areas of the visual field correlated with the body scheme of the subject At the perceptual level, the colour image of subjects in the objectified space of the "visible world" is formed. At this level, these objects tend to retain the perceived colour regardless of changes in their illumination, rotation, distance from the eye, etc. At the apperceptual level, a generalized idea of colour is created, the latter being to some extent abstracted both from specific configurations of colour spots in the visual field and perceptual images of objects with a certain colour. The colours that are sensed, perceived or imagined at the apperceptual level differ not only in terms of quality, but also in quantity. At the level of colour sense, depending on individual sensitivity, hundreds and thousands of colour shades that are not correlated with certain objects can be record­ ed. At the level of perceived colour this variety is reduced; there is a gen­ eralization of colour nuances and their correlation with the colouration of certain objects. At this perceptual level, a number of shades that are dis­ cernible at the level of sense can be taken for a single colour. At the apper­ ceptual level, the imagined colour can reproduce both sensory and percep­ tual impressions, but less distinctly and diversely. At this level, the variety of colour is generalized again and colours are grouped according to cate­ gories usually associated with some verbal designation-"red", "blue", etc. These categories also affect the perception of colour, when referring to a colour name leads to it being recognized. Recognition of a visible colour is essential for it to be used as a sign bearing a certain meaning. However, for a colour to acquire the functions of a sign, it does not only need to be recognized, but also to be referred to something else. Together with the categorization of visible colour there must also be some shifting of its interpretation, leading from the presented colour to the object being represented. In particular, such a shift occurs when the colour becomes a means of signification and correlates with a more or less abstract concept. For example, a colour categorized as "red" may turn out to be a signifier of such concepts as "power", "passion", or "revolution". However, not every interpretation of colour turns it into a signifier, and shifted comprehension does not only occur at the conceptual level. Like colour vision, its interpretation can have different "mental addresses", and,

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accordingly, at different levels, a psychic "content substance" of colour codes can be formed. The same "physical substance of expression" provides the basis for in­ terpretation at different levels of the psyche, each of them having its own "content substance", in tenus of Louis Hjelmslev (1961 [1 943]), who nev­ ertheless rejected the dependence of semiotic structures on "substances" of expression and of content. Unlike this thesis of the linguist, one can see that the interpretation of colour can have different "mental addresses", depending on whether it is produced at higher cognitive levels of ideas and logical concepts or remains at the level of perceptions and sensations, al­ beit displaced (see above, 1.3.2). This difference concerns not only sub­ stance, but also the semiotic form of content in the corresponding codes. For example, colour images defined as "red" can be interpreted at any of these psychic levels. If a red spot is felt as "something warm", a quasi­ sensory image of warmth will refer to the contents of the colour's synes­ thetic code and this spot can therefore be considered as a sensorogram. If the set of reddish spots of different shades in the image is perceived as a scarlet rose, then to the extent that its perceptual image is created by vol­ ume indices and spatial relations between its parts (chiaroscuro, intersec­ tions, occlusions, etc.), this set of spots now fOnTIS a perceptogram. The latter may not be too detailed, as indexes decrease it becomes a pictogram, for which it is sufficient to contain some minimum of them in order to allow an essential recognition scheme to be actualized. The same conven­ tional image of a red rose can also acquire the functions of the ideogram. F or example, if this rose is interpreted in the heraldic code system as the emblem of the Lancaster house, it, similar to its name, represents its mem­ bers assigned to a certain genus, this time at the conceptual level. In an­ other colour code, the red colour of the same rose can be correlated with the concept of "love" and is not only a sign for thought, but also a signal for emotions. A response to colour can also be motorial. For example, it may be the case that the motor image of breaking is a result of the driver's interpretation of the colour of the red light, which in the road code means the stopping of motion. In all these cases, the same categorization of colour stimulus using the word "red" allows, on the one hand, the interpretation of visual images in different modes of "psychic substance", where the different "floors" of the psyche may be affected depending on the "mental address" to which the content plan of the given colour code is constructed. On the other hand, the psychic level, where the plan of expression is built, depends on the code itself

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3. On Semantic Functions of Colours in Diverse Codes It is clear from what has been said fhat extra-system features of the "psychic substance" of colour codes are also reflected in the properties of their semiotic form. This semiotic form is connected with the way the col­ our stimulus and its meaning relate to each other. Such a correlation fixed in a code is the semantic function of colours, according to which they can serve as signals, indices, symbols or iconic models. The ability of colour units to fulfil certain semantic functions depends on fhe code that regulates the relationship of the expression and content and that is focused on certain rnental levels of the vision and interpretation of colour. If this interpretation is made only at the quasi-sensory level Cas in the case of synesthesia) or at the level of perception Cas in perceptog­ raphy), the colour can fulfil signal or index functions, triggering a reaction to the current situation or pointing to something that is somehow involved. Colour relations can also form an iconic model of a depicted object, which by its means makes it accessible to perception. However, the nominative or significative functions of a conditional sign of represented objects can be performed by the colour only if its interpretation occurs at the higher cognitive levels-those of concepts or imaginations. For example, a com­ bination of red and white spots can be interpreted as a rose with red and white petals, remaining within the limits of sensual cognition. However, the transition to a conceptual level is necessary in order to interpret this picture as a sign-nominator-the emblem of the Tudor house and as a sign-significator, symbolizing the union of the houses of York and Lancas­ ter at the end of the Wars of the Roses. Accordingly, semantic functions of the colour codes differ depending on the level at which their elements are interpreted. This can be an index junction, when the colour signifies some properties of objects (for exam­ ple, an indication of a chemical formula with litmus paper). Ofher colour codes specialize in signalling/unctions Csuch as traffic light or sky rockets codes). The colour code which regulates fhe distinction of states' flags is made up of colour emblems that perfonn nominative junctions equivalent to those of the names of these states. The colour code which distinguishes between political movements and expresses corresponding political ideas can serve as an example of colour symbols becoming signs-significators. A more complex comprehension of colour is also possible. For exam­ ple, this is the case of arts, where interpretation is made at different levels of the consciousness with the help of a complex of visual-spatial codes using together, and colour is involved in the formation of meaning as a po­ lysemantic symbol.

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A meaningful colour can also be involved in the formation of the icon­ ic model of a depicted object As for a colour model, it is more important to preserve colour relations, apart from individual colour elements. If these relations are not preserved to the required extent, the model cannot per­ form its functions effectively enough. For example, a printed reproduction of a painting can be its iconic model and at the same time can greatly dif­ fer from it in colour, in case it reproduces only the categories of colours ("red", "blue", etc.), but does not preserve their ratio in lightness, satura­ tion and other properties. Differences in the ways the elements of expression and content planes are connected in various colour codes and their semantic functions depend to a certain extent on their genesis. These connections can have both natu­ ral and cultural origins. In the first case, they are fonned involuntarily and based on natural laws. For example, the colour of a red-hot metal can serve as a natural index for the visual evaluation of its temperature by a caster. In other colour codes, links between the signifier of a visible colour and its signified are made up on the basis of convention. A good example of this is the red colour presented on the national flags of different coun­ tries, or emblems of military divisions, sports clubs, etc. Codes based on natural relations of phenomena are less susceptible to historical modifications than ones based solely on a cultural convention. F or example, colour synesthesia (like an association of the colour red with heat, or a blue one with cold) is reproduced much more steadily than asso­ ciations of the same colours with female or male genders. The natural origin of colour indices does not exclude their conscious reproduction, for example, in art Blush can be artificially applied on cheeks or painted on a portrait. In such cases, natural colour codes contin­ ue to be involved in the interpretation of artificially reproduced indices, even if selected in accordance with the conventions of culture. On the oth­ er hand, colour codes based on cultural conventions do not exclude that their units will not only represent something that goes beyond the current situation, but, similar to natural indices and signals, highlight this situation and trigger a reaction to it (for example, the above mentioned traffic light).

4. On the Syntactics of Colour Texts Whereas the semantics of colour deals with its meanings, syntactics is involved in the meaningful arrangement of colours, their interrelations in a colour text and in placing them in a certain spatial and temporal context. Colour texts are the combinations of colours into a visible unity organized according to certain rules in planes of expression and with new content-

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related senses, which cannot be limited to the meanings of its constituent colour units. To the extent that colour codes regulate the combinations of units of their "alphabet" in such colour texts, one can speak about the syntactic rules of these codes. For example, the regulation of colour combinations in medieval heraldry can be considered as such syntactic rules of this code. It was allowed to combine six or seven elements of its "colour alphabet" but in such a way that only colours of different categories could be put onto each other. It was not within the rules to put one "metal" ("gold" and "sil­ ver") onto another one, as well as one "enamel" ("scarlet", "azure", "greens", "mob" and sometimes "purple") onto another (Arseniev, 200 1 : 155; Slater, 2004: 68). The combination of colour units from a certain set according to speci­ fied rules allows the creation of syntactic constructions with new senses, that is, more or less complex colour texts, where both the choice of colours and the specific order of their placement are significant. For example, the national flags of France, the Netherlands, and Russia contain the same composition of significant colour elements and differ only in their disposi­ tion, i.e. in their syntactic constructions. Syntactic constructions of colour texts can unfold not only in space, but also in time. Depending on the code, the ratio of spatial and temporal structures in the syntactics of colour texts may vary. In signal codes regu­ lating reactions to events occurring "here" and "now", the time when a signal turns up is just as important as its place: it is impossible to drive to the red light that replaced the green one just a moment ago. Unlike the traffic code, the rules for time alternation in colour music experiments are less stringent. Colour texts can be structurally similar to verbal texts, which makes it possible to convert them into each other. For example, marine signalling, with the help of coloured flags, is able to demonstrate sequences of letters, numbers and a series of fixed messages. Experiences of creating colour texts coordinated with musical tone rows are also known (see Gage, 201 3 : 233-235). However, the visual and spatial nature of colour texts enables them to combine significant elements which are not necessarily limited to the form of one-dimensional sequences, like speech or melody. For example, the colour text of the British national flag is created using a two-dimensional syntactic structure in which three crosses are superimposed on one anoth­ er: the red straight one on a white background, the white oblique one on a blue background and a red oblique one on a white background. In the plane of content, these crosses are the emblems of Saints George, Andrew

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and Patrick, who are the protectors of England, Scotland and Ireland, re­ spectively; and their connection in space forms a visual symbol of the United Kingdom. In such a text it is not only colours, but also the painted shapes that matter, as well as the way these shapes are arranged. Here, colours and shapes fOnTI the units of a visual-spatial code, i.e. some "col­ our fOnTIs", in which particular colours as well as particular forms serve as the distinctive elements of the signs forming the colour text. Even the colour code of the traffic light, which is extremely poor in its number of elements, has its own spatial-temporal syntactics, since not only the choice of colour but also its emergence in a certain place and time is significant On the other hand, even a complex interlacing of coloured threads a carpet is woven of is not enough to form a colour text, but re­ mains only a coloured texture until some meanings are associated with its colours. However, if this connection with the meanings appears, and the same set of multicoloured threads opens up to sight (for example, as an image of a flowering garden), it turns into a colour text, its parts being interpreted as "leaves", "trees", "birds", etc. due to a certain order of reia­ tions among the colours (see Figure 11.9.3-12). The formation of significant elements in colour codes and in the texts regulated by them can be not only discrete, but also continuous. In the latter case, the syntactic structures formed by these elements will no long­ er be built on the principle of combining sense-distinguishable units of some "alphabet". They will then be fonned according to another "palette principle", which allows colour shades to be mixed and to flow smoothly in their syntactic constructions (see above, 1.3.3). For example, in those versions of the perceptographic code, in which the visual means include light and shade, sharp changes in the lightness of colour spots serve as indices of a faceted shape or rupture of the depicted surfaces, whereas a smooth transition from light to dark becomes an index of a round shape. The same means remain in the monochrome palette of painting, which allows smooth transitions-unlike, for example, black and white graphics with its "alphabet" of two discrete colour units. A limited "alphabet" of several pure colours and syntactics of colour texts from de­ liberately discrete colour elements is also used in painting, for example, by Pointillists (see Signac, 1976: 1 86). Applying the palette principle to colour codes and texts regulated by them does not exclude some binary oppositions between their elements. These are, in particular, polar oppositions, such as light-dark or saturated­ unsaturated, and those of complementary colours-yellow-purple, red­ green, etc.-which arrange both paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures of elements fonning colour texts. In this respect, the binary principle is

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common both for linguistic and non-linguistic syntactic constructions for the texts regulated by the "alphabet principle", as well as for the ones ar­ ranged by the "palette principle". In both continuous and discrete variants of figurative painting, the col­ ours taken separately are not yet of independent significance. Their totality is transformed from a texture into a colour text, as has already been said, only when it represents something different, in particular, when it triggers a perceptual image of a depicted space, which differs from the surface of the painting covered with brush strokes. For such an image to appear, sin­ gle colour spots must start intercommunicating, fonning a variety of con­ trasts and nuances. It is not single colours, but their relations that become the indices of the spatial relations between depicted objects and create a pictorial colour text.

5. On Colour Texts in Paintings Colour texts created with the help of various codes differ at least be­ cause they are addressed to various levels of vision and interpretation. The peculiarity of colour texts in painting is related to the fact that it represents another space, which is visible "behind" this surface and "through" it. Therefore, the colour text of a depicting space can be considered as the plane of expression in relation to the depicted objects that in this relation form the plane of content. Both these planes are comprehended at different levels of vision. Whereas the expression plane of a painted canvas is ad­ dressed to the sensations of the colour spots on the canvas surface, the content plane is constructed at the level of perception of the represented objects. Comparing colour texts created in painting and in cartography, one can see that in both cases the configurations of colour spots on a flat surface represent certain objects in a space that does not coincide with it. In both cases, the plane of expression in the colour text differs from its content plane as well. However, the relationships between these planes are regu­ lated by different colour codes that use the abilities of different mental mechanisms. In the cartographic code, the choice of colour and its mean­ ing depends not on a sensual impression, but on a convention. For example, on the political map of the world, different colours serve as sign-nominators that differentiate the countries shown, but do not as­ sume the perception of any of their landscapes or other observable objects. Colour texts in painting are organized in a different way. Here, the percep­ tion of what is depicted is important. In the plane of expression of the pic­ torial text, a certain "perceptogram" is built, which represents a set of lines

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and spots and stimulates the perception of the depicted object As in car­ tography, the depicting and depicted spaces differ in such a pictorial text; the former remains flat and closed, while the second can be three­ dimensional and open. But what is also important in painting is a colour impression fonned in the perceptual image, which generally does not co­ incide with the set of colours laid out on the surface of the picture. Their interpretation is formed with the help of the perceptographic code, which regulates the transition from the sensory level of the vision of the paint spots on the plane to the perceptual image of the three-dimensional depict­ ed space. In this space, colours become object-related and are perceived differently from the single elements of the colour "alphabet" or "palette" used in the plane of expression of the colour text (see above, 1.3.3). Illustrative examples in this respect are the paintings of Pointillists, where, in particular, a set of small strokes perceived separately as yellow and blue creates, as a result of optical mixing, the impression of a green colour of the depicted object surface, etc. Traditional painting preferred not the "alphabet" of discrete colours, but the continuous "palette" of smooth transitions between them, but there, similarly, the colours per­ ceived in the depicting space do not coincide with the ones perceived in the space depicted. So, for example, in Arkhip Kuindzhi's "Evening in Ukraine", the combination of pinkish and greenish paint spots on the sur­ face of the canvas, that is, on the "expression plane" of the colour text, stimulates the perception of the white walls of huts illuminated by the evening sun in the depicted space of the farm, that is, in the "content plane" of this text Of course, the interpretation of a pictorial work is not limited to a per­ ception of the depicted space, and the colour text of the picture cannot be reduced to the combination of contrasts and nuances that in the perceptual or perceptographic code systems serve as indices of this space. The col­ ours of the objects depicted in the picture as well as the colour spots on its surface can be interpreted on other cognitive levels. With the help of dif­ ferent colour codes, they can be involved in the formation of senses in a function of conventional signs or symbols. In a traditional iconographic system, for example, the yellowish-buffy coat of the Apostle Peter distinguishes his image from the reddish-cherry colours of the Apostle Paul's coat, thereby playing the role of sign­ nominators. In the same iconographic tradition, the blue colour of the Mother of God's tunic signifies the idea of celestial purity and in this ca­ pacity fulfils the function of a sign-significator. The joint use of different codes when interpreting the same colour spot can turn it into a polysemic symbol. For example, in many traditional ver-

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sions of the icon "The Raising of Lazarus", the figure of Lazarus covered with a white pall is depicted against the background of the black hollow cave (see colour picture 3). This contrast can be treated with colour codes of different levels. At the level of colour synesthesia, more instinctive re­ actions to the differences between light and darkness are actualized. In the system of the perceptographic code, this contrast visually "pushes" Laza­ rus figure forward from the dark depths. At the level of object recognition, this contrast helps to discern the dress of the deceased rising from the grave. Finally, at the even more abstract level, the black colour can be interpreted as a symbol of non-existence, and white as that of revival from the darkness and nothingness; so, the contrast of white and black can be interpreted here as a sym bol of the opposition between life and death. In situations when colour codes are used together with other semiotic systems, one can speak of the rhetoric of colour texts. It is correlated with the interpretation of the "rhetorical text" given by Yu. Lotman; its subtexts are encrypted "with the help of differen� mutually untransferable codes" (Lotman, 1996: 78). The rhetorical combination of various ways of under­ standing colour texts is present in the paintings of different historical peri­ ods and art movements. These periods and stylistic trends differ, in partic­ ular, in the relations between the colour codes used in the interpretations of pictorial works. For example, painting of medieval Europe made the hierophanic code a priority, implying the sym bolic interpretation of colour and, subordinate to it, the means of perceptography. Painting of the Re­ naissance period, retaining traditional colour symbolism, had a much greater interest in these means, which became even more important in the Baroque era, for example, among the "Little Dutch Masters". Impression­ ists and Neo-Impressionists, still focused on pictorial means, reconsidered the syntax of their colour texts, proceeding from a continuous "palette" to a discrete "alphabet", as discussed above (see 1.3.3). In the objectless art of Wassily Kandinsky and others, the synesthetic meanings of colours are given the utmost attention, and their symbolism is actualized again. The whole history of painting, from the point of view of colour semi­ ology, can be described as the evolution of ways to form colour texts with the help of various colour codes that followed each other and were com­ bined differently.

11.6. S PATIAL S EMIOS IS AND M O D E LLING

11.6. 1 . ON SPATIAL MODELLING

1. Modelling in the Human Activity 1.1. On the Concept of Model

With all the differences in the interpretation of the concept of the mod­ el, it usually has two main features. The first one touches upon structural similarity between the modelled and the modelling in definite relations. The second feature concerns their functional connection, with one of them being able to replicate and represent another one. The structural similarity is a symmetrical relation because both the modelled and the modelling are equally similar to each other. The functional connection is, on the contra­ ry, an asymmetrical relation, since both its participants have different functions. Structural similarity without a functional connection is insuffi­ cient for the modelling, as well as a functional connection without struc­ tural similarity. Still. such a general approach does not define what is called a "model" : a modelled thing, a modelling one, or both of them. Although both repro­ duced and reproducing objects have a mutual functional connection with each other, different parts of their asymmetrical connection can be defined as a "model". The model can be understood, on the one hand, as a pattern for reproduction-like, for example, a car design or a photo model. On the other hand, the concept of a model can be applied to something that repro­ duces such a pattern, in the same way as a toy car has a resemblance to its prototype or a photo to a photo model. In the first case, the concept of the model is related to the reproduced prototype, whereas in the second case this concept is related to something reproducing and replicating an origi­ nal. Both these concepts can be considered as particular cases of the gen­ eral concept of a model. At this rate the model can be defined generally as something similarly andfonctionally connected with something else that is produced or reproduced by a pattern. Within the frame of this general definition, one can speak about productive and reproductive models as two particular subclasses of the general class of models. These subclasses in-

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tersect, for instance, in cases when a copy of a productive model is a re­ productive model of its pattern, though usually only one of these types is meant in the same context. Both types of models can be similar to a correlative object to a greater or lesser degree, which depends on how many relations are involved in the comparison. The similarity between the modelling and modelled structures does not mean that both of them always have identical relations. For ex­ ample, the relations "above-below" differ from the relations "warmer­ colder", but they can be in a modelling relation, like in a thermometer, because both their spatial and degree scales have a similar order. The rela­ tions common for modelled and modelling structures are called in the pre­ sent paper the basis a/modelling It is possible to speak about the structural similarity in terms of like­ ness, resemblance or iconicity, which are considered synonyms in the pre­ sent paper. According to the definition, each model has a similarity with the modelled object and hence they are in relations of iconicity. Thereby the phrase "iconic model" would contain a tautology. Obviously, the concept of model explained here is close to the notion of the "iconic sign" suggested by Ch. S. Peirce as something representing an object "mainly by its similarity" (Peirce, 1932: 157, 168 [2. 276, 2. 299]; cp. Lotman, 1967: 131). However, these two concepts are not identi­ cal, because not all models have a representative function. Unlike repro­ ductive models, productive ones can take place without representing any­ thing. For example, a portrait of a woman represents her; however, the same woman does not represent this portrait, although she can be called "a model" terminologically. Besides, the concept of sign is treated in the pre­ sent paper in a narrower sense than it is in Peircean semiotics (which is discussed below, see 1 . 1 . 1 and 1.3. 1). Therefore the term "iconic sign" is not used in the present paper. 1,2, Modelling as an Activity

Modelling understood as creating and using models is an important property of human activity (cp. Lotman, 1967: 130). Modelling mediates relations between subjects and objects as well as inter-subject connections. Models are constructed as means of activity intended to achieve definite purposes of an acting subject; they are used in the processes of the cogni­ tion or transfonnation of objects as well as for communication between subjects. Like any other activity, modelling has its internal and external aspects. Understanding models as means of human activity pennits one to see the

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connection between them . The theory of human activity is based on the distinction between a subject and an object and considers both external and internal sides of the activity as well as their interaction. Thus, it allows one to speak about the "interiorization" of the external activity in the de­ velopment of thinking and about the "internalization" of ideas expressed by other subjects; this theory also permits one to speak about the "exterior­ ization" of ideal projects (their embodiment in a material) or about the "externalization" of some ideas of a subject in a text (cp. Vygotsky, 1983: 1 42-145). Therefore one can distinguish, within the frame of the activity theory, internal models created in the mind of a subject, and external models which are constructed as material objects open for the subject's feelings. Both types of modelling correlate with each other Internal mental models can be linked to external models, which also have sense only in connection with mental processes of cognition, planning or evaluation. Both external and internal models can be created for different aims in various aspects of human activity. Modelling of the researched object is the essence of the cognitive processes. Internal cognitive models are formed on diverse mental levels and their structural similarity to objects of knowledge develops differently in the scientific theories of the conceptual level and in the images of the perceptual level. One can also speak about external models used as tools of knowledge and a structural likening of ideal images to modelled objects. For instance, a globe is an external mod­ el with a cognitive function insofar as it is intended for the fonnation of an internal earth model. At the same time, there are internal and external models which have, on the contrary, a productive character since they are created as original forms ("patterns" or "matrixes") meant then to be reproduced. They can also be formed in cognitive processes as the methods of thinking, e.g. in mathematics or logic. Such models can also be created in projective pro­ cesses as the means participating in the transformation of some objects by a subject. In this case an ideal model is formed before the creation of the modelled objects and has a causal relation to it. This mental model can be externalized, for example, as a draft or a paper model of the future build­ ing. This way, the mental projective model is embodied in the external model which in its turn is a condition for the further embodiment of the idea in the planned object. The externalization of cognitive and proj ective internal models makes it possible for them to be internalized by other people and thereby is con­ nected with the communicative aspect of activity. Every representation of a cognized or a transfonned object is anyhow connected in human activity

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with the possibility o f inter-subject communication in relation to this ob­ ject, while, on the other hand, all communication is also connected with the possibility to contain a message about represented objects. Due to the mutual communication of mental models between the individual and col­ lective forms of the mind, both of them can develop in culture as two in­ teractive aspects of the same semiosphere (cp. Vygotsky, 1983; Lotman, 1984). Modelling as a human activity combines representative and communi­ cative functions. Although the mental models can be formed only in intra­ subjective processes inseparable from the subject's mind, they can be ex­ pressed in the tangible form of external models which stimulate the for­ mation on of internal models by other people and mediate the processes of inter-subject communication. 1.3. Modelling and Semiotic Means

1.3.1. Models and Signs External models as the means of human activity can be compared with signs. Both of them mediate subject-object and inter-subject relations as the means of information connection, combining an ability to represent some objects for a subject and to serve for communication between differ­ ent subjects (cp. "the organon model" of signs, suggested by Karl BUhler; see BUhler, 1934: 25). However, the representative function is performed by these means in a different way. The main ground of the representative functions for models is their structural similarity with objects, whereas for signs it is some cultural conventions. According to the system used in the present paper, signs are considered such means of hurnan activity as those that serve the way of representation of objects and communication between subjects on the fully conventional grounds developed in culture and accepted in the minds of individuals (see Tchertov, 1993; 1 999). There are three constant components among varia­ ble elements of the sign connection between subjects: (I) the scheme of formation and recognition of a sign mediator; (2) the scheme of interpreta­ tion of this sign mediator; and (3) the connection between these two schemes. These three components correlate respectively with the "form of expression", "form of content" and "sign function" concepts of Louis Hjelmslev, who believed that the relation of these "forms" to "materials" of expression and of content is arbitrary (see Hjelmslev 1953, § 1 3). Semi­ otic means with the mentioned properties also correspond with the concept of a symbol according to Ch. S. Peirce, who wrote that "a Symbol is a sign

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which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas" (peirce, 1960: 143 [249]). However, Peirce also noted the polysemy of the word "symbol" (ibid: 167-168 [297]). This word is treated in another tenninological tradition as the semiotic means preserving a connection between the sense and the way of its expression, which was a reason for F. de Saussure to prefer the term "sign" for the denotation of arbitrary semiotic means (see Saussure 1977: 101 [1. 1 . §2]). The mechanism of functioning in human activity, the cultural genesis as well as the ability to represent any objects beyond the present situation are the features differentiating the sign's way of information connection from the natural signals and indexes which appear without the intention of any subject and relate only to the present situation. This difference gives the ground for linking the concept of a sign only to the higher level of in­ formation connection, not to the signal and indexical means developed in natural biological systems or those used in various technical devices. At the same time, using the narrow concept of sign does not except the possibility to apply semiotics towards some natural and technical process­ es. "Semiotics of signals and indexes" can be considered together with "semiotics of sign means" in the above-described sense, because all these means serve to mediate the indirect information connection between a sender and a receiver of message and are based on the semiotic system. According to this terminology, the concept of a semiotic system is not identical to the concept of the sign system and includes it as a special case; it also includes the signal and indexical codes of the non-sign level (see above, 1. 1 . 1 and 1.3.1). Each thing that is able to be formed, recognized and interpreted ac­ cording to the three above-mentioned components of a sign system can be accepted as a sign satisfying the norms of this system. But the participa­ tion of a thing in a process of communication in the sign function does not hinder the same thing from participating there in some other functions, particularly in the function of a model. However, this different function is performed by such a thing in another way. Therefore, the difference be­ tween signs and models does not always coincide with the difference be­ tween things serving as mediators of communication; it is a difference not between the things, but between the ways or the principles of reference to a represented object.

1.3.2. On the Modelling Functions of Semiotic Systems and Texts Similarly, the systems of conventionally established signs can at the same time perform the modelling function in relation to the world that can

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be represented by them. Using the example of the colour spectrum in which diverse languages are divided in different ways (Hjelmslev, 1961, § 13), one can see that the arbitrarily and differently established systems of such divisions can at the same time be different models of the spectrum as a whole. The systems of signs can be called modelling systems insofar as they can create internal models in the intra-subjective processes of cognition and mental transformation of objects. These systems provide not only the means for external expression of the ready mental content but also for its formation. Any sign system always has the modelling function as it con­ tains a complex of sign-types connected with the structured set of their meanings (see Lotman, 1998: 26-26). This function is inherent even in a simple system of national flags and all the more so in systems modelling broader spheres (consider the idea regarding the borders of the language as the borders of the world for a subject; cf Wittgenstein, 1 994 [ 1 922] : 5.6). Semiotic systems of the signal-indexical level can also have a model­ ling function. So, there is a complex of natural synesthetic codes regulat­ ing connections between modalities of feelings. In particular, the colour synesthetic code links visible colours with definite heat sensations of warmth or cold. This semiotic system of natural indexes can be involved in human activity and perform the modelling function; for example, it is intentionally used in art. The modelling function can also be carried out by texts considered as more complex fonnations than a single sign. The concept of text originat­ ed in the linguistic terminological tradition and was then applied to the non-linguistic means ofrepresentation (e.g. Ivanov et a1. 1998: 38; 3 . 1 .0). Texts in the broad semiotic sense are complex constructions of meaningful units, which are formed and interpreted by definite semiotic systems. Texts in such a broad sense can be regulated not only by a verbal language but also by non-linguistic and even by non-sign semiotic systems of sig­ nals and indexes. Nevertheless, some important concepts developed in structural linguis­ tics can be extended beyond its limits since they are relevant to many non­ linguistic means. This is true for the opposition between the system and the text, derived from the counteraction of langue and parole suggested by F. de Saussure (cp. Saussure, 1 977, Hjelmslev, 1961). Each system of signs or other semiotic units has to be common for some participants of communication so that they could exchange messages. The semiotic sys­ tem can be a modelling system even if it remains in absentia and is used unconsciously, whereas the texts are open to feelings and exist in praesen­ tia (cp. Saussure, 1977: 156).

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There is a ground for extending the opposition between "the plane of expression" and "the plane of content" to the non-verbal means of repre­ sentation and communication, insofar as they demonstrate difference be­ tween the representing forms and the represented content. Every text can have the modelling function insofar as there is a similar­ ity between the structures of the plane of expression with the structures of the plane of content. For instance, a verbal text like "veni, vidi, vici" not only denotes but also models temporal succession due to the similarity of the word order in the plane of expression to the order of acts represented in the plane of content. Similarly, a clock-face can be considered a non­ verbal text which can serve also as a model of some temporal succession due to the similarity between the order of visible numbers in the plane of expression and of the invisible time units in the plane of content. A text can be a model as long as it has some structural similarity to an­ other object. So both concepts-the "model" and the "text"-can be ap­ plied to a meaningful object but on different grounds. The means of repre­ sentation treated as a model are directly related to the represented object and are similar to it in definite features, while treated as a text they relate first of all to the semiotic system mediating their relation to this object.

1.3.3.

Semiosis and Mimesis in Modelling

Each code is treated in the present paper as a system, which regulates the translation and reception of infonnation by signals, indexes or (con­ ventional) signs and establishes the rules of their coding and decoding. A code is a system of "pre-information" which a recipient needs to have to receive and interpret any information via signals, indexes or signs (see Meyer-Eppler. 1959: 251 ; Shreider. 1974: 33). So not only these external bearers of information but also the codes are mediators in processes of indirect infonnation connection. Unlike mediation by means of coding, there is an immediate way of in­ formation impact. Such direct impact occurs as a result of the "transposi­ tion" of the structure in the causal chain (see Russell. 1997: 271). Such a "transposition of structure" can be also considered as a case of infonnation connection which is understood in the broad sense-as a determination of relations in the receiving system by the relations of some other systems (see Tchertov. 1993: Chap. 1). For example. a trace of the hoof in nature or a cast sculpture in culture is directly determined by some patterns and receives information without any coding system. These printed or casted forms can serve as reproductive models of their patterns and can represent them for a subject. However, they have another

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basis for representation than signs. While the ground for the reference of the conventional sign to its denotat is a semiotic system establishing the meaning of the sign, the reference of the model to an object is based on the structural similarity between them in several relations. Such a similarity can occur without any coding system in direct infonnation impact like printing, while information connection via semiotic means, or serniosis, is always an indirect process of coding and decoding. According to Morris, "in serniosis something takes account of some­ thing else mediately, i.e. by means of a third something" (Morris, 1971a: 19). Morris adds that semiosis is "a mediated-taking-account-or' and in­ cludes an "interpretant" as a necessary component, connected with "the disposition in an interpreter to respond" (Morris, 1971b: 363). Such a dis­ position supposes pre-infonnation, in other words, a code. So the process of serniosis is mediated not only by some external bearers of information but also by some inherent codes of interpreters. Semiosis cannot take place without a semiotic system regulating the recognition and interpretation of external vehicles. Due to such systems, these external means of semiosis can be very different from the represented objects: indexes can be only implicated with a situation they point out, and signs can have nothing in common with their denotata. Apart from semiosis there is another principle of representation based on the imitation of a represented object by something that looks like it. This principle may be called, using another ancient term, mimesis. Alt­ hough mimesis can serve as a way to hide something via mimicry or cam­ ouflage, it can, on the contrary, be intentionally used as a way to represent an object or a person as something different. If the connection between the represented object and the semiotic means in semiosis is determined by a system of codes, the connection between the original and the copy in mi­ mesis is set first of all by their mutual relations, when one of them imitates some properties of the other. Both principles of representation-mimesis and semiosis-are in­ volved in modelling but in different ways. The mimetic principle always takes place in modelling because structural similarity with another object is an inherent feature of each model. The semiotic principle does not al­ ways occur in modelling-at least because it does not always serve for the representation of something other to somebody, and some productive models can be mechanically reproduced in their copies. But the models can perform representative functions by using mimetic similarity together with semiotic mechanisms of coding and decoding. These two principles can combine in various proportions.

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2. Spatial Modelling 2.1. Spaces and Spatial Modelling

2.1.1. On Spatial Modelling It is possible to speak about spatial modelling based on the similarity between structures if at least one of them is fonned by spatial relations. Hence spatial modelling concerns both the case when spatial structures have the modelling function and the case when such structures are the modelled objects. Accordingly, one can speak about spatial models in the first case and about models of space in the second. These cases can coin­ cide, but not always. Some spatial models can represent non-spatial ob­ jects and spatial structures can also be represented by non-spatial models. For example, musical notation can have a structural similarity with the melody it represents and thereby form a spatial model of its non-spatial structure. Conversely, the spatial structures buil� for instance, by the rela­ tions "above-below" can be modelled by the non-spatial order of "rising" or "falling" musical tones. As modelling is a human activity, there is one more difference between its external and internal aspects. The spatial models of cognized or pro­ jected objects can have both external and internal forms, and the internal mental models of space can also get extensions via correlated external tools.

2.1.2. Spatial Relations and Autonomic Spaces Spatial structures are formed in case some spatial relations build con­ figurations of co-existing objects. These configurations can be transfonned or destroyed by changes of the appropriate spatial relations. The class of the spatial relations includes only the ones which can form or change the arrangement of co-existing objects and their configurations. In particular, contiguity and separation, inclusion and exclusion, isolation and intersec­ tion, etc. are the spatial relations between the objects, and they belong to the qualitative peculiarity of their arrangement in configurations. At the same time, closer and farther, longer and shorter, wider and narrower, etc. are quantitative relations connected with the size of these objects and the distance between them. Spatiality is always a property of formations consisting of such spatial relations. These fonnations include the above-mentioned spatial configu­ rations as well as whole spaces. Unlike local configurations, a whole space is a formation where changes of spatial relations are possible without it

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being destroyed if some its invariant characteristics are saved. Qualities like dimensionality, continuity or discreteness, openness or closeness and so on can be such invariants saved by the changes of the spatial relations. Since these constant properties can be different for various formations of that kind, it is possible to speak about diverse spaces in the plural. Each of them is an autonomous space if it has its own properties and rules of for­ rnation. For example, a canvas coloured with paints and a landscape paint­ ed on this canvas belong to different autonomous spaces, because the paints lie on a closed plane, whereas the landscape can be seen in a three­ dimensional and open space. These autonomous spaces are fonned by dif­ ferent spatial objects, ordered by different principles, have different measures of sizes, etc. The concept of autonomous space can be related to complexes of real physical bodies as well as of ideal mathematical constructions and to "conceptual spaces" as well as to "perceptual" ones, etc. (cp. Carnap, 1922; Russell, 1948: Chaps. VI, X). There are many autonomous spaces which are fonned in culture according to some ideal norms and which have, at the same time, a physical embodiment. For example, the space of chess can be considered as an autonomic fonnation of spatial relations regulated by its own rules, which are different to the laws of physical space and the rules of other games. Some autonomous spaces can be fonned by semiotization, i.e. by the establishment of definite semiotic systems regulating the organization and interpretation of its elements and structures. The spaces semiotized in dif­ ferent ways by various systems have different properties. The diverse autonomous spaces can be similar in some relations as well as several configurations to these spaces. So diverse mathematical spaces can be ideal models of real physical space, a perceptual image can be an internal spatial model of an external spatial situation, etc. 2.2. Spatial Models

2.2.1. Spatial and Non-spatial Models The class of spatial models includes elements that have a specific property: their modelling structures are formed by spatial relations and their modelling functions are performed due to the similarity of these spa­ tial structures to something in a modelled object. Not all models share this property, even if they have the spatial bearers. For instance, a telephone is a spatial object able to reproduce the sounds having the structural similari­ ty to them. These reproduced sounds serve as an acoustic model of a phon-

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ic original. However, it is not a spatial model as in this case the modelling structure is not fonned by spatial relations and the similarity of these rela­ tions to each other is not the basis of the modelling. Another peculiarity of the spatial models is connected with the ability of spatial formations to contain at the same time a broad complex of rela­ tions observed as a whole. Two- and three-dimensional structures of spa­ tial models can be perceived in the process of simultaneous synthesis of presented data as an integrated visual image (see: Jakobson, 1972).

2.2.2. On the Spatial Models of Space Spatial models of space occur if both the modelled and the modelling structures are fonned by spatial relations or if diverse autonomic spaces are connected by the relation of modelling. For example, pictures, sculp­ tures, architectural projects, ground maps, globes, etc. are external spatial models and models of space at the same time, because the spatial for­ mations exist in both components of modelling. If the objects from one space are modelled by the structures from an­ other one, their various properties can be both reproduced or not: an ordi­ nal organization, metric relations, a connection between some changed configurations, etc. For example, diverse features of the same spatial situa­ tion can be modelled by both a topographic plan and by a drawing made according to the rules of linear perspective. While the rules of cartography require the same scale to be used for all represented objects, the rules of linear perspective, in contrast, require a systematic changing of the scale for objects moving away.

2.2.3. On the Spatial Models of Non-spatial Objects The spatial structures can be the models of non-spatial objects, because the similarity between the modelling and modelled structures can be lim­ ited only by their order even if the relations of these structures are not identical. For example, a genealogical tree can be a spatial model of non­ spatial relations of kinship if the connection of the elements in both struc­ tures is organized in a unified way. More one example of spatial model of a non-spatial object is the "sign prism" (see above, 1.2. 1). A calendar also can be considered a spatial model of time because the order of the spatial relations between its signs corresponds to the order of relations between the denoted temporal units-days, months, etc. At the same time, the pre­ sented spatial relations-"left-right" and "above-below"-are not identi­ cal to the represented temporal relation "before-later". Several models can be both spatial and temporal at the same time. The clock, for instance, is a

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spatial-temporal model of time because it models the structure of temporal processes by changing the place of the hands on the clock-face. 2.3. The Models of Space

2.3.1. On the Verbal and Derived Models of Space Spatial models are always built by spatial relations while the models of space can be also formed by non-spatial relations, for example, between the meanings of words. Unlike the above-mentioned external models of space. the verbal language is a modelling system which has the means for the internal modelling of many various things. including space and spatial relations. Diverse secondary modelling systems based on verbal language have their own special means to create peculiar models of space-in mythology. in literature. in scientific theories, in natural philosophy, etc. (cp., for example, Cassirer, 1 923-29; 1985; Lotman, 1992 VoLl ; Nekliudov, 1972; Toporov, 1983). All these ideal models of space and spatial formations can have their modelling function in virtue of a structural resemblance to their objects. However, these mental models of space are not spatial models in the above-mentioned sense as their semantic structures are not formed by spatial relations. For example, it would be incorrect to say that the meanings of the words "above" and "below" form spatial relations, although these words are included in the modelling system of a language able to describe such relations.

2.3.2. On the Visual Models of Space There are also the internal models of space which are at the same time the spatial models because their elements are regulated by the spatial relations. Particularly, diverse visual images of spatial obj ects belong to the class of the spatial models in case their elements form spatial relations. F or example, the parts of a visual perceptual image of a spatial situation can be connected by relations "left-right", "top-bottom", etc., and form a spatial structure. If this structure is similar to the perceived situation one can consider such perceptual image as its internal spatial model. The perceptual model of a situation presents it as something that remains the relative constancy independent from the angle of sight, the distance from a viewer, the motions of his head, etc. For instance, the visible properties of a white rectangular sheet of paper lying in front of the observer are saved if this observer is turning his head and looking at the same sheet sideways. However, the same observer can pay attention to some visible data which change depending on the turning of his head.

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Then instead of a rectangular sheet the viewer can see a trapezoidal spot changing its [onn and proportions. Fixation of such changes needs another way of vision. Instead of an external object which doesn't change the viewing subject reflects his perception and finds the changeable sensorial data detennined by relations between his eye and the object Although the difference between these two ways of vision usually remains unnoticed, everybody can notice it turning his head and making sure that the hell and dark spots correlating with visible objects move to the left or right and change their shapes, though the same objects do not change their places. Such difference is well known to psychologists and described, for example, by J. Gibson as the difference between the "visible world" and the "visual field" (Gibson, 1950, Chap. III). There is a third way of vision-remembering or imagining of a spatial situation with the eyes closed, when a scheme of visible objects can break free from many redundant details necessary at each perception. These ways of vision are the forms of human activity performed on diverse levels of psychics. According to the Russian psychologist Boris Ananiev the visual system has sensorial, perceptual and apperceptual levels of functioning (see: Ananiev, 1977: 1 27). Each of these ways of vision fOnTIS a basis for mental models of space, which differ by their elements, structures and functions. The internal spatial models developed on the sensorial level are open to the reflecting subject as the condition of his "visual field". They relate visible spatial objects to the body of the subject framing their optical image into the system of anthropomorphic coordinates with its constant oppositions 'centre-periphery', 'high-low', 'right-left', etc. The perceptual models inform about the relations between these objects independently of their position towards the subject's body, the lighting, etc. Finally, the apperceptual models allow operating schematized spatial images irrespectively of the position of the subject's body or the arrangement of the objects. All these internal spatial models have definite functions in the human activity. As the levels of knowledge and reproductive models, they perfonn cognitive functions. The image of spatial fonns and their arrangement can also be the productive models of some created objects and planned actions.

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2.4. Semiotic Means of Spatial Modelling

2.4.1. Spatial Codes as Modelling Systems Spatial modelling is possible by various semiotic means. There are certain spatial codes regulating the creation and interpretation of meaningful relations between spatial forms. These [OnTIS become the elements of the plane of expression in the spatial codes and can have both modelling and communicative functions. Communication via these semiotic systems is addressed to different modalities of feelings. For example. Braille' s alphabet is a spatial code addressed to tactile senses. However, most spatial codes are oriented to the visual-spatial channel of connection. All these codes have spatial elements and structures in the plane of expression, but only a few of them have spatial relations in the plane of content. So the architectonic code links the relations between [OnTIS in the visible space with kinesthetical feelings (see above, 11. 3 . 1 . 2). Due to this code, the space is modelled as a "power field", where visible objects become indexes of invisible mechanical forces acting in this space and are interpreted as being in dynamic relations: "heavier" or "lighter", "balanced" or "unbalanced", "mobile" or "stabile", etc. (cp. Amheim, 1 977). In a different way, space is modelled by the means of the object­ functional code, which establishes stable connections between the recognizable object fonns and their instrumental functions. The fonns of utilitarian objects in this code represent the forthcoming actions they are intended for. Both these visible fonns and the schemes of actions associated with them are constantly reproduced in culture and are correspondingly included in the planes of expression and content in this code. The space is modelled by this semiotic system as an area of action, where a subject of activity transforms some objects using the tools recognized and interpreted by the means of this code. Unlike them, the proxemic code is a semiotic system, where spatial relations between human bodies represent non-spatial social relations of corresponding persons. By means of this code, the relations "higher­ lower", "centre-periphery", etc. can build spatial structures similar to some social structures and therefore have the modelling function.

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The alphabetic script can be considered as one more visual-spatial code representing and modelling certain non-spatial referents. A succession of letters representing the phonemes of oral speech can be a visible spatial model of their audible temporal succession due to the similarity in their order. In this case the modelling functions are performed by a written succession as by a spatial text.

2.4.2. Spatial Texts as External Models The concept of spatial text can be applied not only to written texts but in the broad sense to any complex of spatial objects if it is organized and comprehended by a spatial code and used to express some senses. Spatial texts have the same specific feature that spatial codes do: their plane of expression is built by spatial relations between co-existing objects. These relations are essential not only for the "substance" but also for the "form" of expression, because several syntactic structures of these texts can be realized only in the two- or three-dimensional and reversible space. Spatial texts are regulated by spatial codes like speech is regulated by verbal language, as their relations are described by F. de Saussure. A spatial code is a system of nOnTIS common for many cases of the creation and interpretation of spatial texts by diverse participants of communication. Depending on the codes regulating the spatial texts. they form autonomous spaces with different properties. For example, if the autonomous space of a written text becomes structurally similar to a one­ dimensional temporal succession of represented phonemes, the spatial text of a geographical map fOnTIS a two-dimensional autonomous space, whereas the space semiotized by the proxemic code can be formed by three-dimensional texts. Spatial texts perform the modelling function in a different way than the codes do. Unlike sign systems serving as internal models, the texts can become the external models of represented objects. Both these texts and the external spatial models have common properties; both of them are formed by spatial relations and are open for external feelings mostly as visible objects existing in material bearers. Each external spatial model has the features of texts if its construction and interpretation is regulated by a semiotic system and if it is possible to make a distinction between their "plane of expression" and "plane of content". Spatial texts can model some sensually perceived phenomena, for instance, a written text models oral speech. At the same time, these texts can be the models of some ideal objects: scientific concepts. mythological

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ideas, social notions, etc. For example, texts built according to the languages of formal logic or mathematics can be spatial models of non­ spatial logical or mathematical structures insofar as there is a similarity between them.

2.4.3. Spatial Means of Modelling and Verbal Language It is typical for spatial models to function as the means of visualization of some ideal objects and of non-spatial relations. For instance, the logical relations can be represented by the spatial models like Leonard Eiler's circles, John Venn's diagrams, etc. At the same time, verbal language is necessary for understanding such visualized forms on the conceptual level. These spatial texts can be translated into verbal language and appropriate semiotic systems can be considered as secondary ones regarding to it. In a similar way diverse ideographic systems regulate connections between visible spatial fOnTIS and some notions which can be represented in verbal form as well. There is also a pictographic way of writing which is applied for expressing verbalized meanings through more or less codified depictions. Such pictographic way of expression together with the colour code is used in the heraldic semiotic system which also cannot be interpreted without connection with the verbal language. However, it would be incorrect to regard all spatial codes as secondary systems since several of them have their own non-verbal grounds and can be considered as primary systems as well (cp.: Lotman, 1992 Vol I : 1 42). Particularly, the mentioned above architectonic and object-functional codes have such grounds in the experience of moving in a spatial milieu and in the praxis of operations with the tools. The problem of dependence or independence of semiotic systems of each other can be clarified by determining their relation to the levels of the internal modelling. Verbal language gives the main semiotic means for building models on the conceptual level and on the level of imagination. But these means are not intended for creating internal models on lower levels. For example, verbal language allows to imagine described objects but not to perceive them. However there are visual-spatial codes which can do that. Such semiotic systems are connected with interpretation of external spatial models on the perceptual level of internal modelling. Internal models of space, as it was mentioned above, can be formed both on the conceptual level and on the level of perception. Accordingly, external spatial models can be related to each of these levels and there is a well-

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known type of spatial modelling intended for the perceptive level of interpretation-the depiction.

3. Spatial Modelling by Means of Depictions 3.1. Depictions as Spatial Models

Every depiction can be considered in two relations: that with a depicted object and that with a perceiving subj ect Both of these sides are connected with the modelling functions but in different ways. The depiction is a reproductive spatial model of the depicted object insofar as it imitates some spatial relations between the [OnTIS or colours of this object It is also a productive model for a subject as his perceptual image is formed under its influence. This second side is even more important than the first Any representation is based on "shifted understanding", when the attention of the interpreter turns from a recognition of the presented semiotic means to the represented objects which differ from them. There are various forms of shifted understanding. Shifted comprehension is connected with changing the concept used for the interpretation of the semiotic means; it takes place when these means evoke the thought about something other, irrespectively of its ability to be perceived in the present situation. Shifted comprehension also takes place if the signs are ordered in a structure which is similar to a represented object, such as in the case of mathematical fonnulas, considered by Ch. S. Peirce as iconic signs. Comprehension also remains shifted by the interpretation of diagrams as another sort of icon, according to Peirce, because their structures are similar not with external visible fOnTIS of represented objects, but with some internal relations between its invisible properties. Shifted recognition is connected with changing recognizing schemes; it takes place if a visible thing is recognized as anything different-for example, if a piece of marble is recognized as a woman. Shifted perception is connected with a changing perceptual image; it takes place if a visible object is perceived as something different-for example, if a flat canvas painted by colours is perceived as a three-dimensional room extended behind this canvas. Shifted perception does not coincide with shifted recognition, because it can be built without using any scheme of recognition or the using the same scheme in different ways (for example in the case of "Necker cube" with two possible perceptual interpretations of the same depiction-see Figure 11.6.1-3 below). Thus, diagrams, volumetric sculptures and flat depictions

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are oriented to different ways of shifted understanding. Although all these means remain in the class of "icons", according to Peirce, because they have a similarity with represented objects, they relate differently to levels of a subject's interpretation: shifted comprehension, shifted recognition and shifted perception, respectively (see more detailed above, 1.3.2). Each depiction on a flat surface is based on shifted perception. Its specific feature as the means of pictorial representation is the ability to evoke not only a thought about an absent object, but also to evoke its perception. It would be incorrect to believe that the viewer can perceive only the objects which actually exist in the situation of the viewing. The depiction can be defined as a visible object which can stimulate the visual perception of another visible object independently of its presence or absence in the situation of viewing. Indeed, the depiction has the ability to show absent and represented objects as presented and perceived ones. This ability to direct the subject's perception is necessary for each depiction, even in cases where there is no object with which there could be any similarity. The depiction of a fantastic creature cannot be similar to it if this creature does not exist (because each relation needs at least two members). However, the subject can perceive a represented fantastic creature as something existing and even presented in the situation if the depiction shows it to him. Furthermore, speaking only about depictions of existing objects, one can see that something in them has to differ for the picture to look more like the object of representation. To create a visual perception of a depicted object, the depiction needs to have both a similarity to and a difference from it. As a model it repeats any quality of a represented thing, but as a spatial text it points out such peculiar properties of volume which are impossible to reproduce directly on a flat surface. 3,2, Depictions as Spatial Texts

Each picture considered both as a spatial model and as a spatial text can be divided into two spaces: the depicting and the depicted. As mentioned above, both of them are autonomous spaces which have both different and common properties. The flat, rectangular and closed space of the depicting surface is not identical to the depicted three-dimensional, non-bordered and open space. But the first one can be a model of the second if there is something common between them used as the basis of modelling. At the same time, the elements and structures of the depicting space can represent some objects of the depicted space even without being

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similar to them. These elements and structures form the plane of expression in the peculiar spatial text of the depiction, where the plane of content is formed by represented objects. The difference between both these planes is less obvious in the picture than it is in verbal texts, because the depicted space can be open for the viewing together with the depicting surface, which is partly similar to it. Here, one visible space represents another visible space and is literally "transparent for the meaning" . These representing and represented spaces constitute the planes of expression and of content of the depiction, and they are connected more closely than the two sides of paper in the famous comparison made by F. de Saussure, since they belong to the same side.

Figure II.6. 1-1

Figure II.6.1-2

Transition from the depicting space to the depicted one occurs due to shifted perception, when looking at the surface turns into looking through it. This shift can be illustrated by the following example. Figure 11.6. 1-1 can be viewed in two ways: as a cube and as three rhombuses, which are also repeated in another position at Figure 11.6. 1-2. It is possible to see the cube due to a shifting perception from the flat surface of the paper to the depicted space, where a three-dimensional cube is situated and where the rhombuses are perceived as its rectangular faces. Similarly, shifted perception takes place if the same lines of the drawing can be perceived as convergent and lying on the surface of the picture or as parallels going deep into the background of the depicted space (Figure 11.6. 1-4). Again, there are two different ways of vision evoked by the same physical object. The first is to look at the surface, and it is necessary for creating and evaluating the depicting space in the plane of expression. The second supposes looking through the depicting surface into a depicted space, and it is necessary for seeing the represented object.

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3.3. Perceptographic Code as a System of Norms Correlating Depicted and Depicting Spaces

Relations between the depicting plane of expression and the depicted plane of content depend on cultural nonns of pictorial modelling. These norms can require, for instance, an artist to draw using systems of "direct", "reverse", or "parallel" perspective. They can also demand [OnTIS to be shown without shades, by black and white contrasts of shadow and light, by demonstrating tonal nuances between them, etc. According to such norms, the pictorial "window" into the depicted space can be either more "clear" for a viewer (like in paintings of the XVI-XIX centuries) or more "opaque" (like in paintings starting from the Impressionists). Some of these cultural norms limit the selection of similar features be­ tween spatial models and represented objects. The similarity can be estab­ lished between diverse volumetric [OnTIS, colours, linear structures, etc. Various types of spatial modelling are limited by these different features. So sculpture repeats [OnTIS without using colours, while painting, on the contrary, reproduces colours on a flat surface without directly imitating volumes, which are represented only in the depicted space. These cultural norms of mimetic reproduction still do not form any semiotic system as they determine only the qualities of similarity, whereas the actual semiotic system mediates relations between the texts and the objects, which do not look like them. Therefore, the means of representa­ tion of depicted objects form a semiotic system insofar as their planes of expression and content differ from each other. The difference between these two planes has been shown in Figure 11.6. 1-1, where nomectangular rhombuses from the plane of expression turn into square faces of the cube represented in the plane of content. The transformation of squares into rhombuses reduces the similarity between the depicting and depicted forms but increases the possibility to show a three-dimensional form. Such deviations from represented objects are nei­ ther iconic nor conventional signs, but indexes pointing at the position of represented fOnTIS in the third dimension which is absent in the depicting surface. Likewise, a complex of convergent lines and perspective shortening is a number of indexes showing parallels moving into the depth. In the same way, the light and shade system contains indexes of volumetric forms and of their spatial arrangement.

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Figure II.6.1-3

Figure II.6. 1 -4

I n depictions these indexes can combine with some mimetic elements in different proportions depending on the system of cultural norms. If one compares two flat depictions of a cube, it is obvious that the axonometric projection (Figure 11.6. 1-3) has more similar features with the cube than the linear perspective (Figure 11.6. 1-4). Figure 11.6. 1-1 preserves the par­ allelism for all parallel cube edges and the square form for two cube sides. Figure 11.6. 1-4 retains neither the parallelism of any lines, nor of the square form of any cube faces, nor of any right angles. However, this flat depiction can create a more illusory image of the cube because all these deviations from iconicity in the system of linear perspective become the indexes of the stereometric form in three-dimensional space. Cultural norms of such correlations between depicting and depicted spaces establish a particular semiotic system-a perceptographic code (see 11.3 .4). This code provides the means for an artificial stimulation of per­ ceptual images which are used for representing depicted objects and for communication between subj ects. These means are elaborated within the historical practice of creation and interpretation of such depictions as pic­ tures, drawings, etc. As a culturally determined system of separating and using some natural indexes, it can be called a "secondary" semiotic system only regarding the "primary" natural perceptual code which mediates each visual perception, but not in relation to verbal language. The perceptographic code is connected with different psychical levels than verbal language. The mental models of its content plane are built on the perceptual level, whereas the plane of expression is intended for a sen­ sorial level of vision. The means of this code shift the perception from the depicting to the depicted space. This code does not include upper levels of picture interpretation regulated by other visual codes and the verbal lan­ guage.

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The system of the perceptographic code does not contain separate units with constant meanings like the vocabulary of a language. Even more than the verbal language, this system can be characterized by F. de Saussure' s idea that it has nothing besides relations. Only the relations between lines, tonal or colour spots, and their contrasts and nuances form a complex of indexes influencing the perception of a depicted object. Together with genuine iconic features repeating properties of an original, these indexes create the impression of "resemblance" between the depiction and its ob­ ject. 3.4. Connections between the Levels of Spatial Modelling in the Depiction

Obviously, the picture can serve not only for the artificial stimulation of perception, but also for the expression and communication of senses developing on higher psychical levels. The painted depiction can be a me­ diator between internal models built on diverse mental levels by the partic­ ipants of communication via the picture. As a painted surface, it can exte­ riorize the definite pattern of a painter's visual field and evoke similar conditions on the viewers' sensorial level. As a visual text regulated by the perceptographic code and fonning a depicted space, it represents images of figures built on the perceptual level. These depicted figures, together with the spatial relations between them, can also serve as visible spatial texts interpreted on apperceptual and conceptual levels by other spatial codes: object-functional, social-symbolic, proxemic ones, etc. The percep­ tographic code serves as a basis and a condition for the application of sev­ eral other visual codes by the interpretation of depiction. Thus, such depiction is not a simple text, but a "hypertext" containing several visual-spatial texts built by various spatial codes and addressed to diverse mental levels of an interpreter. Each of these texts can perform the modelling function in relation to the represented object if there is a simi­ larity between them. The structural similarity of these levels also gives the conditions for their mutual modelling if their structures represent each other. For example, the famous crosswise scheme of the "world tree" has an invariant structure constructed by the relations between the main axes of anthropomorphic coordinates mediating the "top" and "bottom", "right" and "left", "front" and "back", as well as the general opposition of "cen­ tre" and "periphery" (see Toporov, 1971; 1972; 1983; 2010). This invari­ ant spatial structure is included in many external models (both figurative and non-figurative), and it can also pass through all internal levels of spa-

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tial modelling. It organizes the visual field on the sensorial level and is projected into the "regular field" of the rectangular plane of the picture (see Schapiro, 1994; Daniel et a!., 1 979). It also forms the general struc­ ture of the perceptible space on the level of the "visible world" as well as the spatial structure of many visible forms-anthropomorphic, zoomor­ phic, phytomorphic, etc. It is also reproduced in the apperceptual level as a scheme of some recognizable objects: a human body, a temple, a vessel, etc. This invariant spatial scheme is also actualized by interpreting spatial relations between the bodies of people by means of the proxemic code or between the members of some sacred hierarchy by means of the "hiero­ phanic" code. In all these cases, the represented content becomes visible due to the crosswise spatial scheme being directly presented for a viewer. At the same time, this scheme structuring each level of such a multilevel spatial hypertext is essential not only as a peculiarity of its expression plane, but also as an alienable part of its content. Such spatial text is not equivalent to any verbal text built as a linear succession and cannot be considered as its direct translation. For example, medieval depictions of the Holy Scrip­ ture' s subjects are not its visual translation, but spatial models of the struc­ ture of the world, which is not directly described, but only meant in the verbal text (see colour picture 4). The spatial scheme of the "world tree" represents invariants not of any verbal texts, but of internal semantic struc­ tures of language and of several other modelling semiotic systems derived from it. Spatial models present the content. which the language has in its internal system among its paradigmatic structures, by syntagmatic struc­ tures of visible spatial texts. So the spatial way of modelling allows the visualization of some con­ ceptual structures which cannot be perceived in another way. This unique ability for a synoptic comprehension of complex structures gives spatial modelling the possibility of being an irreplaceable method of representa­ tion.

11.6.2. ON SEMIOTICS OF PICTORIAL MEANS

The pictorial means used in the spatial types of art and in extra-artistic spheres have still not been fully mastered by semiotics. On the one hand. their participation in information processes is unquestionable as the means perfonning representative and communicative functions and, therefore, they can be considered serniotically in syntactical, semantic and pragmatic dimensions. On the other hand. the means of depiction significantly differ from those of the verbal language and similar sign systems that have been studied in semiotics. Therefore, the inclusion of images in the class of signs (for example. in Morris, 1939; 1971 c) is somewhat formal. As is well-known, Ch. S. Peirce and Ch. Morris after him added icons to index­ es and conventional signs via simply expanding the concept of sign "by definition", despite the specifics of the pictorial way of representation. Even more artificial is another way to include pictures in the field of semiotics-to reduce depictions to conventional signs (see Goodman, 1968; Eco, 1998). The identification of pictures with signs, as well as their simple opposition, does not reveal the semiotic mechanisms of pictorial representation better than the old difference of mimeticity (iconicity) and symbolism formed already in ancient times. Problems arise also when comparing the pictorial means with the sys­ tem of verbal language. Their differences are traced in all three dimensions of semiotics. So, in the syntactic dimension, pictures have fundamental structural differences from verbal texts and similar sign constructions. Instead of linearly ordered chains of discrete signs with their irreversible sequence, meaningful relationships are built up in the images, at least in a two-dimensional space, which is predominantly continuous and reversi­ ble-i.e., it assumes a repeated return to the same places. In the semantic dimension, images differ from words and other con­ ventional signs in a fundamentally other, non-significant way of represen­ tation. They do not need a connection fixed by code between the "form of expression" of signs and the "form of content" determining their meaning. Instead of external links to the code system, internal relationships between the elements of its spatial structure are fixed in a picture. Thanks to this

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structure, the picture does not signify its object, but models it In its de­ picting space, the picture contains an iconic model of the depicted space that can differ by its topological and metrical properties. The picture performs its modelling functions in another way than the verbal language. A verbal message creates object models, mostly at the level of semantics in the plane of content, not at the level of syntactics in the expression plane. It is noteworthy that among the six functions of the speech message described by R Jakobson (referential, expressive, appella­ tive, fathical, metalinguistic and poetic), there is no modelling function, although Jakobson himself finds elements of iconism in the expression plane of speech (Jakobson, 1 975). The main modelling functions in verbal language are not taken on by its explicitly expanded syntagmatic struc­ tures, but by paradigmatic structures given only implicitly, in which the relations between the meanings of signs are fixed, fonning in their system the language model of the world. The feature of pictures' pragmatics is their immediate continuation of their semantic and syntactic peculiarities. Pictures are addressed to other psychological mechanisms of perception and interpretation than speech messages. Images do not describe objects, but show them. This means that not only is their expression plane addressed to the visual perception, but also the content plane. Unlike speech, the content plane of which is re­ vealed only in the system of ideas and concepts, the depicting space can be made "transparent" for the represented space, which opens "through" it to "immediate" perception. The structural and functional differences between the pictorial repre­ sentation and the significative one are connected with the fact that the psy­ chological mechanisms of the both have different genetic roots. Although the visual perception of pictures as well as real objects depends on culture, it nevertheless has the natural ground connected with cognitive mecha­ nisms of orientation in the environment. Among these mechanisms, natu­ rally developing visual codes also act. The most important of them is the perceptual code, through which op­ tical signals and indices unfold into a perceptual image of external spatial objects. In their cognition, another cognitive code is involved, which al­ lows one to sum up various spatial configurations for unified visual schemes stored in memory. This recognition code depends more than the perceptual one on the culture and even the vocabulary of the verbal lan­ guage. However, its own "dictionary" of visual schemes allows perceived objects only to be referred to certain visual categories, not to represent objects that are hidden from perception.

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Unlike visual perception and recognition, the mechanisms of which are fonned in intra-subjective cognitive processes, the mechanisms of speech messages appear in inter-subjective communication processes. They have not a natural but a cultural origin, fonning in a collective, where speech develops from a system of commands and other signals that from the outside induce an individual to a certain behaviour. Only the interiorization of external speech, its translation into the internal plane, its connection with non-verbal intellect (Vygotsky, 1982) are allowed to fill brief signals with the content of visual images, to emich the command language with the means of description and in course of the cultural evolution to tum into a universal modelling system. Communicative means of verbal language are suitable for performing modelling functions, thanks to the ability to transfer from the external to internal plane in acts of interiorization. In the case of pictures, the development was in the reverse direction. Internal perceptual models of objects were included in the processes of inter-subject communication, thanks to oppositely directed acts of exteriorization in visual activity. In these acts, elements of the plane for expressing the perceptual code that are replaced in the system of external pictorial and graphic indices are outwardly exposed. The role of such indices in the simplest case, for example in a linear drawing, can be played by a number of geometric elements (points, lines, surfaces, etc.), which acquire definite meanings only when located in different places of the visual space and form a system of mutual relations. It is these systems of relations that create iconic models, whose complex organization makes it more justified to compare them not with individual signs, but with texts composed of many signs. The similarity of images with such texts is also strengthened by the fact that, along with iconic modelling, they include means of signal-index coding. Thus, in the system of the linear perspective (which can be considered as one of the possible grammatical principles of constructing an image space), parallel lines are replaced by converging ones, equal distances by successively contracting ones, etc. This introduces a system of indices, through which a flat imaging space is made capable of expressing a three-dimensional imaged space. Together with linear relations, the functions of depth indices and other spatial relationships can also be performed by tone and colour differences between spots, their contrasts, nuances, etc. < . . > (on the perceptographic code, see above, 11.3.4). The rules of the perceptographic code, of course, far from exhaust the semiotics of images, the interpretation of which can be mediated by a

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number of other visual-spatial codes (for example, object-functional, so­ cially symbolic, iconograpliic, etc.). However, all these codes participate in the comprehension of the already depicted image, and therefore have a connotative character in relation to it (cf Barthes, 1989: 303). Meanwhile, already the means by which the "literal", "denotative" meanings of depic­ tions are constructed belong to semiotic system of a fundamentally differ­ ent type than a verbal language.

11 . 6 . 3 . STRUCTURAL SIMILARITY AND CODING IN PICTORIAL REPRESENTATION

1. Differences between the Depicting and Depicted Spaces A picture as a space of contemplation has specific structural features.

The fact that a picture seems entirely opened in front of a viewer does not simplify, but further complicates its understanding, because the seeming simplicity of its perception makes the structural analysis of its organiza­ tion more difficult. The complexity of a picture space is revealed already in the fact that each picture contains not one, but at least two spaces-depicting and de­ picted ones. One of them is a flat space of a surface, where some lines and colour paints are located. The second is usually a three-dimensional space of volumetric obj ects represented by these lines and paints: mythological scenes, figures of people, a sea landscape, etc. Sometimes, it can be a pic­ ture itself (see Figure 11.6.3-1).

Figure 11.6.3-1. Jan Porcellis. Raging Sea. Canvas, Oil. 1629. Old Pinakothek, Munich.

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11.6.3.

Both of these spaces are given to senses, but in different ways. In the first case, it is a viewing of the surface filled by colour paints; in the sec­ ond, it is viewing through it into a represented space. The vision can be directed only to the paints put on the flat surface, as is the case in some moments of a painter's or a restorer's work. In these cases, the result of the vision will be a perceptual image of the flat space. The vision of a viewer may be directed also into the depicted space of the objects repre­ sented in it. The result of this way of vision is a perceptual image as well. However, this image will differ from the image of a flat depicting surface. It can reproduce the three-dimensional relations between the depicted vol­ umetric objects, and it is related not to an existing object in front of the viewer, but to a represented space that can be only imagined, such as some historical or mythical situations. Nevertheless, this represented space­ object is often also perceptible even before the flat depicting space-if the painting gives enough means for the creation of a certain perceptual im­ age. These perceived spaces are connected with their external objects in dif­ ferent ways. The depicting space is a function of a material bearer that can continually exist from the moment of its creation. Unlike it, the depicted space is created only in the perception of a viewer and exists in it as long as he or she looks at the picture or at least imagines it in memory. This perceptual image of the depicted space certainly differs from the physical space of depicted objects-if they were sometime and somewhere. Even less, the existing perceptual image is the space of not-existing mythologi­ cal scenes. The depicting and depicted spaces are autonomous and have their own semio-topological properties. Both of them are also in different ways sep­ arated from other spaces, because each of them in its own way is de lim ited from the external world, has its own system of ordering, scale of measurement and succession of events (for more details on the features of autonomous and separated spaces, see above, IIS1). The structural differ­ ences between the depicting and depicted spaces will be considered in more detail below. 2. The Structural Peculiarities of the Depicting Space

The depicting space of a picture is a surface, where visible spots of paints various in colours and sizes are located. However, it does not coin­ cide with the physical features of this surface. It includes only those of them that participate in the creation of a perceptual image of the depicted objects as far as they do this. Therefore, the properties which form this

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space belong not to the purely objective physical or geometrical structure of the depicted surface, but depend also on how these structures influence the subjective perception of viewers. As an autonomous space, it has its own semio-topological profile formed by topological properties that are dependent on its semiotic func­ tions (see above, 11.5.1 .4.3). In particular, the depicting space can be con­ tinual, if each part of it can be extended in its surroundings without any gaps. In contrast, if it is divided into parts separated between each other, the depicting space is discrete. So, the depicting space of mosaics is dis­ crete if a viewer distinguishes its separate parts, and it can be perceived as continual for the viewer, who does not see them . In a similar way, the space of a digital screen is continual as long as the viewer does not notice the pixels that form a picture, but it becomes discrete if these pixels in­ crease in size and become visible. Such dependence of the depicting space on the subjective possibilities of viewers is one of its differences from the physical structure of the surface, on which this depicting space is de­ ployed. If the surface where the depicting space is located is completely sur­ rounded by borders, this space is finite and closed These properties are typical for the depicting space of a picture in a frame, but it is not always so. A Palaeolithic painting in a cave or some drawings of children can be unrelated to the borders of the surfaces where they are located, just as a painted piece of tissue may be cut from a large roll anywhere regardless of the pattern thereon. In these cases the depicting finite space is open. The depicting space is two-dimensional, unlike a three-dimensional sculpture or a written text, which is capable of saving its structure even in a one-dimensional telegraph tape. Even if the depiction is located at a curved surface-on the concave vaults of architectural constructions and porcelain dishes or on convex fOnTIS of painted vessels-it remains, as a rule, flat and not twisted, as long as no three-dimensional relationships are taken into account as significant For example, although the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a concave vault, Michelangelo painted this concave sur­ face in such a way as if it were flat. At the same time, a curved surface of a painted object gives possibilities for the depicting spaces to be perceived as three-dimensional and even twisted This possibility is implemented in decorative art, where patterns are more connected with the decorated sur­ face. The depicting space is, as a rule, reversible. It gives the freedom to consider it in any directions repeatedly returning to the same places­ unlike, for example, the irreversible space of writing, which loses its sense upon reading in the opposite direction.

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This space can have symmetry of diverse kinds: mirror, turning or transfer symmetry (see Weyl, 1968). This has place especially in the or­ namentation of architectural constructions and products of the decorative arts. The imprint of an engraving is mirror-symmetric to the initial draw­ ing, but it nevertheless saves its sense, in contrast to non-reversible and non-symmetrical inscriptions that become hard to read. However, more subtle observations show that this symmetry is not full, and the reversed picture makes a different impression than in its initial condition (Wblfflin, 1946; Arnheim, 1974: 33-36). As far as these differences influence the viewer's impressions, the depicting space is asymmetrical. The mirror symmetry of the depicting space is differently possible for diverse directions. It is possible in a horizontal direction in relation to the vertical mirror plane, and practically impossible in a vertical direction in relation to the horizontal mirror plane (except for such special cases as images on playing cards, where "top" and "bottom" are interchangeable). In this feature, one more semio-topological quality of the depicting space is revealed-its anisotropy. The location of depictions in diverse direc­ tions in it produces different impressions and is endowed with different meanings. The location along the axis "top-bottom" is perceived and has another meaning than the location along the axis "left-right". Higher valu­ ated objects are often located higher on this axis and are contraposed to the less important objects. The location of a picture in front of the viewer also allows the involvement of the opposition between left and right as mean­ ingful relations. The axes "top-bottom" and "left-right" forming the internal carcass of the picture plane are also reproduced in their external frame that has, as a rule, a rectangular format. Even if the external frame of a picture deviates from this fonnat and the external borders of the picture have another form-an arch, an oval, etc.-the internal structure of the flat picture is nevertheless connected with the vertical and horizontal axes, which are selected in general in the human environment as the "basis" of anthropo­ morphic space (see above, 11. 5 . 1 .5.3). The theorists who have researched this special structure of a picture space have named it "the regular field" (see Schapiro, 1 994 [1968]; Dan­ iel, 1979; 1 990). Everything that is in this regular field comes into contact with its structure and can be endowed with various meanings dependent on its areas. A displacement of some depicted figures at the upper left comer gives other possibilities for interpretation than a shifting them in the bot­ tom right one, a position in the centre of the picture means something oth­ er than a place in its periphery, etc.

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3. On Structural Peculiarities of Depicted Space

The space depicted in a picture has its own structural features. It can be not flat and can be extended in the third dimension as far as the pictorial means of the artist allow. This three-dimensional depicted space can also be stretched incomparably more widely than the space depicting it A min­ iature picture can open a view of a large space extending far and wide with mountains and seas sprawling to the horizon. Although a perception of such a space is interrupted by the picture frame, it can be continued in the imagination and does not seem complete, just as the space outside the window is not perceived as ending there, where the window frame begins. The depicted space in such cases is also not closed and potentially endless. An artist still has to make special efforts evoking an impression of the closeness of the depicted space. A means for it is an "internal frame"­ some depicted objects near the outer edges of the picture, which serve as signals stopping the gaze's movement beyond these edges. The depicted space can be continual and discrete, and it is also inde­ pendent of the corresponding qualities of the depicting space. A mosaic can depict a continual space, and a continual depicting space can also show areas with diverse spaces Csee, for example, Figure 11.5.1-4 and col­ our picture 13). The depicted space preserves, as a rule, the anisotropy that is in gen­ eral inherent to the anthropomorphic spaces. The oppositions of top and bottom, of front and rear, or of left and right are in many cases even more important to it than those in the depicting space Cas in medieval painting). The structure of the depicted space is essentially dependant on the per­ spective constructions used in it. The location of the vanishing point of the linear perspective in the centre of a picture gives another structure to the depicted space than if its location were near the left or right border. A low­ lying horizon line also structures the depicted space in a different way to a high-lying line of horizon. 4. Structural Similarity and Dissimilarity of the Depicting and Depicted Spaces

The differences between these spaces do not prevent the viewers from perceiving them as an entire "space of picture". The connections between them are even closer than the connection of two sides of a piece of paper in the famous comparison with relations between the signifying and the signifier, made by Ferdinand de Saussure (1977: 145). Indeed, both these

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spaces are visible on one and the same side, and differ only by a way of vision. However, no matter the extent to which the depicting space is "transparent" to the represented objects, in the theoretical analysis, it re­ mains in many relations structurally and functionally different from the depicted space. Each picture is a model (as it is defined at p. 3 1 6), due to a structural similarity between the depicting and depicted spaces in some relations. In particular, this similarity takes place between several sernio-topological (ST) qualities that are common for both of these spaces, despite the fact that some of thern remain dissimilar. Such ST -qualities as reversibility and anisotropy are, as a rule, common for the depicting and depicted spaces. At the same time, other ST -qualities often remain different: dimensionali­ ty, closeness or openness, discreteness or continuity, etc. The list of com­ mon and different qualities can be variable, depending on concrete ways of relations between depictions and depicted objects. The depicting space of mosaics consists of discrete elements differing in this quality from the depicted space; the depicted space of Impressionists' paintings can be open unlike their depicting space, etc. The similarity of the depicting and depicted spaces can also include a likeness of their spatial order in such relations as, for example, oppositions of centre and periphery, meanings of left and right, front and rear, etc. For example, many medieval icons or pictures of the Early Renaissance have a frontal and symmetrical arrangement of figures in the depicted space, cor­ related with a similar displacement of paint spots in the depicting space. In these cases, a way of semiotization of both spaces can in many relations be common and consist of the same features of anthropomorphic space. At the same time, painting of this period needs more accurate analysis, and some seemingly simple interpretations could be incorrect. In particu­ lar, the interpretation of the depicted space in some paintings presupposed the reverse relations at the axis "left-right". In these cases, the placement which is "left" from an external viewer's position should be interpreted as "right" from the point of view of an opposite internal position of Good in the depicted transcendent space. Boris Ouspensky showed such a non­ coincidence of spatial order in the depicted space for the external and in­ ternal positions in cases of Russian medieval icons and of the Ghent Altar of Jan van Eyck (Ouspensky, 1971; 2013). The differences of spatial orders in the depicting and depicted spaces are more obvious in paintings of the Post-Renaissance and Baroque peri­ ods. For example, in Tintoretto's The Last Supper (colour picture 8), the main horizontal axis of the table at the depicted space is placed diagonally in relation to the depicting one. There are also examples when the direc-

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tions that should be interpreted as "horizontal" in the depicted space are emphatically strictly "vertical" in the depicting space (see Figure 11.6.3-2).

Figure II 6 3-2. A&B. Paolo Veronese. A. Triumph ojMordechai. B. Repudiation oj Vashti

1556. Paintings of the nave ceiling in the Church of San Sebastiano.

Venice In the depicted spaces of both pictures. the horizontal cornices of the buildings are represented by lanes that are vertical in the depicting 'paces and tum horizontal agam on the ceiling of the church space regarding the viewers. who look upwards at them

Such diversity of spatial orders in the depicting and depicted spaces is a feature of their belonging to different separate spaces (in the sense de­ scribed on p.

262). One more feature of a separated space-a conunon unit

of measurement-can also be differently realized by the depicting and depicted spaces. In cases of "parallcl perspective" based on an axonomet­ ric way of projection (which, for example, is typical for the Fern East paintings-see colour picture

27),

a united scale of measurement is pre­

served in each of these spaces and in the rclations between them. The situation is different in the cases of the linear and so-called "re­ verse" perspective (as in medieval painting). The linear perspective sup­ poses a systematic shortening of distances between clements of the depict-

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ing space. This shortening represents deepening elements of the depicted space. Thereby, there are systematic changes of relations between the scales of the depicting and depicted spaces. The "reverse" perspective is also based on a systematic change of scale, but in the other direction-an increasing of the scale of deepening objects. A "meaning perspective" [OnTIS a special case of depictions (as in an­ cient Egyptian or medieval paintings), when the scale is stable for the de­ picting space, and a clear difference between the sizes of the depicted fig­ ures is the means to express the differences of their meanings.

5. Projection and Prospection as Relations between the Depicting and Depicted Spaces In the row of diverse ways regulating connections between the depict­ ing and depicted spaces, the "direct" linear, or "Italian", perspective stands out as a way to create a more illusory perceptual image of depicted ob­ jects. As has been said, the depicting space is opened for a viewer when he or she looks at the surface of a picture and sees the coloured paints put on the plane. The viewer sees the depicted space in another way, looking as if through this plane. The word "perspective" is derived from the Latin verb perspicere-"to see through". Albrecht DUrer translated it into German as durchsehen. This understanding of prospect as a relation between the depicting and depicted space is clearly presented in Diller's engravings for his Treatise on Perspective and Proportions (see Figure 11.6.3-3, A&B). This "vision through", or "the prospection", is a relation in a certain sense, inverse to the projection of a three-dimensional object on a two­ dimensional surface, which is the subject of the geometrical description of perspective. Only an already existing spatial object can be projected on a surface. No viewer is needed for this projection, because it occurs along with optical laws in the physical space or geometrical laws in the conven­ tional mathematical space. This is a relation that goes from the projected object as the "original" to the projection as its "geometrical image". The physical processes of light reflection in the mirror or photo shoots can be performed independently of a man. The similarity between both the "orig­ inal" space and its mirror or photo image can be described in pure mathe­ matical terms-as an invariant in a group of symmetry at projective trans­ formations. In contrast, prospection is not such an objective relation as such pro­ jection. Prospection is an act of the subject's activity; it goes from a view-

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er as his look to the depicted object "through" the depicting flat surface. Such a look can find in the depicted space any objects-existing or not existing in reality-only if they can be represented for perception by the depicting space of the picture with the help of perspective. As these ob­ jects are represented for the viewer's perception, they appear in front of him as if they were presented to him in reality. The representation has, therefore, a seeming form oftheir presentation. Only in relatively rare cases is a picture created as a direct projection taken from nature, as is shown in Durer' s engraving. The cases when an artist draws as ifhe made such a proj ection are more typical. He often uses the models as some objects, whose forms he depicts. Unlike reproductive models being the results of projection, these models are already productive ones. A productive model of a picture is also created by the artist, who externalizes it in the art piece as an outside material object.

A

Figure 11.6.3-3, A&B. Painter studying the laws of perspective. Engravings. 1525. Extract from Diller's

Treatise on Perspective and Proportions.

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11.6.3.

A viewer reproduces in his perception an image that the artist could have had when he saw the depicted objects-like a hearer perceiving the words of a speaker reproduces his thought Just as the words stand for a represented object so the viewer's perception is stimulated by the depict­ ing space, but not by the depicted object itself This perception is a result of prospection into the depicted space and internal construction of this perceptual image. So the modelling for all participants of communication via pictures is not a passive projection, but an activity of prospection. 6.

Modelling and Coding as two Sides of the Linear Perspective

At the same time, even when reproducing some features of depicted objects as a model, the depicting space also contains some important devi­ ations from the similarity with these depicted objects. Such deviations appear not as the result of any free actions of artists, but as the direct ef­ fects of the same rules of perspective. These rules particularly demand drawing a circle seen laterally as an oval, drawing the faces of a cube as diamond-shaped quadrangles, etc. (see Figures 11.6. 1-1, 11.6. 1-4). In a similar way, the equal sizes of the depicted objects are presented at the depicting space by the rules of the linear perspective as unequal and short­ ening, depending on distance; parallel lines between them in the third di­ mension are represented at the flat surface as converging at one point, etc. Such deviations from the similarity are not useless elements of depic­ tions and are systematically introduced into them. Deviating from iconici­ ty as a way of representation, these elements become the indexes of spatial relations between the depicted objects, which represent them in another way. The depiction in this relation manifests the features of an indexical text, which stimulates a viewer to construct a certain perceptual image. One can name such an indexical text a perceptogram and a system of in­ dexation that regulates the creation of such image a perceptographic code (see above, 11.3.4). The means of this code, based on the natural ways of viewing and spa­ tial orientation, are differently selected and used in culture as means of communication and representation. The same linear ("Italian") perspective is only a part of them. Among these means, there is an aerial perspective as a method of indexation of distances through a systematic decreasing of contrasts in depth, differences of light and dark parts of figures as indexes of their volumes, etc. All these means of depiction are the "visual discov­ eries" (Gombrich, 1 960) that were, in certain cultural-historical situations,

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introduced into a praxis of communication via depictions. All such means are also artificially elaborated for the creation of a perceptual image of a depicted space by a viewer and can be considered as parts of diverse ver­ sions of the perceptographic code. Thus, a representation of the depicted space in a picture is possible due to both relations of the modelling and of the coding via indication between the depicting and depicted spaces. Due to the indexes, together with iconic elements similar to objects, a viewer can build a perceptual image of the depicted space. The system of the linear perspective is related to both of these means: to modelling via similarity of spaces, and to coding by the indexes of the perceptographic code. On the one hand, it contains the rules of projection of a space with a greater dimensionality to a space of a lesser dimensionality, and, at the same time, the perspective system contains the norms of prospection, with the use of which a viewer can (re)construct a three-dimensional space in a perceptual image. On the other hand, devia­ tions from the similarity between the depicted and depicting spaces be­ come indexes for the same (re)construction. Only dissimilarities between both these spaces, regulated by the same rules of perspective, become the indicating means of a semiotic system, which is named in this book the perceptographic code. A picture using a version of this code contains, together with a spatial model, a spatial indexical S-text. There are also other codes participating in the interpretation of a picture. Some of them are used in parallel with the means of perceptography, while some other ones can be applied on the condition that the depicted space is created. Therefore, a depicted space (as well as the space of a real human environment) potentially contains a multiplicity of spatial texts regulated by diverse codes. This is a poly­ semiotized space that can be interpreted in diverse ways, and the concept of the H-text is applicable to it (see abowe, 11. 1 . 4.2). 7. Comparison of Pictures and Maps A combination of semiotic and mimetic types of representation, the modelling and the coding, is also clear in the case of a geographical map, where a spatial model of a territory represents it together with spatial texts that are usually regulated by several codes (using diverse colours, fonts, pictograms, ideograms, etc.). This connection of iconic and coding ways of representation is espe­ cially clear in the history of cartography, before the development of spe­ cial cartographic systems, when maps were still drawn as a picture of a large territory seen "from a bird's eye view" with a high elevated horizon

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line (see colour picture 10). The conceptual level of interpretation is con­ nected in these maps, like in pictures, with the perceptual images of repre­ sented objects. Thereby, in both cases, space is stratified into two layers, each of which is an autonomous and separated space with its own ST­ qualities, its own ordinal and metric structure and with dissimilar functions in the modelling process. Like in pictures, representing and represented spaces are connected in maps between each other according to definite rules, and each of these spaces has an external aspect-the represented objects-and an internal aspect-perceptual images of the depicting and the depicted. At the same time, modelling via pictures and via maps has essential differences. In the case of a picture, a vision through a depicting surface and the forming of a perceptual image of a depicted space are necessary conditions of this way of representation. The represented objects can then be interpreted on higher cognitive levels via diverse spatial or verbal codes, but without a vision of the depicted objects on the perceptual level, such an interpretation would be impossible. In the case of a map, the mat­ ter is usually different (except cases like in colour picture 10). A viewer only creates a perceptual image of the two-dimensional depiction, which he looks at, but he does not see "through" its plane into any other depicted space. He sees the spatial relations between the represented objects-their placement in a flat projection-but their outward looking is hidden from the viewer, unlike the landscapes, perhaps, of the same territories. A map remains partially similar to a picture to the extent that the rela­ tions between meaningful spatial objects presented in it reproduce spatial relations between the represented geographical objects: outlines of lands, seas, states' borders, etc. However, a map contains many conventional signs and, depending on their multiplicity, a degree of its iconicity will be different-greater in aero- or satellite photo maps and lesser in political maps. (It is noteworthy that the latter are often read better than the fonner, despite their greater degree of iconicity.) In these maps, a choice of mean­ ingful colours is dependent not on a sensorial impression-as it would be in a landscape painting-but on the accepted conventions. The latter can set a number of definite colours as a partial semiotic system of sign­ nominators equivalent to the names of countries-as it is in the case of political maps-or of sign-significators of certain qualities-as it is, for example, in the case of climatic cards. Consequently, the interpretation of such maps performs at the other cognitive level and demands not a shifted perception (as in the vision of a depicted landscape), but a shifted under­ standing (following the tenns discussed above, see 1.3.2).

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Pictures and maps differ also in the ways of their perceptual interpreta­ tions. Although a map can be depicted as a picture and can be perceived in a similar way, a map formed in contemporary cartographic systems does not usually suppose a view through it, and, as noted above, it is quite enough, as a rule, to see the objects and their relations at its surface. A map can be put on the table as a space for actions-some additional lines can be drawn on them, etc.-whereas a painting or engraving are purely spaces of visual contemplation, and do not allow any intrusion into them. Like in a picture, the two-dimensional space of a map is a flat projec­ tion of three-dimensional relations between the represented objects, but unlike the picture, the map does not suppose the relation of prospection between the viewer and these objects. The representation of the spatial relations is performed by diverse rules. A separate space of a map has a united scale of metric relations with the sizes of represented objects, whereas the depicting space of a picture regulated by the linear perspective is connected in new European paintings with a variable scale of measure­ ment of the objects in the third dimension Cas in colour picture 9). It gives a method to show the third dimension, whereas cartography solves this task in a different way, particularly by marking elevations and depressions with colour indexes. Diverse perspective systems in the case of pictorial representation also vary between each other as different methods of projection of depicted objects at a depicting surface. Their means regulate relations between rep­ resenting and represented spaces differently, depending on the version of the perceptographic code. Unlike a geographical map, where a unified scale covers all of its parts, a flat picture models a volumetric space using changes of relations between the scales of depicting and depicted spaces. Each of these spaces is autonomous and separate, having a unified order and a unit of measurement, but a changeable scale connecting both of them depends on the system of perspective. In particular, the linear perspective is a method of indexation of spac­ ing through the shortening of more distanced objects, i.e. due to the sys­ tematic changes of relations between the sizes of units in the depicting and depicted spaces. So, the regular change of a scale connecting sizes in these two separate spaces serves as a semiotic means to indicate the order of the depicted objects in the third dimension. The so-called reverse perspective is a method of depiction that sets converse relations between these sizes­ a systematic enlargement of the distanced-and only parallel perspective, as an axonometric proj ection, is a method of the systematic preserving of scale independent of the distance of the depicted objects.

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8. Conclusion Thus, the semiotic analysis shows the complex organization of the re­ lations between the depicted and depicting spaces in a picture, and a pos­ sibility of various combinations between them . Each of them is an auton­ omous space with its own sernio-topological profile-a set of such quali­ ties as dimensionality, continuity, closeness, etc., which can be more or less dissimilar in these two spaces. Each of them is also separated in its own way, because it has its particular spatial order and particular way of quantity measurement. The linear perspective as a method of connections between these two spaces regulates not only the projection of the depicted space into the de­ picting one, but also the reverse relation of the prospection of the viewer's look "through" the depicting space into the depicted one. This perspective gives not only possibilities to preserve some features of the depicted ob­ jects in the depicting space, but it also sets the system of deviations from such similarity. These systematic deviations from the likeness are no less important for the creation of an image of the depicted space by the viewer, because they serve as indexes of spatial relations between the depicted objects. These indexes are the meaningful elements of the perceptographic code, which connects the depicting and depicted spaces as planes of ex­ pression and of content. Both of them are connected in a pictorial way of representation even more than their analogues in verbal languages are, because the expression plane can be so "transparent" for its content that it creates a perceptual image of the represented objects. This image is creat­ ed not only by the iconic means of perspective, but also by the indexical means of the perceptographic code. Such a cooperation of iconic model­ ling and indexical coding in the system of linear perspective is a basis for the perceptual illusion of the presentation in front of the viewer of the ob­ jects represented to him by the picture. A combination of the modelling and coding means of this representation is specific for the pictures created in the system of linear perspective and differs from other cases of such combinations, particularly from the case of geographical maps, where the joining of conventional coding and iconic modelling is established in an­ other way.

11.7. S PATIAL TH INKING

II. 7. 1 . THE LANGUAGES OF ARCHITECT ' S THINKING

1. Verbal and Non-verbal Means of Thinking It is clear today that architectural buildings can express diverse senses. The semiotics of space shows that the representative and communicative functions of the expressive means in architecture are comparable with analogous functions of verbal language. The latter is able. however. not only to represent some objects and to serve as the means of communication for some subjects. Besides these external functions, there is an internal function of language: to serve as the means of thinking. There is a sentence of the famous Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky: "The thought is not expressed but performed in the word" (Vygotsky, 1982: 307). Is that true for the architect's thinking as well? Can one consider that the thought of the architect is performed also in the word and is only expressed in the spatial [OnTIs? Are there more grounds to suppose quite the contrary? Is the thinking of the architect (as well as that of the designer, of the artist, etc.) just "performed" in some non-verbal codes, and only then can it be expressed in a verbal form? The admission of the non-verbal semiotic means as tools of thinking requires the rejection of a still popular tradition to suppose verbal language as a unique generator of the "instant" and "primordial" senses. The steps to emancipation from this linguocentric conception are noticeable, for example, in the evolution of the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school, which has proceeded from dividing the sign systems on the "primary" (linguistic) and the "secondary" (all others) levels to understanding that the interaction of opposite sign systems, like discreet verbal language and continuous spatial codes, is necessary for any intellect (see, particularly, Lotman, 1 992, Vol. 1 29-3 1 , 53-54). Spatial thinking has been researched in more detail by psychologists (see, for example, Arnheim, 1 969). They have shown that any thinking performs in the psyche as a process of the mutual overcoding of information from a non-verbal simultaneous fonn to the successive verbal one and back (see Zhinkin, 1964: 36; Vecker, 1976: 134). It has also been

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shown that even logical-grammatical constructions in verbal speech can­ not be built without using any spatial images; the disturbing of some brain structures, which are responsible for its creation, involves the loss of abil­ ity to construct the propositions and to understand the logical relations (see Luria, 1974: 1 84, 1 97-198). Moreover, the most abstract levels of thinking cannot function without spatial images. For example, visual-spatial images remain important even for the scientific thinking of mathematicians (see Hadamard, 1 945). Spatial thinking is particularly obligatory for architects, whose activity turns it from an auxiliary facility into the main means of sense-formation. A spatial ordering is an immediate obj ect of an architect's activity, and it is natural that his plans only perform in the form of spatial thinking. Both the verbal-logical thinking of theoreticians and the visual-spatial thinking of architects are not accidental collections of associations, but are the purposeful processes deciding definite tasks. Spatial thinking is similar to logical modes of thinking with the ability to execute the operations of analysis and synthesis. The acts of the visual categorization of recogniza­ ble objects are the analogues of synthetic verbal-logical sentences. In a similar way, the "unconscious sentences and conclusions" (in H. Helm­ holz's terms) are analogous with analytical sentences in logic. One can see a similarity between logical conceptual and psychological spatial struc­ tures. In addition, the logical order allows the extraction of infonnation from the knowledge about the system of relations between the concepts, like the general knowledge about the order of space permits the recon­ struction of some invisible spatial relationships from infonnation about the visible parts of the whole spatial structure. There is a parallelism between the logical principle of identity and the psychological invariability of a moving object in an imaginative space, as well as between the logical principle of excepted contradiction and psychological supposition, that a body cannot be in more than one moment of time, in more than one place of space, etc.

2. Specificity of Spatial Thinking Spatial thinking has at the same time some essential differences from logical ones in its substratum, structure, functions and genesis. It all, and the architect's thought in particular, performs in its own "psychological substratum". It does not operate with logical concepts, but deals with spa­ tial images. The mental spatial images can have diverse "psychological addresses" and belong to diverse levels of the psyche: perceptual, apper­ ceptual, conceptual. They all are formed according to more or less general

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schemes, which are worked in the individual or collective praxis. The logical concepts are only one kind of such schemes. It is possible to consider the perceptual and more general apperceptual schemes of spatial structures as "visual concepts", in Rudolf Amheirn' s tenns. Kinesthetic feelings of space together with visual images form the components of this "substratum". The integrative simultaneous images of objects are added in the architect's thinking with successive schemes of operations. So the motor schemes of movements and actions correspond with the cognitive images of space. The movement images become the special subject of the architect's thinking, as it is intended with regard to the planning of spatial actions. The movement schemes of behaviour have hierarchic structures, similar to cognitive ones. As N. A. Bernstein has shown, the models of space differ on diverse levels of behaviour organization. So, two levels modelling the external space differ, in that each of them constructs the schemes of spatial behaviour in a different way. The level of the "spatial field" (the "C-level" in Bernstein's conception) contains the movement schemes which adapt the manipulations and locomotions to peculiarities of concrete places. The "D-level" or the "field of tools actions" organizes the more generalized planes of instrumental actions, which are less dependent on the quantitative features of a concrete situation. Therefore the first one contains the metric qualities of objects unlike the second, which can be limited only to topological qualities (see Bernstein, 1967 [1 947]). It is clear from the above that spatial thinking differs from the verbal one not only in its "psychological substratum", but in its "logical" (or, in J Piaget' s term, "infralogical") structures. Both ways of thinking are ordered by definite schemes of internal operations in the frame of a mental field. However, unlike logical statements and conclusions, spatial schemes do not deal with the genus-species system of relations but with the system of relationships between the whole and its parts. This way of thinking differs from logical operations with classes, because it not only fixes the qualitative relations of belonging of some parts to a whole, but also takes into account the quantitative relationships between these parts and the order of their connections in a whole. The specific elements and structures of spatial thinking are adapted to its own functions. Spatial thinking is intended to solve the typical tasks of the architect: the projecting of spatial constructions with the definite qualities, and the planning of purposeful behaviours in the object­ functional and social space. The "teleo-logic" of planning differs also from the cause-effect logic of cognitive research, because the thinking in this case does not make some mental models of existent processes but creates pro-

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grammes of purposeful activity. However, spatial thinking is able to per­ form cognitive functions as well as projective ones, because the mental models of space can serve as the planes of actions, as well as the images of the present situation, due to the reversibility of them both (cp. Miller, Ga­ lanter & Pribram, 1 960). Spatial thinking has a separate genesis, and it is independent of speech in its origin. It appears already in animals, which are able to build purpose­ ful spatial constructions using not only instinct or skills, but also intellect (for example, the chimpanzee in Wolfgang Kohler's famous experiments). In human activity, spatial thinking serves first of all for the decision of concrete practical tasks, but it gives also a visual basis for the development of invisible structures in diverse systems of culture: language, myth, reli­ gion, etc. (see Cassirer, 1923: 1 47-166; 1925: 1 07-132). In particular, an ability to create some complicated syntactical constructions is founded on the experience of spatial actions. It is true for phylogenies of culture as well as for ontogenesis of individual consciousness. As psychologists have shown, the spatial intellect that children get serves as a condition for the development of their verbal and logical thinking (see, for example, Piaget & Inhelder, 1963; Bruner, 1984; Zaporozhetz, 1986). According to Vygotsky, the strong impulse for the development of "high psychical functions" (i.e. consciousness) was given due to the com­ position of non-verbal practical intellect and verbal speech, which have different origins. While the first was fonned as an internal psychical regu­ lator of the subject-object relations of knowledge and behaviour, the sec­ ond is a product of an external, intersubjective communication. Accord­ ingly, if speech is able to be interiorized and turned into an internal activi­ ty of the mind, practical intellect is able to pass the opposite process of exteriorization, or expression in external spatial forms. Thereby the mental models of space acquire the communicative func­ tion, which is added to their initial projective and cognitive functions. The elements and structures of spatial models become the property of not only the individual but also the collective consciousness, due to the unification of their building and interpretive ways. So, the "psychological substance" of internal spatial thinking gets its external unified semiotic "forms": a "fonn of expression" and a "form of contents". The connections of both these "forms" create spatial codes of different types.

3. Spatial Codes as Means of Architectural Thinking The verbal language and many spatial codes have a lot of similar in their genesis, structures and functions. They are products of human activi-

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ty, are divided structurally into planes of expression and of contents, and both types of the semiotic systems perform communicative and representa­ tive functions. Moreover, the involvement of spatial codes into the communicative process helps them to serve like verbal systems as the means of thinking. Their unified elements and structures can be used for the creation of new significant constructions, particularly in such productive thinking as archi­ tectural planning. An architect can create connections of meanings due to the combinations of semiotic means from spatial codes. Such a connection is a thought, which may be transmitted to another subject, if that one can reconstruct this connection of meanings and thereby to understand it. It is typical for spatial codes, as opposed to verbal language, for their plane of expression to be naturally motivated with the plane of contents. As psychologists (R Arnheim, R Gregory, J Piaget etc.) have shown, visual-spatial thinking is included in the processes of "immediate" percep­ tion, and the latter is also placed in practical thinking. There are already, on the sense-motor level, meanings systems, which have as semiotic vehi­ cles not arbitrary signs, independent of the represented object, but mainly the indices and signals motivated by the presented situation (see Piaget, 1984). However, the diverse spatial codes are dependent on natural signal sys­ tems to varying degrees. Some of them have quite natural roots. This is true for the perceptual code, which translates the optical sense data into the perceptive image of spatial objects, and for synesthetic codes, which con­ nect these sense data with sensations of other modalities. The architectonic code is among the synesthetic ones, which has natural roots but is correct­ ed by cultural norms. It correlates the visible spatial forms and construc­ tions with the kinesthetic feelings of the forces acting on them . The index­ es of the demarcation code having already cultural origin influent locomo­ tions of a subject moving in a social space marked by a system of borders. Another, the obj ect-functional code, also dependent on cultural norms, which regulate the connections of definite objective forms with their in­ strumental functions in human activity. The schemes of instrumental oper­ ations become in this code the units of "functional meanings", which are worked in the collective experience and assimilated in the individual con­ sciousness, like the meanings of verbal language (cp. Klix, 1983: 97; Le­ ont'ev, 1972: 410). One more code is completely dependent on cultural norms and even on verbal interpretation. This is the social-symbolic code, which connects spatial relations with definite social senses (see above, 11.3.1 and 11.3.2).

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The different spatial codes make it possible to produce intra-subject mental models of external inter-subject and subject-object relationships on diverse levels of the psyche. Thus, it opens a possibility of productive and creative thinking on these levels. Consequently, the non-verbal means of such spatial thinking can perform a function of internal modelling compa­ rable with the constructive function of verbal languages. In the verbal language as well as in spatial codes, there are elements in­ tended to the involvement of diverse mechanisms of psyches: discrimina­ tion, recognition and understanding (cf Benveniste, 1 974b). In particular, there are discriminative elements in architectonic and some other spatial codes, where this role usually belongs to regular geometrical figures. Alt­ hough these figures have been considered since Plato's time as elements of the physical world, or as "the letters" on which "the book of nature is writ­ ten", there is gooo reason to consider them instead as "the letters" from the "book of culture". The comparison of geometrical figures with letters is not an accidental metaphor. It has some semiotic grounds, because these figures can perfonn the sense-distinguishing function as units of the "sec­ ond articulation", like phonemes in the system of the verbal language. Ar­ chitecture appeared as an activity in which an "alphabet" of spatial forms was worked out long before the appearance of the written alphabet and of geometry as a science. The geometrical elements got an exclusive role as the units of collective consciousness and of communication, and they are so important for architectural thinking because they give the simple schemes and the clear regulations for the easy constructing and recon­ structing of spatial syntactical structures in mental operations as well in real actions. However, the geometric elements acquire their semiotic func­ tions only in a system of code, and they become the components of its "fonn of expression", correlated with a "form of contents". Along with discriminated units, there are recognized ones in spatial codes. For example, the forms of whole buildings serve in the object­ functional code as "visual names", which represent definite functions: habitable horne, industrial construction, stadium, theatre, etc. One can find in the spatial codes, together with such "terms", some analogues of predi­ cators-for example, the meaningful positions of the buildings or other valuable forms in a significant place of social space. For example, the es­ tablishinent of a temple on a hill, or placing of a monument on the central square of a city, creates by the means of the social-symbolic code an un­ derstandable sign construction with the subject-predicate structure-an equivalent of a verbal proposition that affirms the social value of an idea or a represented person.

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4. Infralogical Syntax and Semantics of Architectural Thinking Because spatial codes are able to serve as the means of purposeful mental activity directed to the building of meaningful spatial construc­ tions, it is possible to speak about semiotics of spatial thinking. Unlike the psychology of thinking, this does not research the processes of the indi­ vidual psyche, but is directed towards the cultural norms of the collective consciousness. And unlike logic, it does not investigate the conceptual structures of knowledge, but considers the "infralogical" structures of non­ verbal thinking. The semiotics of spatial thinking researches the mental functions of the spatial codes, and their possibilities to serve as the means of creative thinking. As a semiotic discipline, it touches on the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of the spatial codes. There are grounds to speak in its frames, in particular, about "infralogical syntax" and "infralogical seman­ tics". They are both connected by spatial thinking, but in different ways: if the fonner investigates the mental schemes setting the "fonn of expres­ sion" in the spatial codes, the second considers the schemes according to which the "fonn of contents" is constructed. In particular, the "infralogical syntax" analyzes the mental schemes of the meaningful spatial constructions. Their syntactic structures have essen­ tial distinctions from the verbal ones (three-dimensionality, reversibility, etc.), and they are built with the relationships between the significant parts and the whole, which are, as has been said, the main components of spatial thinking. There are different types of such relationships: a passage from a whole to the created parts (division), an addition of parts in the created whole, a combinative permutation of discrete parts in the frame of the whole, and a reformation of the initial whole in the other whole as a result of a continual transformation of the relations between its parts. These mathematically grounded types of spatial operations with the parts and the whole correlate with the empirically grounded types of form creation described by the architect Gottfried Semper: "stereotomy", "tec­ tonics", "interlacing" and "ceramics"-the plastic transformation not only of clay, but of all soft and fluid materials (see Semper, 1 863). Although Semper himself has connected these types of form making with the peculi­ arities of materials, one can see here a deductive system of possible rela­ tions between the parts and the whole, relevant to real spatial forms as well as to their mental models. These models are ordered in architectural thinking due to schemes of the parts joining and of the whole dividing, which contain the syntactical structures of architectonic and some other

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spatial codes. In particular, there are two different syntactical principles of spatial structuring in the work with two main materials of the architect: mass and space (see Gabrichevsky, 1 923). They both can be connected and disconnected. But it is natural, when the thought of an architect built the tectonic structures by joining already discrete blocks in the complex's whole construction, as it is with the dividing of space (mental or real) when it proceeds as the reverse process of breaking up a whole continuum into discrete parts and of its delimitation by borders. The spatial codes organize the "form of contents" in thinking as well as with the "fonn of expression". Due to such an organization of the contents' plane, the spatial codes are able to serve as the means of thinking not only of the visible forms but also of their invisible meanings. All thoughts perform as purposeful actions in the frames of some knowledge and schemes of behaviour. A thought can have diverse contents and be ordered in various ways, but it is always a construction of meanings, which belongs to a semantic field of a code. In particular, the plane of contents in several spatial codes has as its meaning the schemes of movement and actions instead of any cognitive images. Such movement schemes, besides the perceptual and apperceptual schemes, are grasped intuitively, and they do not yet have an extension correlated with its contents, unlike the clearly realized logical concepts (piaget & Inhelder, 1963: 29-31). However, like the latter, they are ordered in specific semantic systems. If the actions of logical thinking are produced in the conceptual system, which is ordered by the genus-species relations, the operations of "infralogical" thinking about spatial movements and behaviour perform in a system of apperceptual space, which sets the order of some other kinds of relations: parts-whole, cause-effect, etc. This imaginable space differs, on the one hand, from the perceptual space of the visible world, and, on the other, from the conceptual space constructed in theoretical models (cp. Russell, 1 948). The apperceptual space is a medial type between the former and the latter mental levels. Unlike perceptual space, it contains a unifying system of invariant spatial schemes and, in contrast to theoretical models of conceptual space, it remains at the same time an intuitive and unconscious practical model of behavioural space. However, apperceptual space conditions the structures of spatial thinking to such a degree that the conceptual system directs the verbal-logical thinking. The plane of contents in each spatial code is structured in a frame of its own semantic field and of its own apperceptual space. So, the semantic field in the architectonic code contains the apperceptual space in which the static and dynamic forces act as the meanings of some visible relations

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between the dense and empty volumes, top and bottom, etc. The apperceptual space that orders the plane of contents in the object­ functional code has another structure, and it supposes other elements of spatial thinking. These elements are the functional meanings of spatial [OnTIS and the schemes of their usage in the space of tool actions. The apperceptual space from the plane of contents in the social-symbolic code is correlated with the space of social behaviour and their oppositions: centre and periphery, "one's own" and "alien", etc. Thus, diverse structures of apperceptual space, which order the semantic fields in the plane of contents of diverse codes, establish their own "logic" or "infralogic" of spatial thinking. So, it is possible to speak about "logic of construction" or "tecto-logic", as well as about the logic of tectonic thinking, dealing with the operations of analysis and synthesis with images of heavy spatial masses and empty volumes on the C-level (following N. Bernstein). It regulates the thinking, in particular, within the system of the architectonic code, where, for example, a column without weight is not "logical", as well a weight without any support. There is another "teleo-logic of tool action" or "techno-logic", ordering the space of instrumental actions on the "D-level". Such a space can be more or less "logical", organized in a "machine for living" or in a "machine for production" by the means of the object-functional code, depending on the degree of accordance between the means and the purposes. In the frame of its semantic field, for instance, stairs leading to a top floor are more logical than stairs to emptiness, etc. Similarly, it is possible to speak about "socio­ logic", setting the schemes of behaviour in the space of social actions and coordinating with structures ofthe "E-level".

5. Pragmatics of Architectural Thinking The pragmatic aspect of architectural thinking touches ways of using syntactic and semantic structures to get an expected effect. It also includes the problems of codes choice and their interaction. Usually, architectural thinking is not limited by a certain spatial code in a real process of creating, and it uses several systems of spatial codes together. It is typical for such processes that the units of one cooe are involved in a system of another code. For example, a fimctional scheme of a building can be created in the system of the object-functional code, in frames of only topological spatial relations. However, an architectural working of this scheme requires its conversion into systems of architectonic and demarcation codes, where not only topology but also metrics have importance. Some special problems are connected with ways of the representation of architectural

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thought in any depictions. Their solution requires translating units from different spatial codes into some graphical means of a perceptographic code, which allows the expression of the mental spatial images in an ex­ ternal depicted form. So, the architectural composition is a complicated spatial text, the forming and understanding of which suppose a coordination of diverse spatial codes. Their semiotic "forms" coincide in a united "substance" of expression. Because the art of organization of several codes for a com­ bined action is called "rhetoric" by semioticians (see Lotman, 1981), there are grounds to speak about the "rhetoric of architectural thinking" in the frame of its pragmatics. The pragmatic aspect particularly concerns the peculiarity of the artis­ tic way of thinking in architecture. This way demands special attention to the expressive means of the spatial codes. One can also speak about "poet­ ics of architectural thinking" as far as spatial thinking turns such codes from the auxiliary means into an object of skilful artistic work Just as literature is a field of intensive working of the aesthetic or "poetic" (in R Jakobson's terms) function of speech, architecture is also a sphere of the skilful using and working out of artistic possibilities of the visual­ spatial codes. The aesthetic valuation has as its object not only the skylines of exter­ nal technical actions with material constructions, but also the skylines of internal mental actions of an architect-elegant technical solutions, witti­ ness of an idea, etc. This object is not the order of bricks, but rather the way of architect's thinking, expressed by the means of the spatial codes. The expression of this way of thinking may or may not correlate with the material structure of construction. Such a correlation has a stylistic meaning. In the historical discussion of architectural styles, there is com­ petition in the ways to think about spatial forms. The relations between a real "technical" construction and its expression in a visual fonn can be established in a different way-from their full convergence on the one pole to their extreme divergence on the other. For example, the ways of thinking differ the buildings of A Gaudi, who used the growing technical possibilities of architecture to give them fluid plastic forms, from architec­ tural buildings by W. Gropius, who used the new technical means in an opposite way-for giving to architectural fonns their tectonic order back, and to express the logic of the functions in their visible material construc­ tions (see Figure 11.7.1-1, A&B). One can compare the searches for such a form of expression, which is extremely "transparent" for constructive and functional meaning in spatial language, with the characteristic of the same time attempts of Constructivist logic to create a language that is only able

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to build true judgements (by Russell or early Wittgenstein). "Thinking-in­ material", which is so important for architects and designers, is just a suit­ able using of syntactical schemes for a mental construction of the division of the whole into parts, of their coupling, of their transformations, etc., which are in accordance with actually built constructions, their materials and their technology. So, the differences of mental styles in spatial think­ ing allow one also to speak about stylistics of architectural thinking.

11.7.1-1, A&B. A Architect Antoni Gaud!. Casa Batll6, Barcelona (1 9041 906). B. Architect Walter Gropius. Building of Bauhaus, Dessau (1 925-1 926).

Figure

Thus, there is good reason to suppose that creative architectural think­ ing is not only expressed but also performed in non-verbal spatial lan­ guages. Although the semiotics of spatial thinking has made the first steps, it is already clear now that it is a quite fruitful and interesting subject of research.

11.7.2. ON THE BORDERS IN SPACE AND IN THINKING

Space and thinking were contraposed to each other by Rene Descartes as the attributes of bodily and spiritual substances correspondingly (Des­ cartes, 1989: 335). Despite their differences, they have in common that human activity structures them, building in both of them the systems of borders. Plans of external spatial transfonnation suppose internal mental actions. These actions transform not the external world, but its mental pic­ ture. Some inside borders between notions shall be changed, before some boundaries outside are transfonned. The connection between external and internal boundaries is based on the fact that they both structure the "substance" delimited by them using signs. Diverse borders in the human space have first of all a semiotic func­ tion. Constructed in an external space, borders serve not only and not so much as physical barriers, but more as a special kind of signs that indicate different rules of behaviour within and outside of them. The demarcation of space into zones includes its serniotization, introducing, together with physical boundaries, also norms of their interpretation, admitting different ways of behaviour in different places. A system of significant spatial borders indicates, first of all, how socie­ ty is structured. E. Durkheim directly linked the notion of space with so­ cial differentiation, which is manifested through a set of borders and be­ comes a scheme generating the logical forms of distinctions and classifica­ tions in mind (Durkheim & Mauss, 1996: 68). Thus, the system of spatial­ ly expressed social distinctions turns out to be transferred to other objects. Language, myth, religion, art, science, and technology in their own way rethink the network of spatial boundaries and build their ideal correspond­ ences by their own means. This gives reasons to consider all culture as an activity for the organization and transfonnation of space that influence on the world outlook of people (see Florensky, 1993: 55). The connection of the external system of spatial boundaries with inter­ nal schemes of consciousness can manifest with greater or less rigidity. It depends on the spatial codes that regulate this connection and on im­ porlance of these codes for activity of people. The spatial structure of the

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sidle, where, as described by C. Levi-Strauss, members of the Bororo tribe resided, determined the entire order of their lives. Therefore, all this order disintegrated when they were forcibly relocated into the modern city with its spatial structure that was alien to them (Levi-Strauss, 1984: 1 04-105). In contrast, the structure of a settlement can mean almost nothing to a con­ temporary European, who crosses all kinds of borders by car or by plane, and who finds his horne wherever he can open a page of his favourite In­ ternet site. These are two polar types of the relation of consciousness to spatial boundaries. One of them is represented by a mythological consciousness in which external spatial distinctions [onn the most important "symbolic [OnTIS". For such a consciousness, the separation of one's own and anoth­ er's space remains connected with the opposition of good and evil, light and dark forces, and so on. Another type is formed as a result of the demy­ thologization of consciousness and the liberation of its structure from "bindings" to the boundaries between these or those territories. Dependence from the spatial limits can be connected with differences in gender, age, social position, personal inclinations, etc. In patriarchal culture, this difference is manifested in the difference between the "male" and "female" attitudes toward space: men go "on a hike", exiting the pro­ tected space in which women and children remain. Children in their indi­ vidual development gradually move from the "female" view on space to the "male" relation to it as they learn wider areas: cradle, nursery, horne, yard, city, country, etc. Social differentiation affects the difference in the relations to space, say, of a peasant tied to his land plot, and of a merchant who distributes his goods to other countries. Personal inclinations are manifested, for example, in the positions of Alexander, who wanted to conquer the whole world, and Diogenes, whose barrel was enough for him. However, in addition to such individual and social differences in rela­ tions between consciousness and spatial boundaries, there are also differ­ ences in the cultural prerequisites that are formed in particular societies at different stages of their evolution. Changes in the nature of external spatial boundaries can partly serve as a marker of changes in the system of ideas about the world in different forms of collective and individual conscious­ ness. For example, in the spatial texts of Gothic architecture or painting, a particularly persistent demarcation of space and the dismemberment of the forms embedded in it are revealed when, in scholastic thinking, an "obses­ sion with systematic division" began to flourish in the theological treatises of the same time (Panofsky, 2004: 238f). When, in the culture of modem times, solid walls are replaced in external space by open arcades and col-

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onnades, and then the stone-impenetrable to the eye-is replaced by transparent glass, this is accompanied by the fact that, in "enlightened" thinking, the world turns out to be more "transparent", and its "unshaka­ ble" distinctions reveal their conventionality. The very view of space as a homogeneous environment, where uni­ form rules are established, is consistently formed only in modern Europe­ an consciousness. First in painting, and then in science, an idea of a uni­ fied space appeared, each fragment of which can be depicted using unified perspective rules or described using a single indexing principle related to a Cartesian coordinate system. The triumph of this unification was the New­ tonian picture of a universal space, penneated by forces acting according to uniform laws. In the same spirit of unification in relation to any objects of thought, the Hegelian philosophical system is also imbued, where men­ tal boundaries between the concepts are relied upon only to be overcome in their "taking off'. The mental unification of external space is also revealed in the desire to subordinate it to preset standards. Such a desire is not exhausted by sci­ entific or philosophical thought The conqueror's thought is also directed for unlimited expansion, however not out of a scientific principle, but out of a desire for power over territories with more extensive borders. In his thinking, the relationship between outer spatial and inner imaginable boundaries is reversed. For him, a plan has already been created in his thought, the internal project ofreorganizing spatial boundaries becomes a law directing external actions. Projecting the structure of his mental bor­ ders onto the external space, at the same time the conqueror projects a boundedness of his ideas about the world. He not only wants to expand the boundaries of his possessions, but also to plant a certain system of values within them, to spread his ideology. In any case, many conquerors of dif­ ferent times and nations were similar in this relation, be they bearing the symbol of the cross or crescent, stars or swastikas. In each such case, the spatial redistribution of boundaries was associated with the desire to "hack" the structure of another's thinking and implant one's own. However, conquerors are faced with the fact that the borders estab­ lished in the minds of people are more difficult to change than even the borders of the territories in which they live. Thoughts "conquer" other people's minds in a different way than swords conquer foreign territories. Religious or political ideology can spread only when the consciousness of people that has developed in certain cultural conditions is ready to accept it So it was with the spread of the ideology of Christianity, the Enlight­ enment, communism, liberalism, etc. The boundaries developed by the age-old tradition in a certain system of thought are not completely "re-

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moved" as easily as the prepared objects of scientific and philosophical thought, or even like the boundaries of crumbling empires. The restructur­ ing of spatial boundaries, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, creates only ex­ ternal prerequisites for a much more complex restructuring of the inner boundaries in mind. In this consciousness, there is still, on the one hand, the desire for universality and "cosmopolitanism", and on the other, the desire to remain aloof from everything external, to return "to native hearths", to save them from anything alien. One may think that in this collision of opposite relations to boundaries, another boundary appears, not in space, but in time-the boundary be­ tween the past and the future. Unlike traditional cultures, modem Europe­ an culture is used to giving priority to the future in disputes between the past and the future. However, past history has already taken place. Wheth­ er history continues in the future is still unknown. If all external borders are completely removed, then, by the same token, one very important cir­ cumstance will be eliminated, which has so far protected the first biologi­ cal species, and then cultural communities, from complete destruction. Borders of various kinds-interspecific, intercultural, etc.-allowed those who found themselves outside the field of another catastrophe to survive. If all borders are "removed", then there will be nothing left outside the culture that managed to save itself from a possible new catastrophe.

11.8. S PAT IAL S EMIO S I S IN OBJECT ENVIRONMENT

11. 8 . 1 . SEMIOTICS OF OBJECT ENVIRONMENT AND PERSONAL SPACE

The object environment mediating the relations of a human with nature and other people reveals-in both of these directions-a duality typical for each mediator. On the one hand, it can be mastered by a person to such an extent that it begins to be felt as a direct continuation of human organs, an "organ projection" (cf Kapp, 1 877; Florensky, 2000). On the other hand, it is able to be alienated and confront a person as an external force. Mas­ tering objects as his own body, a person ceases to notice them, but, when confronted with them as an object "shell" of the other, he or she perceives them as something oppositional. So, transparent to those who look through them from within, glasses of spectacles or windows turn into a more or less impenetrable barrier for those who look at them from outside. The duality of the object "shell" manifests itself in the morphology of things. Clothing, housing, transport and many other components of the object environment have in their structure a pronounced difference between the internal and the external sides, the exterior and interior, the "face" and the "backside" . The same ambiguity is also proper for the object environment as a me­ diator of human communication. On the one hand, it captures the traces of human activity and reveals his outward "physiognomic" features. On the other hand, the object environment not only concentrates the symptoms of this activity, but also sends signals to other people, prompting certain be­ haviour (open doors invite one to enter, closed doors require one to stop, etc.). It is not only the signals and indexes available for animals that are act­ ing in the obj ect environment, but above all the signs conditioned by cul­ tural norms. Like the signs of verbal language, the spatial signs of the en­ vironment may signify something imaginable no less than real. Thanks to them, a certain "expression" can be deliberately given to the "face" of a person. This transfonnation turns this face into a mask that can be worn, removed and replaced by another object mask. Like the ancient theatre

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mask (persona), it serves as a visual sign of a certain role that retains its significance regardless of who wears it. Such an obj ect mask retains its meaning even when nobody at all is hidden behind it A suit that is not worn by anyone, an empty car or an unoccupied house already possesses in its visible fonn some semantics, conditioned by the norms of the social­ symbolic code. When exaggerating the norms of fhis code, the soldier Schweik from the famous novel by Yaroslav Hasek could salute the not worn uniform of his commander, and the Russian Emperor Paul I could demand that his subjects took off fheir hats while passing by Mikhailovsky Castle in St Petersburg. However, like the predicate signs of the verbal language, fhe object carriers of meanings remain what B. Russell called "incomplete symbols". They acquire a certain meaning only together with an indication of a par­ ticular individual. Only a uniform worn by someone creates a spatial equivalent of the statement "I am a general" and can be regarded as a part of a true or false statement To become fully meaningful, a significant fragment of the object environment must be appropriated by someone; the differences between its internal and external sides must be actualized. The addition of the missing sense here is performed due to the correla­ tion of objects with the individual's personal space endowed by semiotic functions. Together with the object environment, it participates in the crea­ tion of syntactic constructions of spatial codes (object-functional, social­ symbolic, and others). In these codes, its structure, defined by fhe body scheme and oriented along the axes "top-bottom", "left-right", "front­ rear", enters into significant relations with their semantic units, and either includes them or is included in their spatial constructions. The general meanings of these units given by the code affect the specific "personal meaning" only in a certain pragmatic situation, depending on the way in which significant fragments of the object-spatial environment correlate with the personal space of the individual. They can be included in this space or excluded, as well as be mastered by the subject or alienated from him. Distinguishing the ways of relating personal space to the object envi­ ronment, one can talk about different "language games", which can be, among others, different kinds of spatial arts. Such differences have, in particular, a design and architecture. While a design directs object forms to their inclusion in the space of a person in a certain way, architecture, as well as urban planning, organizes ways of including a personal space in a social one. Unlike design, fhey create not so much anthropomorphic but sociomorphic spatial constructions, significant places which designate the social roles of the people occupying them.

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11.8. 1 .

Among these types of art organizing the space of an object or social action, the art of painting stands out sharply in creating a space of contem­ plation, but excluding the direct participation of the interpreter in it A picture is fenced off from his personal space by a frame that serves simul­ taneously as a sign of exclusion from the space of depiction and, already as a product of design, as a sign of the orientation of a viewer in the exter­ nal space in front of the picture. This double function of a picture frame­ being both an obstacle and aperture, simultaneously constructing a barrier in the space of action and "taken off the wall" in the space of contempla­ tion-reproduces the same ambiguity of the object envirornn ent in another way.

11. 8 .2. ON SEMIOTIC ASPECTS OF TECHNICS

1. A Synthesis of Causal an d Teleological Series in Technics Diverse definitions of technics usually take as a basis one of its two sides. If it is considered from its external side, technics is defined as a complex of artificially created tools-mechanical instruments Of, in gen­ eral, a complex of external means of activity intended for the perfonnance of certain functions. If the concept of technics is considered from the in­ ternal subjective side of this activity, technics is represented as some ideal programmes for using such tools, for fonning a skill, craft, art, or 1SM in the ancient understanding. In the second case, the notion of technics in­ eludes not only the mastery of external tools as extensions of the organs of the body, but also the mastery of one's own bodily organs, which are not always supplemented with tools (compare the concepts of "dance tech­ nique", "sport technique", "body technique", according to Marcel Mauss, etc.). In the expanded interpretation of the concept of technics, it will in­ clude, along with the means of transforming objects, also the means of influencing other subjects, that is, a communication technique represented in the external aspect by speech texts, and internally by a system of the language mastered by the subject. In this way, the "information" tools­ signs, texts constructed from them and, in general, the entire complex of semiotic means, which since Plato's time has been interpreted as "tools" of thought and communication-will also be involved in the sphere of tech­ mcs. Naming different aspects of technics with the same word is not acci­ dental homonymy. It indicates the necessary connection between the ex­ ternal material and the inner ideal sides of a single entity that cannot exist without each other. The reduction of technics to external physical con­ structions, detached from the internal goal-oriented activity of the subject,

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is as one-sided as its reduction to ideal schemes and action plans taken outside of their exit into external obj ective activity. Both moments represent two sides of a single technical activity, which can be interpreted in the broadest sense as a purposeful transformation by a subject (individual or collective) of an object with the help of the means developed in culture. The external aspect of this activity is the organiza­ tion of material-energy processes into the cause-effect series, which leads to some fixed result. Its internal aspect is formed by the construction of teleological series, connecting a certain subject's goals with the means selected for their implementation. Actually, the technical activity is to or­ ganize such cause-effect processes, the members of which would coincide with the members of the teleological series. Both aspects of technical activity are interconnected, first, as the ideal and material parts of a single process. Technical activity organizes the forces of nature in such a way that they obey the "cwming of reason" (He­ gel): external causal chains lead to an effect that coincides with the ideal intention, the target cause. Therefore, the external causal series is built as an extension of the internal teleological series, so that the ideal goal acts as the cause of the real action. Secondly, the inner teleological and external causal series in technical activity are related to each other by the relations of homomorphism, so that the coincidence of the initial intent and the final result takes place. The entire external series of real causes and effects should be ideally mod­ elled in a symmetrical mental image. In the end, the correspondence be­ tween the links of the outer and inner rows can be arbitrarily complete, and the causal series can be regarded as an inversion of the teleological one, resulting from the replacement of relations such as "in order tolit is neces­ sary" with "if/then" arranged in the reverse order. This correspondence between the teleological and causal series distin­ guishes technics from magic, which can also be considered in a sense as a "technique" corresponding to mythological consciousness. In magic, there is also an ideal correlation of external physical actions with a conceived goal, but there is no scientific analysis of the cause-effect relationships that should serve as the means to achieve it. True, scientific constructs with the help of "if/then" relationships refer not only to descriptions of external causal relationships but also character­ ize first of all, the connections between the assumptions and conclusions ' of the thought itself This kind of internal logical and mathematical con­ struction can also be regarded as a kind of technique-the technique of scientific thinking itself, which can also be used by technical thinking. The latter differs from purely scientific thinking in that it goes beyond the

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framework of strictly logical or mathematical constructions, transforming them into the means for solving technical problems, just as it goes beyond the proper scientific analysis of external cause-effect relationships, re­ thinking them as goals and means connections.

2. Technical Tools as Mediators of Intersubjective Relations The tools of this technical activity are simultaneously included in the causal and teleological series. Since they belong to a chain of physical causes and effects, they obey all natural laws, and since they are included in the chain of means and purposes, they are endowed with human mean­ ing and value. Accordingly, the functions of these tools are also ambiva­ lent: as members of the causal series, they perform a certain action, but as members of the teleological series, they are intended to fulfil a certain goal. Pointing to the goal of their practical usages, the technical tools also reveal their infonnation functions, which are no longer addressed to the object of the action, but to its subject. Since the effectiveness of their ap­ plication depends on how much this subject understands their purpose and can adequately use them, they cannot perform their material-energy func­ tions if they do not function as infonnation means as well. Depending on how the subject mastered and comprehended these latter ones, a technical tool can appear in front of him as a continuation of his organs, an "organ projection", and as an opposing external object. Hence, there is a duality in the attitude of a man towards them: as means of strengthening his own power and as an external force resisting him. In any case, the reverse side of the fact that a technical tool has a defi­ nite purpose is that it has a certain meaning-a way of comprehension of its functions that is fixed in the mind (of the individual and of the collec­ tive). The spatial form of a tool not only bears information about its pur­ pose to a single subject, but also becomes a semiotic intermediary in the processes of intersubject communication. Communication between sub­ jects is just as essential for technical activity as the instrumental mediation of subject-object relations. Therefore, the technique of transforming an object is always complemented by the technique of coordinating opera­ tions between acting entities-the communication technique. The need for intersubjective communication is connected both with the division of labour in operations with technical tools in synchronism, and with the collective nature of the transmission of technical ideas in the his­ tory of culture. After all, the production of technical tools and their use is

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of a collective nature. The subject can learn how to adequately respond to the object form and competently handle it only in contact with other sub­ jects. Even individually created and applied technical tools have objective forms and ways of operating them, which are formed and translated into the culture of the collective. The form of a technical tool, as well as the skill of its use, is a unit of not only individual but also collective con­ sciousness; it is formed, developed and translated not only in the ontogen­ esis of an individual psyche, but also in the phylogeny of culture. The scheme of operating a technical tool that has become a unit of collective consciousness becomes also its meaning, understood in a broad sense as a reproducible scheme of comprehension.

3. Technical Tools as Semiotic Means Accordingly, the form of a technical tool acquires the quality of a sign, as soon as it finds itself in the position of an intermediary of the activity introduced artificially into the network of subject-object and intersubjec­ tive relations (see above 1.3.1 .3). This long noted similarity between an instrument and a sign makes it possible, on the one hand, to apply the "tool model" to the analysis of the semantic functions of signs. According to the "organon model" of Karl BUhler, the linguistic signs are regarded as tools of thinking, communica­ tion and representation of objects. These functions are derived from their intermediary relations to the designated object and to the two subjects­ the receiver and the sender of the message (BUhler, 1993: 30-38). However, on the other hand, the same similarity makes it possible to reverse this model of BUhler, applying it to the semiotic functions of the technical tool itself. The same three basic semantic functions, which, ac­ cording to BUhler, are characteristic for signs of a verbal language­ expressive, stimulative and representative-are also found in the visible spatial form of the instrument. In fact, since this form induces the subject to take certain actions, it functions as their signal. Since it indicates the way of its entry into the situation of an action, it is also an index bearing information about the subj ect of this action, about its obj ect and about its conditions. Finally, to the extent that it represents the purpose of a tech­ nical tool, referring thought to its instrumental functions, it serves as their sign (in BUhler's term, "symbol"). As soon as the visible form of a technical tool contains traces of the past, the symptoms of the present and the foretoken of the future, it is ca­ pable of performing the expression/unction indicating the states of objects transformed by it and of the subject of the activity. This function is real-

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ized by various indexes that can have not only a natural basis, but also be created artificially and transferred from the cognitive to the communica­ tive plane, consciously being used as special means of expression. In particular, designers artificially transform natural indexes into ex­ pressive means of their art. For example, they can give more or less dyna­ mism to the shape of a car, placing emphasis in the first case on diagonal directions and streamlined surfaces, and in the second, contrariwise, em­ phasizing the vertical and horizontal planes. Semiotic visual-spatial means of this type are added up to a special architectonic code that connects the visible characteristics of the spatial fonn with kinesthetic experiences of the states of stability, instability, etc. (see above, 11.3.1 .2). Causing motor reactions in the subject, and, moreover, becoming a signal for his actions, the fonn of a technical tool perfonns, besides an expressive function, also a prescriptive (incentive) function. Such a form does not simply indicate its purpose, but directs the behaviour of the sub­ ject, with greater or lesser compulsion, inviting him to perfonn certain actions applying this tool. However, in order to respond to this proposal, the subject must "read" it, understanding the meaning of the fonn visible to them as a tool intend­ ed for a certain way of activity. Denoting those purposeful actions for which it is intended, and thereby representing something that is different from itself, the form of this tool no longer perfonns an expressive or stim­ ulating function, but actually a referential (representative)function. In those cases when in the collective consciousness the functional as­ signments of technical tools are fixed together with a certain visible form, an object-functional code is formed (see above, 11. 3 . 1 .3). The latter is nothing more than the totality of cultural nonns regulating the recognition of visible fonns of technical tools and their comprehension as means of purposeful object activity. Within the framework of this code, the technical function of an instrument, its purpose, becomes a meaning in a semiotic sense. Thanks to the norms of the object-functional code, the fonn of a tool is able to participate in practical activity not only as an instrument of physical impact on the object, but also as a means of communication be­ tween subjects. At the same time, it discovers in itself the properties of a sign that, in accordance with the cultural nonns of fonning and understanding, is able to represent something that is not available in the actual situation. The technical function of this tool becomes the denotation of such a sign, and the scheme of the instrumental action, according to which its motor image is constructed, becomes its signification, which is universally accepted and assimilated by individual consciousness of various people.

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Although this scheme can be explicated in a verbal instruction, translation into a verbal [onn does not have the same visibility that is inherent to a motor image. Verbal language in relation to the means of the object-functional code is no longer the primary, but the secondary semiotic system, since the words denote the object forms of tools that independently of them are correlated with the schemes of actions. In naming an objec� the word indicates both its significant form and the function, the relationship between which is fixed in the system of the object-functional code. Therefore, a more effective way to consolidate the scheme of object action in the collective and individual consciousness is the practical skill of operating a given object form, transmitted from the subject to another subject in direct demonstration, rather than through a verbal instruction. The general availability of the object-functional code contributes to a unified understanding of the meanings of tool forms by the different actors necessary for the division of labour between them. However, as it was noticed by Lev rygotsky (1982) for the verbal language, the socialization of the semiotic means makes such a degree of generalization of its meanings possible that it allows them to become means not only of communication but also of thinking. The same remains true for the object-functional code. Indeed, practical thinking, which directs object actions, is accomplished first of all with the help of the means of this code, but not the verbal language. Mental operating units of this code-images of object forms correlated with their purpose-form the inner side of the technical activity, the external side of which consists of operating physical objects. The spatial form of a technical tool can fulfil its referential function not only as a sign of those operations for which it is directly intended, or even as a text containing a lot of such signs-the morphemes of the object-functional code-but can be also considered as a symbol, understood in the non­ Bithlerian and non-Peircean sense of the tenn when, together with the denotative meaning, some connotative senses are connected with this fonn as welL The object form acquires this added meaning when it points to the social status of the person using it with the help of some social-symbolic code. The object form of a technical tool can become a symbol of some generalized concepts. A classic example of such a symbolic understanding of the form of an instrument was given by 1. Kant, who saw in a mechanical mill the symbol of a despotic state (see Kant, 1966: 374). The spatial form of a technical tool can represent the world metaphorically in the form of some kind of mechanical process. Thus, the form of the clock, which has radically changed in the history of culture, could

en Semiotic Aspects of Technic,

serve not only as a 'Patial model of time, as it was represented in different historical epochs, but, in general, as a technomcrphic image of the uni­

verse. In this image, the world can appear as a rotatim of the stars around a single world axis represented by the gnomon of a sundial, as in anciEnt Egyptian ideas about the mOVEment of the god Ra across the sky. Another 'Patial model of time represEnts it as a flow of water running through a clepsydra, like in the teaching of Heraclitus. An hourglass represents time in me more way-as the transitim of everything from the future to the past through the instantaneous present-which gives a visible image of time in Augustine's descriptim-as a moving frem expectations thrcugh a ohcrl moment of present to memories of the past (see Augustine, 1968. 1 1 XXVII) Mechanical hocologes already correspmd with the philosophical ideas of Newtm or Leibniz, who locked at the world as at the mechaniom that, like hour wheels, had been launched by a wise Maoter.

Figure ll.S.2-1. Prague astroncmical clock a the Old Town Hall with the signs of elverse semictic systems. XV century

Modelling the structure of the world, the fonn of a technical tool

thereby catches and physiognomically displays the ru-udure of the thoughts of its creatocs, the difference in their mentalities. In tum, it itself influences this systEm, helping to reproduce collective ideas about the world. Thus, in the cmsdently reproducible fams oftechnical tools, the collective cmsciousness and the collective unconscious are accumulated,

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11.8.2.

just as they are accumulated in constantly reproducible forms of a lan­ guage. Just as the words of a language, according to Wilhelm von Hum­ boldt, have an "internal form" that is able to express a particular way of world vision, so the spatial artefacts reveal, together with their external visible form, their own internal form, which can represent some features of the world outlook typical for the people using them. From the above, it follows that the connection of technology with se­ miotics is not accidental, but naturally follows from the very essence of technical activity. In this activity, external means of the material-energy transformation of an object can function only because they are modelled in internal information programmes of behaviour, which do not remain with­ in the framework of subject-object relations, but are transferred from sub­ ject to subject in the processes of communication between them. The very form of a technical tool turns out to be an intermediary through which, with the help of various semiotic means, not only infonnation about its direct purpose can be transmitted, but also the representations of its crea­ tors about a person, about society and, finally, about the world as a whole.

11. 8 . 3 . ON SEMIOTICS OF CHESS SPACE

Enclosed and isolated game space differs from the space of instrumen­ tal activity or from that of social behaviour. However, these specific fea­ tures allow it to serve as the clearest model of any other cultural space, because the rules that are fonned and comprehended in it are expressed here most explicitly. These rules are comparable to those of a language. which, however, are not always expressed in the same clear [OnTI. The analogies between game and language are so obvious that they are constantly addressed by logicians and linguists. Indisputable leadership in these comparisons belongs to chess. A. Church compares chess positions with the formal structure of a phrase or a mathematical formula. F. de Saussure compares it with the total state of a language. 1 . Hjelinslev con­ siders chess rules as an analogue of the expression plane in a language, and 1 . Wittgenstein speaks of language games. the rules of which are similar to those of chess (see Church, 1960: 60-6 1 ; Saussure, 1977: 61, 121; Hjelmslev, 2006: 1 30-1 3 1 ; Wittgenstein, 1994: 93-94). In the same time, such analogies can be inverted, so one may talk not about "language games", but about "garnes-languages". Just as game characteristics can be found in a language, features of a semiotic system can be noticed in a game, especially in one like chess. However, this system does not provide for representation of an out-of­ game reality and communication of messages about it from subject to sub­ ject. Nevertheless, it enables one to build an internal mental "content plane", i.e. in-game meanings, behind its external "plane of expression", which is open to perception. Like a language, chess becomes the environ­ ment where the player's thought develops and is revealed not in a word, but in the visual-spatial code set by the rules of the chess game. And if semioticians take their time considering this game their subject, this is first of all due to the fact that it belongs to still poorly studied semiotic systems, i.e. to spatial codes characterized with nonverbal semantics and non-linear syntactics. Indeed, specific semantics can be found in chess. Each of the chess pieces has content associated with its visually recognizable form, i.e. its

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meaning. This meaning usually escapes the attention of researchers, who include only concepts and ideas having a direct verbal equivalent in the sphere of semantics. But the meaning becomes clear when compared not with a verbal language, but with a spatial object-functional code. Unlike words, objects' meanings are not logical concepts, but the schemes of in­ strumental actions. In chess, the visible forms of pieces, being the units of expression plane, are connected with sets of their possible moves within the chessboard, which are the units of its content plane. These movements set by the game rules for each figure comprise its meaning, comparable with the dictionary meaning of a contextually independent word. The fact that a knight moves in a different way than a rook or a pawn should be known just as the meaning of words from the dictionary, and this knowledge not being limited to recognizing a figure. The context-independent "dictionary" meaning of chess pieces is not identical to their meaning in a game, i.e. to real opportunities in a particu­ lar situation that each chess piece receives in the context of their use. In a particular position, figures enter into relations with each other and with the chessboard fields (there is no analogue thereof in the structure of speech). In these correlations, standard dynamic meanings of figures get each time new particular meanings (attacking another figure, protecting one's own, etc.). The sense of a move in a chess game is always beyond the scope of this position, although it remains inside a game. This sense is fonned by possible actions in the future development of a game. Each chess position can be considered as a set of indices showing previous states and, most importantly, as that of the signals indicating its possible transformations in the future (apart from those stable signs with fixed meanings represented by chess pieces according to the game rules). However, a position does not usually unambiguously indicate either any past game progress or its future development, and this alternative, the possibility to choose from many options, belongs to the very essence of the game. As well as in many other spatial codes, chess position syntagmatics directly discloses the paradig­ matics of possibilities to choose from alternative variants. Most of the sig­ nified actions in every position remain unrealized in a game, as they are "read" and prevented by the partner, e.g. an attack against the king can be prevented, an attacked figure can be defended, etc. Therefore, a real deno­ tat is acquired only by that small part of in-game meanings that coincide with the moves actually made in the game. Nevertheless, senses of a chess position exist as objectively as the solu­ tions to mathematical problems-no matter how they are realized and whether one of the players sees them. A checkmate in three moves can

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exist in this position among many other permissible variants, even when no one sees it, and it is found only in later analysis. Objectivity here means that opportunities depend in this position on nothing other than the system of rules. Accepted by people, this system becomes objective and inde­ pendent of their arbitrariness, as well as the relation to it of each given position. Therefore, "logical", intrasystemic game meanings exist inde­ pendently of its psychological meanings, emotional connotations, etc., which are also always there. In this respect it is possible to distinguish between semantic (in-game, objective) and pragmatic (out-of-game, sub­ jective) meanings of game actions. Thus, chess is divided into the present­ ed "plane of expression", i.e. a position open to perception, and the repre­ sented "plane of content", i.e. contained possibilities that can never be realized, but which, nevertheless, influence the course of the game. In chess it is natural to distinguish between the general system of rules and their implementation in each particular game, just as linguists distin­ guish between language and speech. Each position can be regarded as a text with in-game meanings and senses. However, the spatial text structure of a game differs greatly from the texts of speech arranged along the time­ line. rt is true that a chess game develops not only in space, but also in time. Both these types of developments are autonomous. They are built accord­ ing to their own specific laws and are measured not in centimetres or minutes, but in the number of fields and moves made in a game. In this case, the bearer of in-game meanings, i.e. a text, is in chess a spatial situa­ tion on a board, i.e. a position. Therefore, the syntax of a chess game con­ tains features of a spatial text, which makes the structure of figures on a board very different from the speech chain's structure. In particular, the rules of a game define their own topology in their se­ miotized chessboard space, differing it from spaces arranged by the rules of other games and other spatial texts. In contrast to a linear written text, as well as to many other spatial games where movements in the third di­ mension are significant, the chess space is two-dimensional. Indeed, no relevant actions there go beyond two dimensions, and three-dimensional figures can be replaced with flat counterparts without any damage to the game. This space is homogeneous, since the same rules apply to all of its sections. It contains some elements of symmetry in both its vertical and horizontal axes. It is generally reversible (although not for all figures), since it allows for a repeated return to the same place from different sides. It is obviously discrete, since only the location of figures at discrete squares is relevant. Therefore, in particular, the Pythagorean theorem does not work in the space of a chessboard, where horizontals, verticals and

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diagonals have the same eight squares. Finally, the space of a chessboard is highly restricted in its limits, i.e. it is closed, which is typical for any game in general (cf Huizinga, 1992: 20, 31). The autonomous space of a chessboard is also different from the struc­ ture of verbal texts since, on the one hand, it contains stable places with constant relations (i.e. the squares of a board) and, on the other, variable pieces, the number and mutual relations of which change during the game. The syntactic structure of a chess text suggests that pieces should coincide with certain squares, i.e. their locations on a board and ways to include a certain position into the spatial structure are obligatory. Although the set of fields that make up a chessboard is not yet a predi­ cate system, placing a piece on a new field can be regarded as an analogue of the act of the multiple predication-detenuining the way, in which a certain known object enters into meaningful relations with several objects together. It gives the figure a new sense, as it is included into new rela­ tionships with other figures and takes on other possibilities. Therefore, not only a combination of chess pieces with certain cells of a chessboard is structurally close to a verbal proposition or mathematical fonuula (com­ pare A Church's thought above), but also every new chess move is func­ tionally akin to acts of statement The peculiarity of the "spatial utterance" in general and in chess, in particular, is that each new move includes a piece not into one relation, but into a whole set of connections with other pieces of this position and, thereby, into an unlimited "perspective of sens­ es" associated with its possible ways transfonnations in the future course of the game.

11. 8 .4. ON THE SEMIOTIZATION AND RESEMIOTIZATION OF CITY SPACE (EXAMPLE OF ST. PETERSBURG)

Each city is a polymorphic and polyfunctional spatial formation. Its di­ verse parts, such as a temple, a fortress, a palace or a market, are different­ ly structured and interpreted and have diverse syntactic and semantic or­ ganization. If heterotopia is understood as diversity of places in these rela­ tions, it is then an essential property of each city, which makes it possible to see a model of a semiosphere in it It is noteworthy that Yury Lotman described the semiosphere of the culture and symbolic structure of St Pe­ tersburg in similar phrases: in both cases, this is about a heterogeneous space of human culture, where diverse semiotic systems and texts interact (cp. Lotman, 1 992, Vol. II: 13; 1984: 5-6). Similar to entire serniosphere, the city is heterogeneous not only in space, but also in time, existing in geography and history as well. Together with heterotopia, the city also has heterochronia, i.e. diversity of mean­ ings, which even the same places can take on in various times. A city can be connected with history even in its infancy. For example, Sl. Petersburg at the beginning of its development was conceived not only as an antithesis to the old centres of Russian history such as Moscow or Novgorod, but also as a successor of some historical prototypes-as al­ ready the "fourth" Rome, following Constantinople as the "second" and Moscow as the "third" (see Lotman & Ouspensky, 1982; Gourevich, 1998). This speculative connection with Imperial Rome was expressed later through semiotic means of "architectural Latin", especially in Empire style, i.e. with the reproduction of order systems, triumphal arches and a column dedicated to the Emperor's victories (see figure 11.8. 4-1). Moreover, old cities having passed through diverse historical periods have undergone quite notable changes. Obviously, Rome, over its three thousand years of history, has seen more historical cataclysms than Sl. Petersburg, which is ten times younger. Nevertheless, even a not very old

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II. 8.3.

Figure II.8A-l . st. Petersburg. The Alexander Column and the Arch of the Gen­ eral Staff in the Palace Square. l 820-30s.

city is seemingly differently interpreted by new generations in new cultur­ al contexts. The processes in which various city objects get and change their meanings can be described semiotically as the processes of semioti­ zation and re-semiotization. Semiotization can be shortly defined as the transformation of objects into the means of expressing some meanings using one or several semiotic systems. If spatial relations become the objects of semiotization, one can speak about the semiotization of space. We can say that space is semi­ otized, if its meaningful relations are selected, formed and interpreted by the norms of certain semiotic systems. These systems compose spatial codes introducing their own syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules (in the terms of Charles Morris) or semiotic forms of expression and content (in Louis Hjelmslev 's terms). Although the semiotization of space often requires considerable exter­ nal transformations, it can also be performed without them. Only internal rules of structuring and interpreting are obligatory in all cases, and some­ times they are enough to establish a semiotic form in processes of space interpretation. However, any semiotization of space would be impossible for persons who are not be ready to see and understand meaningful spatial configurations in accordance with the norms of a particular semiotic sys­ tem. The semiotization of space can be mono- or poly-systemic depending on the number of semiotic systems used in its formation and interpretation.

On the Semiotization and Resemiotization of City Space

391

If several semiotic systems are simultaneously involved in the semiotiza­ tion of one the same part in space, a heterogeneous spatial text is fonned. Unlike the establishment of a semiotic form in space semiotization processes, its resemiotization means changes of this fonn. Re­ semiotization can be as complex as the previous semiotization, because it can include changes of codes and their combinations, of created spatial texts, as well as of their semantic, syntactic or stylistic treatments. It can be also perfonned with external transfonnations of a resemiotized object or without it (though only in interpreters' minds). For example, the Peter and Paul Fortress in st. Petersburg was built as a military construction, but has never fulfilled this function and was quite quickly resemiotized and turned into a prison, where Peter's son Alexey had already been jailed. After the Decembrist uprising, when their partici­ pants were imprisoned in the Fortress by Nicholas the First, its opposition as the prison to the Winter Palace located across the Neva was felt even more strongly. In the twentieth century, after the revolution, its meaning changed again and the Fortress was resemiotized into a public museum and a place of pilgrimage for tourists. Both the semiotization and resemiotization of space have similar com­ ponents. To name a few, these components include subjects, which realize these semiotic acts, objects, which undergo them, and semiotic means, which serve these purposes. For example, in the case of the creation of st. Petersburg, the tsar Peter the First was the subject, who was able to perfonn the semiotization of such a huge space and had all the power of the state for that. Semiotizing the space of the Russian Empire's future capital, Peter, at the same time, acted as the resemiotizer of all the Russian space, because he moved the capital from Moscow far to the north, into the area of military conflict with Sweden. Many other subjects of semiotic practice did not accept the way of se­ miotization imposed by Peter. People who were forced to corne to a new city not only hated Peter's transformations, but also expressed their hate materially. Grandiose fires began to break out in the city after his reign. Grigory Kaganov (2001 : 69), when describing these fires, considers them as artworks of folklore, as a literally bright response of the people. In se­ miotic tenns, such a response can be described as an attempt to de­ semiotize the space, which had been semiotized in an unwelcome way. The changes of those who had power also provided premises for the re­ semiotization of the same space. For example, just three years after the death of Peter the Great, his grandson Peter the Second in fact moved the capital back to Moscow again. Later, after the revolution, the same way of

392

11.8.3.

space

resemiotization

was

realized

by

another

subj ect

of semiotic

activity-by the Soviet government that returned the capital to Moscow.

Objects of semiotization mainly

constitute

spatial relations,

wherefrom

meaningful units are selected and connected with certain meanings. Among these objects are their forms and

places,

as well as their

sizes

and

materials. Thus, the farm,

place

and

size

of the steeple, with its angel stretched in

the sky over the main Peter and Paul Cathedral, symbolize the victory and establishment of the new European capital on the banks of the Neva. The regular,

symmetrical

and rhythmical

arrangement

of spatial

objects in the new city (the order of buildings, streets and even plants in the Summer Gardens) were meant to serve as symbols of the tsar ' s power over all chaotic forces-in the world of living and non-living things and in the world of people-that had to obey the tsar's will (see Figure

11.8.4-2). material.

A special obj ect of visual spatial semiotization can also be

This was particularly typical for St Petersburg during its construction. In the new city,

stone

was opposed to other materials. It is known that in

Figure 11.8.4-2. Aleksey Zubov. View Engraving. 1717.

afthe Summer Gardensfrom the Neva River.

On the Semiotization and Resemiotization of City Space

393

Figure 11.8.4-3. Sl. Petersburg. The Peter and Paul Fortress. XVIII century.

1714 stone building was forbidden throughout Russia except in st. Petersburg (Lotman & Ouspensky, 1982: 244-245). Ou the one hand, it was contraposed to wood as a typical material of buildings in old Russia, including Moscow. Ou the other hand, stone artificially brought to st. Petersburg was contraposed to water as a natural chaotic element. The erection of the stone walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress, granite embankments and buildings framing the Neva waters-all this meant the victory of solid power over the dangerous water abyss (see Figure 11.8.4-3). The means of space semiotization can be both verbal languages and spatial codes. All of them were used by Peter the First as the semiotizer of Russian cultural space. In particular, the German name Sankt-Petersburg itself not only nominated the new city, but also connoted the new cultural orientation of the Russian tsar to western models. Obviously, this city name, belonging both to the holy apostle and to the tsar, provided for its double interpretation. The name Peter, translated from Latin as "stone", connects it with the material which was so important for the semiotization of new territories. Thus, verbal means of semiotization were related to the building material as non-verbal means of the SOCial-symbolic code regulating connections between spatial objects and certain social values. An abrupt displacement of the capital to the border with Sweden, which was then the enemy of the country, was an action performed by the

394

II.8.3.

means of another spatial semiotic system, the demarcation code. This code was also involved in the internal structuring of the new city itself, particularly in contraposition of the waterfront's stone walls to the Neva floods as a natural enemy force. Together with the demarcation code, another semiotic system is usually actualized-the object-functional code connecting forms and places with their direct practical functions. The Fortress was intended for another purpose than the Admiralty with its shipyard functions. These functional diversities were expressed in the visible forms of appropriate buildings as well as in their spatial organization. Other functional and social purposes are expressed by the forms of the Winter Palace built for Peter the First.

'�ftl�i� r:"-'I�J;���

.

,�,

_-J

A

1

B

11.8.4-4, A&B. St Petersburg. A The Winter Palace of Peter the First 1 7 1 6-1720. According to the drawing of M Makhaev. About 1750. B. St Petersburg. The building of the Hermitage Theater Architect G. Quarenghi. 1783-1787. Figure

Architect G. Mattamovi.

These early buildings were soon rebuilt and re-semiotized. In particular, the place of the old Winter Palace was occupied by the Hermitage Theater designed by Giacomo Quarenghi for Catherine the Second. This place resemiotization was performed not only by the means of the object-functional code, which was then meant to express an idea of a theater. The means of the architectonic code were also changed and architectural forms of the Petrine Baroque style were replaced with the forms of Catherine's Classicism. Such stylistic changes can also be considered as space resemiotization performed in the expression plane of the architectonic code at the stylistic level (see Fignre 11.8.4-4, A&B). There is another frequent case of space resemiotization, i.e. a change of the spatial "sentence", expressed by the means of the social-symbolic code. These means make it possible to express sentences like "He was an outstanding fignre". The subject-predicate structure of such a proposition

On the Semiotization and Resemiotization of City Space

395

is expressed in this spatial code through the cormection of certain mean­ ingful forms and places. In particular, a monument to an Emperor erected in a square is a semiotic act equivalent to a verbal statement of his high value. Correspondingly, the displacement of his statue expresses the oppo­ site statement. The statue of the Russian Emperor Alexander the Third was sculpted by Paolo Troubetzkoy and initially erected in Znamenskaya Square in St. Petersburg at 1 909. After the revolution, resemiotizers of the city space firstly changed sense of the monument by creating a new inscription on a pedestal and new surroundings near it, and later they completely removed the statue from the square. In the nineties, this sculpture was brought back again, this time to be established in the courtyard of the Marble Palace, which shortly before had become a branch of the Russian Museum. The Marble Palace in its tum was resemiotized many times. Created at XVIII c. for a favorite of Catherine II and then used by members of the tsar's family, it became after the revolution the Lenin Museum and had in its yard the armoured car where from Lenin gave a speech at the time of the revolution. The statue of the tsar, exchanging the armoured car in the courtyard, changed the sense of the yard space as well as its own. Since this place belongs now to the Russian Museum, the sculpture is interpreted already not as a monument, but as an art piece (see Figure 11.8.4-5, A&B).

A

B

Figure II. 8 .4-5, A&B. A. The monument of the Russian Emperor Alexander III placed on the Znamenskaya Square in st. Petersburg at 1 909. B. The placement of the sculpture of Alexander III in the courtyard of the Marble Palace (now a filial branch of the State Russian Museum) in st. Petersburg at 1 9 9 3 .

396

A

11.8.3.

B

Figure 11.8.4-6, A&B. Sl. Petersburg. A. Ship over !be spire of the Admiralty. B. Angel over the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress. After all the serniotization and multiple reserniotizations of space in st. Petersburg, the main idea of a big city over its water space remains expressed by cOImections between the two most famous symbols of st. Petersburg rising above !be city (Figure 11.8.4-6, A&B). One of them is the golden ship, which is not only a symbol of navigation, but also that of salvation in every sense of the word. Another famous symbol is the golden angel over the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress. It symbolizes the life of Peter's City by the Neva waters. As with all reserniotizations, the meanings of these symbols remain constant.

11.9. S PATIAL S E MI O S I S IN A RTS

11.9. 1 . How IS SEMIOTICS OF ART POSSIBLE?

The history of the relationship between art theory and semiotics knows periods of attraction and repulsion. Upon the separation by A Baumgarten of aesthetics as a theory of arts, semiotics was envisaged as an organic part of it However. semiotics developed later by the efforts of logicians and linguists, drawing closer to the exact sciences and causing an alertness to the representatives of humanitarian knowledge. Naturally, this suspicion did not disappear when Charles Morris put forward the idea to consider aesthetics and art theory within the framework of semiotics, in which he saw a path to the integration of natural and human sciences (Morris, 1971a VII.2). The idea of absorbing one science by the other today has little sympa­ thy. both in the first and the second versions. Much closer to the modern scientific consciousness is the idea of the cooperation of sciences as inde­ pendent partners. which have their own subject and their own methods of research, and which therefore are interesting to each other. It is in this case that the question becomes urgent as to how this cooperation can be carried out. and. in particular, how the semiology of art is possible. In the system of concepts taken here, semiology differs from semiotics as its theoretical part. Another part of semiotic studies, called semi­ ography, deals with the description of definite signs, whereas semiology deals with the system of concepts that can be used for such descriptions (see above, 1. 1 . 1 . 1). Semiographic research of art pieces forms quite a traditional field of art studies. Such disciplines as iconography and the even more generalized iconology specialize in the meanings and senses of signs and symbols in works. These are descriptions belonging to the semiographic level of se­ miotic studies, because the semiotic concepts attracted for them do not undergo a special theoretical analysis. Meanwhile, there are both different systems of semiotic concepts and different ways using them in the field of art studies. The differences be­ tween the semiotic conceptions of Ch. Peirce, F. de Saussure, etc. are well known, and will not be discussed in this paper (a semiological system of

How is Semiotics of Art Possible?

399

concepts that can be conformed with both of them is presented above, see 1.3.1). Below, diverse ways of applying these semiotic concepts to art studies will be considered. Indeed, today, not one but several different approaches to fhe description of the phenomenon of art in semiotic tenns are possible. Their differences depend not so much on the divergence of the versions of the theory of signs used by them, but rather on the variety of ways to apply semiotic concepts to the study of art. In the early experiences of the semiotic understanding of art, researchers were interested, first of all, in fhe principal applicability of these concepts in aesthetics and art studies. The statement of communicative and representational functions in artistic works made it possible to speak of them as special "artistic" or "aesthetic" signs. In this approach, even in the 1 930s, the treatment of a work of art as a sign united Charles Morris, who was a continuer of Peircean semiotics, and Jan Mucarovsky, who was a follower of de Saussure's semiology (see Mukarovsky, 1 976, 1994: 1 90-198; Morris 1971c 41 5-433). However, a look at a work of art as at a separate sign, marking its semiotic functions, gives little understanding of its internal structure. In particular, uniting paintings, graphics and sculptures, together wifh any other images, into one category of "iconic signs" does not yet explain how these images are constructed, or how they differ from each other More opportunities in this respect are opened up for the interpretation of an artwork not as an autonomous sign, but as a complex text composed of signs of a certain language. In fhis case, it becomes logical to distinguish between the "language of painting", the "language of graphics" and ofher art species as special semiotic systems. The semiotics of art then comes close to many of the pre-semiotics studies of artists and art historians who draw parallels between the expressive means of art and language (as, for example, in Semper, 1 860, § 1 ; Wblfflin, 1969 13, 24; Riegl, 1966 210-2 1 1 ; Kandinsky, 191 1 ; Kepes, 1944). The analysis of art pieces gives possibilities in several cases to find similarities with the lexical and grammatical means of a verbal language. These cases are connected, as a rule, with the repeating ways of depiction in traditional art, oriented to the reproduction of canons and iconographic schemes (in medieval iconography, folk art, etc.; see Wallis, 1968; Ouspensky, 1 970; 1971 ; Adorno, 1981). Even so, with this approach, the semiotic rethinking of fhe phenomenon of art does not always happen, and fhe semiotic terminology often turns out to be only a new garment in which the old content is clothed. The concept of language is not always used in its terminological meaning, es-

400

11.9. 1 .

pecially in the analysis of an individual creation. Not only traditional art critics have spoken about them (for example, Schlosser, 1935) but also specialists in linguistics and semiotics (see Benveniste, 1 969). At the same time, the analogy with the verbal language alone prompts that standard lexical units and grammatical constructions do not interfere at all with the emergence of the art of the word, but, on the contrary, serve as its condition. Poetry does not reject ready-made signs of the language and does not create completely new ones, but organizes the means of eve­ ryday language in a special way and derives new meanings from this or­ ganization. In the same way, it is legitimate to regard spatial arts as the result of a skilful use of certain non-verbal codes operating outside the artistic sphere. This understanding of the semiotics of art no longer requires it to search for special "aesthetic signs" or "artistic languages". On the contra­ ry, it is right to consider the spatial arts as a product of an aesthetic organi­ zation of the non-verbal means, which are used outside of the art sphere too, but are arranged and rearranged in works of art. Such an approach to the semiotics of art aims to identify those semiotic systems that participate in the organization of artistic texts in different types of art in different his­ torical periods, and the particularities associated with the use of these sys­ tems in each specific case. Certainly, an ensemble of semiotic means of various codes used in an art piece can be generally named its language. However, such a way of expression does not bring us closer to a more ac­ curate analysis of the semiotic structure of the work, but rather distances us from it. At the same time, a distinction is made between the study of the inter­ nal organization of the semiotic systems used in arts and the study of their application in these arts. In the first case, the subject of research is which codes are used and how they are organized. In the second one, the subject is how they are used artistically. This difference corresponds to the divi­ sion of the spheres of grammar and poetics, the discrepancy of which in verbal arts was already clear in antiquity, but not yet fully consciously applied to other arts. At the same time, like the knowledge of a language's grammar is necessary for investigations in the theory of poetry, the poetics of visual arts demands a semiotic analysis of the means used in pertinent spatial codes. Moreover, the semiotics of art is not coincident with art criticism, which intends to evaluate art pieces. No semiotic means themselves are good or bad, even though their usage can be more or less pertinent in di­ verse cases. Semiotics can only find these means and describe them in its concepts as corresponding or not corresponding with definite spatial

How is Semiotics of Art Possible?

401

codes. As scientific knowledge, it is intended to establish some facts and therefore to express the results of its research in "judgments of facts", but not in "judgments of values" (using the terms of analytical philosophy). In contrast, art criticism can use these concepts for the expression of evalua­ tive judgments, whereas semiotics, remaining in its frames, abstains from such judgments. The analogy with linguistics can be continued in the comparison of dif­ ferent generalization levels of diverse research. Like in linguistics, re­ search into particular languages differs from the research of a language as a sign system in general, so in the semiotics of art, an analysis of certain art pieces and a praxis of their functioning in partial cultural-historical conditions differ from the more general studies of the possibilities them­ selves of using diverse semiotics means in various species of arts. The mentioned above distinction between semiography and semiology as di­ verse levels of generalization of semiotic studies is pertinent as well in the sphere of art semiotics. The semiotics of art, at this approach, relies heavily on spatial semiot­ ics as a special branch of semiotic research. In this case, it becomes possi­ ble to avoid the problems that arise in cases of the direct application of linguistic models to the analysis of works of spatial arts. This opens up new prospects for cooperation between aesthetics and semiotics. In particular, art is revealed from a new point of view as a sphere of using codes complexes that do not coincide with one another. These complexes are historically variable in their composition, internal organization and external relations with other semiotic systems. Art then no longer looks like a closed sphere of culture, but is recognized as an area with a movable border, historically changing along with changes in the notion of a skilful work with some means of expression. The peculiarity of art, from this point of view, is not that it creates its own special "artistic" signs or its own autonomous language, but, on the contrary, that it involves a variety of cultural semiotic systems and natural codes in its sphere, selecting their means, building their relationships and carefully developing their expressive capabilities. Thus, these means are transformed in art from an unremarkable instrument of activity into its object, to which the close attention of artists and viewers is directed. However, different arts are distinguished by the tasks they set for themselves. Particularly in spatial arts, the skilful development of semiotic means can consist of their orientation to achieve a depictive, expressive or decorative effect The solution of each of these problems is connected with its own understanding of artistry in the work, even with the same semiotic system.

402

11.9. 1 .

The arts differ also by the semiotic systems which they develop. In principle, each of these systems can be artfully used to achieve some artis­ tic result and, thereby, generate its own kind of art. So, the art of painting develops on the basis of a skilful application of the means of the percepto­ graphic code for the creation of pictures. Architecture is fonned as the art of using the expressive capabilities of the architectonic code. Design de­ velops the means of object-functional code, etc. However, the historically developed arts do not coincide with the bor­ ders of the semiotic systems that they use. One can only talk about the dominance of either of them in certain types of art. As a rule, the means of the same code are developed differently in several types of art, and within the same species there are several codes that interact. Accordingly, there is a specifically semiotic approach to the morphol­ ogy of art as a historically mobile sphere of interaction between different codes, the changing relationships of which (combination and exclusion, subordination and coordination, etc.) in each specific historical period cre­ ate a certain system of species and gemes. It also opens up a view of art history as well as of the history of art re­ ception. Similarly, the history of the comprehension of works of art in different historical periods can be understood as the history of coincidenc­ es and discrepancies between spatial codes that artists use, on the one hand, and viewers use, on the other. Just as forms of vision and of spatial thinking are changeable by artists, the forms of interpretation by spectators are historically inconstant as well. Certainly, onlookers do not always interpret the works of art with the same semiotic means that their creators used. Belonging to a different historical era and cultural environment, the viewers can be separated from the artists by a "semiotic distance", which may be more or less large. Therefore, in parallel with the history of artistic creativity, the history of perception and comprehension of art works, their understanding and misunderstanding by the public develops. This history can also be described as a history of use by viewers of certain visual-spatial codes and, accordingly, as a history of deviation from these codes by those originally attracted by the authors of the works. The evolution of artistic culture in general looks then like a process of changing relationships between semiotic systems. In particular, the history of visual arts then appears in the semiotic aspect as a history of the chang­ ing of the complex of visual-spatial codes and their application to solving differently understood artistic problems. So, with all the discrepancies between the semiotic approaches to the theory of art, today one can say that the semiotics of art is possible and has

How is Semiotics of Art Possible?

403

promising prospects, first of all, as an exploration of the skilful use of his­ torically changing natural and cultural codes, as well as their combinations and their interactions. The artists of diverse times and places can different­ ly combine these codes between each other, just as viewers from various cultural, temporal and spatial areas can differently reconstruct them.

11.9.2. SPACE OF DEPICTION AND VISUAL CODES

A wide complex of semiotic means participates in the perception and comprehension of fine arts. The idea of an "icon" or "iconic sign," intro­ duced in Ch. Peirce's and Ch. Morris' semiotics, is not enough to reflect this complex. The phrase "pictorial language" points at its complexity to a greater extent. But this expression supposes that painting has its own sys­ tem of signs, isolated from other culture languages. Meanwhile, a cornparison with the art of words shows that a verbal text becomes a piece of art not because it is formed by some special signs of "literary language", but only because of a skilful use of the signs of the common language, even if literary. Similarly, the "pictorial language" is nothing other than a com­ plex of visual spatial codes developed in various fields of culture and used in arts in a special way. Fine arts are not isolated from these "extra­ artistic" codes; on the contrary, they concentrate them in themselves and form the field for their interaction. The simplest of these codes is the system of marks, strokes and ticks, the aggregation of which creates outlines of a form. The units of this "markup code", its "letters," are similar to elements (stoicheia) of Euclide­ an geornetry-dots, lines, comers, etc. Each of thern means nothing except pointing at the place where some operation should be carried out either by hand or only by the eye: rise, turn, stop, etc. Both a painter sketching a composition and an artisan marking the preparation for his future article use this signal-indexical code of demarcation. Accordingly, the mark sys­ tem may turn in the former case into a picture of a thing and in the latter into the pictured thing itself, for example, a cut out piece of cloth turns into a real dress. However, the results of a craftsman's and a painter's activities will dif­ fer in one important relation: the real dress will stay in the space of object­ related actions, while the painted dress will "go away" into the illusionary space of the picture. Various relationships are possible between these spaces. The picture space may become a part of the action space. Thus, cave animal paintings were included in rituals imitating hunting them. Similarly, medieval mosaics and frescos on church walls depicted a tran-

Space of Depiction and Visual Codes

405

scendental space beyond these walls and, at the same time, maintained ties with the space of cult actions in front of them. In its turn, the contempla­ tion space, created by pictorial means, is itself capable of "taking in" the action space. Its reproduction in the depicted space finds its complete form in oil pieces that breaks the connection of the depicted action on it with actions being performed in front of it. A depicted space is autonomous; it is fenced off by the frame from the surrounding space and is no longer connected with the definite place. The space of the picture, separated by a frame from the rest of the world, is at the same time not fenced off from the semiosphere of the cul­ ture in which it is understood. On the contrary, the same visual-spatial codes that regulate the interpretation of the situation in real space are in­ troduced into the understanding of the depicted space. In particular, in order to recognize the pictured objects, for example, a sword, a helmet or a cup, a viewer should use the same object-functional code that determines the norms for comprehension of object shapes and actions with these objects in space. This code correlates object forms with certain practical functions and allows one, upon recognizing them, to un­ derstand their meaning as welL The social-symbolic code regulates the interpretation of objects and their special features as signs and symbols of some social characteristics of people using these objects: a king wears a crown on his head, a guard wears a helmet, etc. The iconographic code may be considered a peculiar expansion of this code, which helps with the recognition of depicted personalities by their attributes: Neptune by his trident, Saint Peter by the keys in his hand, etc. Another visual-spatial code is referred to the proxemics sphere, reveal­ ing the significance of distances between participants of a social spatial action and the places occupied by them. This code in its iconographic ver­ sion regulates the significant placement of figures on the pictorial plane along the axes of top-bottom and right-left, in correlation with the centre and periphery as well as changes of their scales, which is only possible at a picture. A special place is taken by a group of kinesic visual codes, the signs of which unfold both in space and in time, but preserve their meaning also in the depicted space. Gesticulation, mimic and pantomimic-various signif­ icant body positions are referred here. A number of synesthetic codes also participate in the interpretation of paintings; they connect visual spatial shapes and colours with sensations (to be more exact-quasi-sensory images) of other modalities: auditory, tactile, thermal, etc. The architectonic code is also attached to this set; it correlates visual spatial shapes and their relations with the kinetic experi-

406

11.9.1.

ence of gravity, elastic force, and tension force as well as their equilibrium or disequilibrium, etc. Except for their special iconographic modifications, all the said visual codes-together with the symbols of colour and light, shape and space­ [onn a complex of semiotic means, which participate in comprehension of both works of fine arts and extra-pictorial realities, and can be applied as to spatial objects in front of the pictorial surface as to ones "behind" it However, there is another complex of semiotic means thanks to which the paradoxical perception of a canvas covered with paints not being an object in space but a space in which other objects are located becomes possible at all. There are various indexes of spatiality consciously constructed by an artist on a plane : linear and aerial perspectives, chiaroscuro, shielding, crossings, etc. Such indexes are included in the expression of the perceptual code, which has a natural origin but is corrected in culture. The ability to use it in perception acts originates in infancy, together with the ability to construct a visual image of three­ dimensional bodies and their spatial relations from the mosaic of light and dark spots in the visual field. In order to use the perceptual code not only in perception but in depiction as well, it is required to learn to exteriorize the perceptive image, acquired with its help, to go the reverse way-from the finished perception to the indexes according to which it is created. Such a visual analysis requires special training basing on experience, accumulated in culture. Various cultures in their historical development single out various complexes of visual means from the natural perceptual code, thus creating specific "fonTIS of vision" for each of them . So diverse cultural modifications of the natural perceptual code appear, which can be called "perceptographic codes". The appearance of a picture as a special object was connected with such a form of vision that stopped treating the pictorial plane as a wall and preferred to interpret it as a window, opening an entrance to another space for looking, or even as optical instruments, for example, a mirror or lens. However, in contrast to such tools, the picture preserves the wall's features together with the window's features in itself: it supposes looking not only through but at itself as well. A comparison of both ways of looking is an essential moment of its aesthetic perception-in contrast to images on cinema or TV screens, where the depicted space fully "disappears" for a VIewer. If in the period of its prime-in the 1 5 th_19th centuries-the picture strived to be maximally "transparent" for looking through it, in the Impressionists' paintings, an "opacifying" of the picture' s mirror occurs;

Space of Depiction and Visual Codes

407

there is a transfer to looking predominantly at its surface, the logical con­ sequence of which was a "curtailing" of the depth of depicted space in paintings of the 20th century, the return of planeness (e.g. Matisse; see col­ our picture 25) and even the "pushing out" of depicted objects from the space in a picture to the space in front of it (picasso, Tatlin, etc.). The relations between the spatial codes used for an interpretation of the space of a picture change with historical modifications of the pictorial space. In particular, all codes that are dependent on perceptographic codes (object-functional, socio-symbolic, proxemic, kinesic and other codes) can no longer be used in non-figurative painting, which is thus limited by the means of synesthetic and architectonic codes, such as paintings by Maleh­ vich, Kandinsky, Mondrian, etc. It follows from the above said that it is possible to view not only his­ torical changes of pictorial spaces, but the whole history of fine arts as the history of the origination, alteration and interaction of various visual­ spatial codes.

11. 9 . 3 . VISUAL-SPA TIAL CODES IN PICTORIAL ARTS

1. On the Application of Visual-spatial Codes in Arts The large field of visual-spatial codes gives opportunities for their ap­ plication in various spheres of human activity-sacral and profane, social and individual, political and economic, technical and scientific, etc. Visual arts are only a part of this activity. just as word arts (poetry. prose. drama. rhetoric) are a part of practice of using verbal languages. Although this part certainly has its own conventions. it differs from other fields of cul­ ture not by the rejection of semiotic systems used in other spheres, but by the fact that it can use all cultural and even natural semiotic systems in special ways. Therefore, it can include diverse pieces of religious or social creativity. production of technical activity. buildings. etc. Despite the trend of the last several centuries to separate the sphere of "fine arts" in a closed field of culture. a rigid boundary between the arts and other cultural do­ mains is not very clear. This is not only because a large part of the pieces placed in art museums was created in the frame of religious cults and other fields of culture. and because the other field of artistic activity-the so­ called "technical arts" (architecture, applied arts, design)-also does not fit into the sphere of pure "fine arts", but, above all, because such a border cannot be drawn semiotically. If arts are separated from the rest of the cultural serniosphere, they are artificially deprived of their main expressive and depictive means and become "speechless". Their own conventions cannot supersede the riches of semiotic means that are used in the rest of the domains of culture. On the contrary, by involving in their sphere the semiotic systems functioning beyond it, arts receive a rich "semiotic mate­ rial", which can become the object of special artistic working out. A connection with the extra-artistic semiotic means can be tracked even in such a seemingly separated art as music. Among its semiotic means, one can find the synesthetic connections of musical tones with spatial images of higher or lower elevation as well as connections of rhythin with impulses of movement. Both of them have grounds in natural

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

409

signal-indexical codes which connected the sounds with spatial and mov­ ing images. These are also developed in culture and perhaps tied with speech connections between the melodic intonations and emotions of a huruan. They still remain at a signal-indexical level of semiosis. Unlike them, the sign level of semiosis is reached in the syrn bolic connections of pitch relations, in particular, with the ideas of the Pythagoreans and Pla­ tonists about the structure of the universe, which gives grounds for the inclusion of musica mundi by Boethius in the medieval quadrivium to­ gether with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, which also describes world harmony. All these and many other semiotic means used in music are also applied beyond this art and are not some special "artistic signs". Pitch relations are semiotic means of several languages, as well as intona­ tions are. The sounds of a trumpet can give signals of attack or retreat; a drurubeat can coordinate the rhythm of the steps of a military unit The sophistic reasoning of philosophers on connections between the relations of tones and interplanetary distances do not need any sound accompani­ ment at all. All these extra-musical semiotic means can, nevertheless, be­ come expressive means of musical art due to skilful work with them by musicians and through their organization in a certain arlistic form. A farliari, the "word arts" use the means of common language-even when in the period of Classicism poets were required to choose these means in accordance with the norms of the "high" style. The famous lin­ guist and literature theorist Roman Jakobson is right when he says that poetry and other word arts concentrate on working with the verbal material itself and that they are arts as far as they develop the poetic function of a language (Jakobson, 1975). Just as the arts of the word form a field where verbal languages are skilfully used, fine arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, etc.) are areas where visual-spatial codes are artistically applied, and where their aesthet­ ic function is important. The connection of arts with various semiotic sys­ tems from the rest of the parts of the semiosphere is essential, because their products obtain artistic quality in such a degree, in which they are the results of a skilful and artistic using of these systems. For example, an artistic work with the graphic means of writing can create the art of callig­ raphy. In a similar way, the skill of an artist depends on how much he masters these semiotic systems and can carefully apply them in the crea­ tion of pieces of art. One can say that a single code can become the basis for the develop­ ment of a separate visual art. Just as the code of writing can be a ground for the development of calligraphy, the architectonic code gives the ground for the development of architecture as art the object-functional

410

11.9.3.

code can be used since ancient times for the creation of applied art pieces and later the design products, the perceptographic code opens possibilities for the development of figurative graphic arts, etc. However, the connection between art species and visual-spatial codes is not single-valued. One the same art can use diverse codes, and one and the same code can be applied in diverse arts, despite the fact that it can be less important there than it is in its main art field.

2. On the Means of Perceptographic Code in Pictorial Arts Not only the art depends on the code, but also the development of the code depends on the work with it in artistic practice. An example of such a reverse dependence of the ccxle from arts is given by the development of the perceptographic code that regulates the connections between lines and paints at the depicting surface, due to which the depicted space is perceived (see above, 11.3.4, 11.6.3). Various versions of this culturally developed visual-spatial code have as a common resource the natural perceptual code, which regulates the means of connection between a "mosaic" of various light and colour spots received by a viewer at a sensorial level and the entire image of external objects in a three­ dimensional space formed at the perceptual level. The history of figurative arts shows that diverse depictive means have been gradually involved in the practice of creating depictions of diverse kinds and use pictures as the means of communication. Although the using of these means is connected with technical possibilities of materials, the field for their development was varied: the walls of a cave or a palace, the surface of a vessel or a sheet of parchment, a wooden board or a canvas, etc. The purpose of a depicted object can be also different: visual accompanying of cult actions, theatrical decorations, mural or easel painting, a handwritten book or printed graphics-all this can serve as the field where the means of perceptographic code can be developed. The latest dividing of arts into "fine" and "applied" is not relevant in relation to the development of the means used in the perceptographic code. These means are various and, historically, not synchronized. One of the earliest means of depiction is siZhoueUe-a spot on a plane that more or less clearly separates it from the background as a figure, whose outlines create a perceptual image of a particular object (see Figure 11.9.3-1).

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

411

Figure II. 9.3-l . Using silhouette as a means of depiction. Deer hunting. Cave painting. Mesolithic. Barranco de la Valltorta, Spain.

The contour of depicted figures can be independent means of depic­ tion, as if breaking away from the silhouette of the spot and retaining only its outer outlines. It is true that the contour of a spatial object does not be­ long to the object itself and is an abstraction created with the means elabo­ rated in culture (Eco, 1976: 1 94). As well as the silhouette, each contour and, in general, the linear structure of a depiction is a product of artificial activity and is made by a culturally elaborated tool (coal, pencil, brush, etc.) drawing on a surface. However, unlike fully arbitrary signs-such as letters of alphabetic writing-the contour of a drawing is extracted from the form of the depicted object as its visible border with its surroundings. This extract keeps a similarity with the depicted form as long as the visual scheme of this form can be actualized by a viewer of the contour. The sim­ ilarity can be greater or lesser, and, correspondingly, some gradations are possible between a minimal pictogram and a developed perceptogram (see Figure 11.9. 3-2).

41 2

II.9.3.

Figure II.9.3-2. An example of pure linear graphics. Pablo Picasso.

Banderillas. Lithography.

Dance of the

1 954.

One more important means of the perceptographic code is the model­

light and shade gradations. The visible differences between the lightest parts of a volu­

ling ofthree-dimensional forms due to a distinction ofthe

metric form (glare), its slightly less light parts, the parts in half-shade, the parts in their "own" shadow, the parts in reflected light, and improper (falling) shadow are the indexes along which an eye "reads" the volumes of real objects as well as ofthe objects depicted by these means of percep­ tography. Sharp changes between light and shadow point at sharp turns of the form verges, a smooth flow of one shade's gradation to another indi­ cates a round shape, etc. (see Figure 1.3.3-1). The introduction of such means of depiction is connected with the name of Apollodorus of Athens

(V century BC), who was the first master

of skiagraphy-an art of depiction with the help of distinctions between light and shadow. The skill of ancient artists to use light and shadow as the means of depiction is clear in relatively later examples (see Pompeian still lifes-colour pictures I and 2).

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

.

413

:iiI

: . ':�� 'i� �

\� .

;;.

Figure II. 9.3-3. An example of black-and-white graphics. Aubrey Vincent Beards­ ley. A fragment of the illustration to the bookLe Morte d 'Arthur by Thomas Malo­ ry. 1 893-l 894.

Each of the named means of perceptography can be a ground for a spe­ cial sort of graphic art. So, there is a division: linear graphics, which is limited to using only contours; black-and-white graphics, using only spots of two opposite tones; and tone graphics, which uses tone gradations be­ tween black and white as the means of volume and space depictions (see also Figures 11.9 .3-3 and 11.9. 3-4). Along with the means of form depiction, the art of perceptography de­ veloped the means of space depiction. Such indexes of spatial relations between objects as intersection and occlusions were known already in ancient Egypt and became some of the necessary means of perceptog­ raphy. The ancient Greeks in the classical period already knew how to show space, using the shortening of equal parts, as they move away from the viewer, as elements of the linear perspective . The later Roman and Pompeian frescoes allow one to judge how well ancient artists could create an illusion of a three-dimensional space on a flat depiction by the means of the perceptographic code. The next steps for the development of perspective as a means of depic­ tions were made by the artists of the Renaissance: Bmnelleschi, Uccello, Leonardo, Diller, etc. It was only after their theoretical and practical works that linear perspective formed as a complete system (see Panofsky, 1927).

414

II . 9 . 3 .

Together with the linear perspective, the aerial perspective was devel­ oped as well. This is a complex of indexes that point at the relations be­ tween near and far obj ects through a distinction of contrast degrees (the near one is more contrasted than the far one), and through colour diversity (the near one is "hotter" , the far one is "colder"-blue, green, etc .) (see colour picture

13).

Figure II . 9 . 3--4.

An

example of tone graphics. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. Etching, dry needle. 1 65 1 .

The Flight into Egypt: A Night Piece.

Obviously, colour has been involved in the creation of depictions at least since the cave paintings of the Upper Palaeolithic period. Polychro­ mic paintings were then developed in the mural paintings of the ancient Near East and Greece of the Archaic and Classical periods. Even in Clas­ sical Greece, the treatment of colour was already complicated; the separat­ ed colours merged into a single colour system. The complex colour system remained in Roman and Pompeian paintings and in Fayum post-mortem portraits (see colour pictures I and

2). Medieval paintings returned to the

polychromic treatment of colour, when diverse colours are delivered at

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

415

various places and have a more symbolic than perceptographic function. Renaissance and Baroque paintings connected colours again with the sys­ tem of spatial relations. Arts academies in various countries attempt to keep the set of depiction means found by old masters as universal nonns of "picture language", i.e. the perceptographic code in terms of this paper. In a similar way, academic scholars try to maintain the current state of the verbal language. Neverthe­ less, in both cases, the development of semiotic means continues. A new, "post-academic" fonn of vision was introduced by the Impres­ sionists, who made not figures, or even space, but the light-colour milieu as the main object of depiction. They decisively went from so-called "local colours" that monotonally paint surfaces of objects and replaced them with complex combinations of colour shades and tone values. Continuing their approach to the means of depiction, Neo-Impressionists switched from "mechanical" combinations of colours on the palette to their "optical" con­ junction in the eyes of a viewer (see colour picture 1 8). However, after the appearance of such truly "mechanical" means of depiction-such as photo-, cinema- and, later, video-technics-the interest of artists to create illusory perceptograms was reduced and their creative energy was directed to working out other visual codes. In such a way, the development of "chirography" (made by hands) turns out in some other techniques, stimulating the artificial perception of objects depicted in the space of contemplation. At the same time, the de­ velopment by the "chirographic" means of the perceptographic code can stop and even turn back without enough support from new generations of artists. If one considers, as a criterion of the development the thesis, that more developed forms contain all the possibilities of less developed ones, then one can see that the peak of perceptography as a "chirographic" art was the XVI-XIX centuries, when depictive easel painting flourished.

3. Participation of Diverse Codes

in

Depictions

Diverse visual-spatial codes have been involved in picture interpreta­ tions since the earliest cave paintings. More or less developed means of the perceptographic code in depictions only create the conditions for the appearance in the depicted space of some meaningful objects that can be structured and interpreted using various other visual-spatial codes. By re­ producing in its space some objects of the external world, a picture creates the conditions for the reconstitution together with them of a complex of semiotic systems, which also participate in the comprehension of other cultural products, of people, and of all that is depicted. An understanding

416

11.9.3.

of a picture supposes knowledge of these semiotic systems, and the art of a painter consists not of rejecting them, but of selecting and carefully work­ ing with their selected means. Any achievements in the development of the perceptographic code usually could not have any sense if the perceptual images created with its help are unrecognized. The codes of recognition connect such images with schemes common for a more or less large class of objects-real or depict­ ed. These codes participate in the sensorial cognition of any things open­ ing up in front of the eyes-from individual persons to samples of some often reproduced objects. These codes can be used directly in the compre­ hension of real visible objects and of their flat depictions stimulating a shifted perception of similar objects; tehy can be used also in a shiftd way, as in cases of sculpture (see above, 1.3.2.3). The schemes involved in the recognition of perceived objects can have diverse degrees of generality. They can be very abstract and contain only several features of objects and therefore be related to many objects with these features. Alternatively, they can contain a richer set of features, and as they increase, characterize more and more specific objects up to indi­ viduals. This distinction is a ground for the difference between the pictogram limited by a minimal number of recognized features common for many objects and the developed picture able to be a portrait of a recognizable person. The transition from generalized schemes of pictograms-as in cave painting (Figure 1I.9.3-1)-to a depiction of recognized persons-as in the Raphael's portraits of Plato and Aristotle (Figure 1I.9.3-9)-is the result of a long historical evolution of depiction means, above all, the means of perceptography. Cultures oriented to a reproduction of a certain canon hindered this de­ velopment. For example, in ancient Egypt, for a thousand years, one scheme of a man was always repeated with definite ways of depiction for parts of the body at the surface-whether it is drawn on papyrus or a flat relief Along with this scheme, the head is depicted in profile, the eye en face, the legs in profile, the torso enface, etc., like a pictogram or a hiero­ glyph. Even when a definite person was depicted, a common scheme of depiction remains the same, as in the ancient Egyptian relief of the archi­ tect Hesy-Re (see Figure 1I.9.3-5a). A comparison with later depictions made even as early as in the Greco-Roman pictorial system shows how the means of individual portraits were increased (Figure 1I.9.3-5b). Relation of depiction to the code of recognition changes depending on the art type and historical period. Depictions in decorative art are more conventional and connected with more generalized schemes of recognition

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

A

417

B

Figures 11.9.3-5, A&B. A Panel from the mastaba of Hesy-Re. XXVII century Be. Carved wood. Egyptian Museum, Cairo. B.

Portrait of a Middle-aged Man.

Fayum. Egypt I century AD. Wood, encaustic. Pushkin Museum of the Fine Arts, Moscow.

than depictions in portrait paintings or engravings. In a similar way, the­ history of arts knows periods tending to more detailed and to more gener­ alized schemes of recognition. The depictions of Palaeolithic and even Mesolithic hunters were more detailed than later ornamental depictions of ploughrnen. The period of the Old and Middle Kingdoms in ancient Egypt was oriented at more general ways of depictions than the Hellenistic peri­ od. Ancient Rome and early Byzantium were more oriented to detailed pictures than later Byzantium and medieval Church art, which according to the canon should not have been too detailed. Unlike them, the Renais­ sance and Baroque eras resumed an interest in detailed studies of all indi­ vidual features represented in a picture. This trend persisted up to the new desire to generalize in modern art (Matisse, Klee, Miro, etc.), despite the fact that the Surrealists (Dali and others) continued it in their own way. Contemporary artists can freely search various degrees of detailing in de­ pictions aiming, correspondingly, at diverse levels of generalization in the code of recognition.

418

11.9.3.

It is clear that not only the face and figure of a man or animals are rec­ ognizable in depictions, even the earliest, but also the forms of articles of clothing, tools, weapons, etc. In the same Mesolithic cave picture with the deer hunting, one can see the shapes of a bow and arrows as the arms of the hunters. Certainly, the houseware is recognizable even more clearly in a still life from ancient Pompeii (see colour pictures 1 and 2). The recogni­ tion of all these artefacts is possible due to the means of the object­ functional code used in the interpretation of real objects as well as of their depictions. As in the extra-pictorial reality, the objects depicted in a picture can have some additional meanings that turn these objects into the attributes of some social functions. The dress, the furniture, or the interior depicted in a picture as well as their places in relations to the individual space of a per­ son characterizes their role in the represented context. In these cases, the objects and relations of people to them become the units of the social­ symbolic code. For example, the picture of Jacques-Louis David depicting the Coronation of Napoleon (colour picture 16) contains many recogniza­ ble persons, each of which is clothed in the proper attire and has their own place in accordance with the hierarchy of their social relations. The main action of the huge picture-the laying of the crown by Napoleon himself on his head-is "a proposition" of the social-symbolic code suggesting a translation into the verbal language: "I am the Emperor". The symbolism of things often combines with the symbolism of places and mutual spatial relations of depicted figures. In particular, the proxemic code has as its semiotic means the relations between people's bodies, their mutual placement, approximations and distancing. The same colour pic­ ture 1 6 gives abundant examples of such significant spatial relations. In correlation with other codes, the means of one more, the demarca­ tion code, are used outside as well as inside of a picture space-at least for delimitation of diverse depicted objects. Not to mention the fact that the border of a picture separates its space from the rest of the world, the de­ picted space often contains many borders between areas with diverse meanings (cp. colour pictures 3--ti, 13, 27). Unlike extra-somatic codes using artefacts-tools, buildings, etc.-as semiotic means, there is one more semiotic complex of somatic codes us­ ing human bodies, their parts and their spatial relations as expressive means (see above, II. 1 .2). This complex of semiotic means can also transit from the space of social behaviour to its pictorial analogue. Since the cave pictures, the depictions of a human body have been ob­ jects studied by painters. Together with them, the natural somatic code is actualized-the code that regulates the natural reactions on a human body

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

419

depending on sex, age, state of health, etc. Figurative art in diverse times appealed to it in varying degrees depending on cultural and historical pe­ culiarities of picture creation-in ancient Greece and during the Renais­ sance more than in medieval art, etc. (see Figure 1.4-2). Somatic codes have as their expressive means both spatial and tem­ poral components, "mjch can be fully reproduced in spatial-temporal arts--pamomime, dancing, theatre, cinema, etc. However, even pure spa­ tial arts, where the temporal relations are excluded from the expression plane, have enough possibilities to apply many of the semiotic means of these codes using only their extra-temporal componeds.

Figure 119.3--6. Mosaic with scenic masks. Fragment. 2nd century AD. Musei Capitolini. Rome

In particular, the mimic code, which has the expressive changes of the

hmnan face as its meaningful means, contains enough essedial spatial componeds that retain their meanings in a pure spatial fonn of a picture. For example, the ancient masks of tragedy and of comedy are the simula­ cra that imprinted seemingly fleeting states of face indicating certain emo­ tions (Figure 11.9.3--6). The code ofoculeslcs, "mjch has expressive views as the semiotic means, can be considered as a part of the mimic code. At the same time, both of these codes differ from physiognomies, which is a set of features of men's heads inteIpreted as indexes of character traits (see Figure 11.9.4-2). In a similar way, the code ofgesticulation can be used in pictures and

other kiuds of figurative arts as wdl as outside of them. For example, the main expression means of the relief from Hildesheim Cathedral are ges-

420

11.9.3.

tures: the Lord imputes guilt to Adam, he shifts attention to Eve, who points at the snake as the devil, and even, it seems, the plants participate in this play of gestures (see Figure 11.9.3-7).

Figure 11.9. 3-7.

Expulsion from Paradise.

1 0 1 5 . Relief on the doors of the

Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary, Hildesheim, Gennany.

Depiction uses as its expression means not only artificially made gestures, but also so-called body language containing the involuntary forming of expressive movements and postures. They are essential, for example, in Karl Brullov's '''The Last Day of Pompeii" (see colour picture 15). Spatial relations between bodies of people that have meanings between people outside any art pieces can be more or less actively involved in figurative arts as their expressive means. Along with the proxemic code already mentioned, this type also includes the haptic code. It connects natural and artificial meanings with diverse ways of direct contacts between bodies (embraces, kisses, slaps, etc.) and is a powerful means of expression used in artistic practice. For example, it is one of the main expressive means in the series of Rembrandt's works on the biblical story of the Prodigal Son (see Figure 11.9.3-8). 4. Cooperation of Codes in the Formation and Interpretation of Depiction

The discussed above "list" of codes used for interpretation of picture is far from complete. Some of these codes have been considered above (II. 1.3.2). An using of the perceptographic code in picture is only a condition for involving in it many other visual-spatial codes. All that can be

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

42 1

depicted with its help can be interpreted in picture, like similar objects are interpreted outside of it. The semiotic analysis based on the theory of spa­ tial codes finds, as a rule, in very different pictures an entire ensemble of semiotic systems that may be applied at their more or less full interpreta­ tion. The combination of these codes can depend on the genre of a picture. In a historical painting, the social-symbolic and proxemic codes will per­ haps dominate over the object-functional code, which becomes more im­ portant in a still life. The interpretation of portraits meanwhile demands the attraction of mimic and physiognomic codes, complemented also, maybe, by gesticulation and body language. However, the same object­ functional code and its social-symbolic connotations can also be necessary for portraits. It is clear that all these codes can function in pictures due to using not only a version of the perceptographic code, but also the codes of recognition.

Figure II. 9 .3-S. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. 1 636.

Son.

The Return of the Prodigal

422

11.9.3.

The combination of various visual-spatial codes in the ensemble of semiotic means involved in processes of picture interpretation can be considered in the example of Raphael's mural "The School of Athens" (colour picture 6). Although this famous piece has been the subject of numerous descriptions and analyses, a view based on the theory of spatial codes opens up ways for such a description of it that differs from all the others. Among the codes participating in the fonnation of its sense, it is necessary firstly to point at the perceptographic code. It is applied for the creation on a flat wall of a depiction of an extensive space, architectural constructions and people placed in these surroundings. All its rneans­ linear and aerial perspective, combinations of light and shadow, intersections and occlusions-are masterfully used for the creation of the developed perceptogram : the depiction of a large space filled by a few dozen human figures. Several of these figures are accented by more contrasted silhouettes, others are less visible as they are overlapped and are not so contrasted with the surroundings. The artist thereby manages the viewer's attention with the help of perceptographic means and directs it first of all at the main objects of his composition. These objects are comprehended due to the codes of recognition that can be attracted in different ways and to a greater or lesser degree. Using only the natural somatic code, it is possible to recognize mainly figures of men of various ages and, probably, one woman. If a viewer is familiar with images assigned to ancient philosophers, he can recognize the faces of at least several of them-Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and, maybe, some others. Acquaintance with images of some of Raphael's contemporaries and colleagues can also help one to recognize in several of the depicted persons the features of Leonardo da Vinci (as Plato), Michelangelo Buonarroti (as Heraclitus), Donato Bramante (as Euclid) and even of Raphael Santi himself-at least, Vasari gives such an interpretation (1992: 241). It is no matter for the semiotic analysis that such recognition is not obligatorily true, and some variants of other interpretations are also possible. It is sufficient only that they are admissible in principle and took place in the history of interpretations. The codes of recognition participate not only in the identification of persons, but also in the comprehension of all other depicted objects. They help to see at the background of the fresco great architectural constructions, which can be interpreted as a representation of an imaginary ancient building or as some new architectural forms (which are contraposed to the "Gothic", inorganic for the Renaissance mentality, and which, probably, anticipate the outlines of the future Sl. Peter's Basilica in Rome along with Bramante's project that was later continued by Raphael himself). The

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

423

same architectural forms can be also interpreted more generally-as an imaginary "temple of knowledge" of philosophy and science, the space of which can open for the wishing of the "light of truth" that was so appreci­ ated in the Neo-Platonic philosophy of that time. Again, diverse ways of interpretation are quite possible to be made together, which is typical for the comprehension of art pieces. In any case, it is important for the semiot­ ic analysis that the interpretation of the depicted architectural forms is per­ formed with the help of the architectonic code in one of its versions, to which the means of the social-symbolic code are also added. The codes ofrecognition also join with the object-jUnctional code that gives the possibility for a recognition of diverse objects depicted in the fresco-clothes of people, some writing and drawing tools in their hands, books, etc. The recognition of several of these objects promotes the identi­ fication of the people using them. So, the turban on the head gives an in­ dex for a possible recognition of Averroes in one of the depicted persons; the compasses in the hand of another person pennits one to suppose that this is Euclid or Archimedes, etc. In all these examples, the object­ functional code is supplemented also by the social-symbolic semiotic sys­ tem, which correlates the functions of objects used by some people with their social roles. For example, using compasses distinguishes a geometer (such as Euclid) or an architect (such as Bramante), etc. These extra-somatic codes accompany the codes expressing the depict­ ed persons' own features-their voluntary and involuntary movements, speaking looks, facial expressions, etc. In particular, the code ofgesticula­ tion is actively used for the specification of the characters and for giving more dynamics to the picture. The gestures of the main persons have to express the direction of their thoughts. Plato raises his hand up, pointing at the sky, where, as he taught, the world of ideas exists and which is the main object of philosophers' interests. Aristotle pulls his hand forward pointing at the earthly life as at the main object of his teaching. The person identified in some interpretations as Socrates "explains on his fingers" some ideas to his interlocutors, etc. The voluntarily used gesticulations are complemented in the picture by the involuntary expressive movements and postures of the depicted per­ sons, which can also be related to "body language". It is shown in the pic­ ture how attentively the scholars listen to the words of their teachers, how several of them diligently record the new ideas, how others are concentrat­ ing and immersed in thought The very free posture of one figure stretched across the steps sharply contraposes the behaviour of the other persons. This picks out Diogenes the Cynic, who rejected the commonly accepted norms of behaviour (Vasari, 1992: 239).

424

11.9.3.

In the Raphael's picture, the means of the haptic cooe are almost not used. However, the proxemic code is involved evidently enough. Around the main figures in the centre, a group of listeners is formed, who want to be closer to them. In a similar \Yay, some other groups are fonned on the left around Pythagoras, who personifies arithmetic, and on the right around Euclid personifYing geometry. In both last cases, the means of more one, allegorical, code are used.

Figure 11.9.3-9. Raphael Santi. "The School ofAthens". Fragment (Plato and Aristotle). Fresco. 1510. Vatican. The "real" figure s depicted in the mural are complemented by the fig­ ures "sculptured" and dislocated in niches of the large depicted building. Among the sculptures and bas-reliefs (which deserve a special analysis), two statues stand out-Athena as the gcxldess oflN.isdom and Apollo as the goo oflight and clarity, particularly in philosophy. Their cOJUlection IN.ith the philosophers is based on ancient mythology and can be thereby related to a special allegorical code as -..vell. Some quasi-object codes participate in the interpretation of the depict­ ed 'iVfitings, dra\vings and ornaments. A viewer can read the titles of the books in the hands of the central figures. Plato cames in the hand the dia­ log "Timaeus", where his natural-philosophical picture of the world is explained. Aristotle holds his "(Nicomachean) Ethics", in which he ex-

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

425

pounds the ideas about the virtuous behaviour of a human (even the verti­ cal orientation of the first book and the horizontal placement of another one can be meaningful). The choice of these two pieces is also important, because "physics" and "ethics" cover the main subjects of ancient philoso­ phy, except for metaphysics and logic in a broad sense (see Sext Empiric., 1975 6 l ff ; Gombrich, 2017 156). Even the ornament of the arch that reprcxluces a meander as a pattern, typical for ancient Greece, not only points to a feature of this culture, but may also be interpreted as a symbol of the path and can hint at complex ways of philosophical thinking.

5. Relations between Semiotic Systems

in

Depiction

Thus, already the list of the codes, which participate in creation and in­ terpretation of the Raphael's work, lets us consider it semiotically as a poly-systemic heterogeneous text. This complex text contains as its parts different homogeneous texts fonned by the means of the codes named above. Using the tenns introduced in 1.3.1 .5.2, one can say that a S,-text from each of these homogeneous codes enters in connections with some Sb,c, ... -texts of other semiotic systems. The interactions of several such codes form the heterogeneous visual-spatial text of the mural that is re­ vealed as an intensively semiotic hyperspace (as it is defined at p. 278). The complicate semiotic construction in this space can be considered as the R-text, if an interpreter limits himself to a definite number of codes used, but it would be better described as the H-text if a "list" of these codes is open, and some new ways of interpretation remain possible. This flexibility of codes involved at various interpretations of an art piece is connected with the artistic symbolism, which is possible in virtue of the joint participation of diverse semiotic systems in the comprehension of an art text It is essential that the interpretation of a work with the help of any one of them does not cancel the results of applying other codes, but is included in a united semantic series. Thanks to this freedom, works of art can be interpreted in various ways depending on the context and remain relevant for different periods of time. In any case, the codes involved in the process of interpretation are in various relations with each other. All the other semiotic systems mentioned in the last example have a functional dependence on the using of the perceptographic code. The SPGC­ text formed by the means of the perceptographic code together with an iconic model of the depicted space constructs a perceptogram, which is a basis for a further interpretation. The depicted space that in the S-text of perceptographic code belongs to the content plane contains objects that in

426

11.9.3.

other codes belong to their planes of expression. The depicted object's forms are interpreted by the means of the object-functional (OFC), social­ symbolic (SSC) and architectonic (AC) codes, and the human figures by the means of physiognomics (phC) and the proxemic (PC), mimic (MC), kinesic (KC) or haptic (HC) codes. All the latter codes can be used in parallel and independently, albeit being in a relation of coordination to each other. At the same time, these codes are in another relation----of functional dependence to the percepto­ graphic code-because its application is the condition for the use of the rest of the codes. In its system, the elements of their expression plane be­ long to the plane of content Using a system of conventional signs (from 11. 1 . 1 .3.5), these relations can be represented by a "formula": PEpGcIPCPGC; PCPGc�(PEoFc V PEAC V PEKC V PEMC V PEpc . . . ), where PEpGC and PCPGC are, respectively, planes of expression and of content in the percep­ tographic code; PEOFC, PEAC, PEMe, PEpc, PEKe, are planes of expression in the object-functional, architectonic, social-symbolic, mimic and proxe­ mic codes, respectively; the sign ' +-- ' denotes a functional dependence and the sign 'V' denotes the relation of coordination in a joint using. Several of these codes can in their turn become a basis for using other semiotic systems that are already in functional dependence from them. So, if the clothes of people are treated by the means not only of the object­ functional code, but also of the social-symbolic code as the means to rep­ resent a position of these people in sociurn, the means of the "primary" object-functional code receive "secondary" connotative meanings. What is related in them to the content planes becomes elements of its expression planes in the system of the corresponding secondary code. Therefore the "vertical" connections between these codes are constructed: the percepti­ ble forms of spatial objects created by the means of the perceptographic code in its content plane are already interpreted as elements of the expres­ sion plane of the object-functional code, whose meanings, in turn, are in­ terpreted as elements of the expression plane of the social-symbolic code. Using the same system of designations, these relations can be represented as: PCPGC::::?PEOFC; PCoFc::::?PEssc; PEpGc\(PCroc::::?PEoFC)\(PCOFC::::?PEssc)\PCssc, where the sign ' => ' denotes an inclusion of elements from content plane of one code into expression plane of another code. The "vertical row" can be continued with the addition of some allegor­ ical interpretations of the characters that are already interpreted by other codes. In these cases, the interpretation of the depicted objects is displaced at a new level, where a new shifting of comprehension occurs (on shifted comprehension, see above, J.3.2).Ifthe first shifting takes place at the level of perception due to the iconical modelling and perceptographic code, its

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

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second shifting can be performed at the conceptual level, where some de­ picted objects that were already interpreted undergo a new interpretation. This is a case of allegory and allegoric codes. Such secondary shifting takes place particularly in Raphael's mural, when the figure of, say, Pythagoras is interpreted secondarily as a personi­ fication of arithinetic, or when the depicted sculpture of the goddess Athe­ na is also interpreted allegorically as the embodiment of wisdom. Unlike this fresco by Raphael, where the allegorical interpretation of freely moving figures is facultative, the composition of firmly seated fig­ ures in Andrea di Bonaiuto' s mural in Florence (colour picture 5) is entire­ ly built on the ground of the allegoric code. The personifications of seven sacred sciences and of seven free arts form a series of allegoric figures separated from the "portraits" of the persons representing them (as the same Pythagoras, Euclid, etc.). The allegorical structure of scholastic thinking is expressed here not only semantically, but also at level of syntax by the means of the demarcation code. The quasi-architectural borders separate the depicted figures as visible symbols of invisible concepts (on the connections of divisions in mental structures of scholasticism with spatial Gothic constructions, see Panofsky, 2004). At the same time, the relations between the perceptographic code and other codes are common for diverse works. These relations are typical for works of figurative arts, where the perceptographic code serves as the ba­ sis that gives possibilities to use other semiotic systems as the means in­ terpreting which is depicted. For example, in the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" by Karl Brullov (who, incidentally, specially studied the Raphael's "The School of Athens"), a similar code combination can be found (see colour picture 15). At the same time, the relationships between the codes in this work are formed differently. The codes of gesticulation, mimic, haptics and oculesics not only express the other moods, but in gen­ eral are more important among the means of expression. A diagonally formed composition together with the synesthetic colour code, due to which a dark spot in the top part intensifies feelings of anxiety, a combina­ tion of the syrn bolic code used for the interpretation of statues over the palace and the architectonic code expressing their collapse are the specific semiotic means of this painting. Unlike allegorical figures in Bonaiuto's fresco or the sculptures of Apollo and Athena in Raphael's mural, which state the stability of values represented by them, the falling statues in Brullov's painting can symbolize in his Romanticism epoch, on the contra­ ry, instability of the transient idols and of the ideas related with them. Certainly, using or rejecting a semiotic means of one or other code and their combinations is a topic only for the theoretical research of their se-

428

11.9.3.

miotic peculiarities, and cannot become a ground for the aesthetic evalua­ tion and preference of one or other art piece. A picture becomes a piece of art not due to the fact it uses any special semiotic systems, but in virtue of the artistic use of common visual-spatial codes. An artist carefully selects the semiotic means used by him and organizes their cooperation in an en­ semble of their relations. Artistically organized semiotic means do not simply co-exist near each other, but [onn an entire system, creating a complexly constructed, but united sense; such organization of a whole ensemble of the semiotic means is, therefore, an important task of artist. Even the same spatial codes can be involved in the semiotic structures of an art piece in various mutual relations. As is clear from the examples, the depicted space in a picture can contain in principle all that can fall into the real space beyond it including other pictures themselves (see Figure 11.5.1-4 and colour picture 13). In these cases of "pictures in pictures", the depicting creation itself turns out the object located in the depicted space that becomes in this case already extensively heterogeneous hyperspace (in terms of 11.5.1 .7.2). In such case, the means of the perceptographic code themselves can be the subject of a depiction and can be represented in a different manner. Just as one verbal text can describe some other word texts, a picture can represent other pictures. The shifted perception that takes place in the comprehension of a depiction in these cases occurs twice-firstly at the perception of the viewed picture, and secondly at the perception of such pictures that are depicted in it. In the cases of "pictures in pictures", the expression plane of the perceptographic code participating in the formation of the depicted picture also becomes the subject of the depiction shifting already in its content plane. At the same time, the ver­ sions of the perceptographic codes used for every one of these planes can be different-as it is, for example, in cases when black-and-white engrav­ ings are depicted by the colour means of painting or, contrariwise, when paintings are engraved. 6.

Relations of Spatial Codes to Verbal Language

Special relations are fonned between the visual-spatial codes used for the interpretation of a picture and verbal language. On the one hand, a cor­ rect understanding of pictures like Raphael's "The School of Athens" would be impossible without verbal language and some knowledge which can be received only with verbal means-in this case, without knowing some persons represented in the picture and, moreover, their philosophic ideas. As iconological research shows, in several cases the understanding of the pictures needs an actualization of certain special verbal sources

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(Gombrich, 2017: 54). On the other hand, any such knowledge cannot change the visual perception ofthe artwork. This is true as well in cases when a picture is created as "a story" that embodies into the visual-spatial form a plot told in a verbal text. Neverthe­ less, in these cases, the visible artwork cannot be changed by the verbal text and vice versa the piece of visual art cannot be considered as a sim­ ple translation of a verbal narration. Even translations from one verbal language to another, as it is known after Wilhelm von Humboldt, differ not only in their external but also in their internal form of expression, already involved in semantics. A fortiori, the "translation" of verbal texts into figurative texts inevitably transforms not only the form of expression, but also its content. The idea of Gregory the Great that temple paintings replace for illiterates something that they cannot read in books is true only insofar as a message seen in a picture is complemented by a message heard in an oral paraphrase. In this quality, pictures are still only additions, not translations of verbal texts, if the translation is understood as a reproduction of the same content by the means of another language (see above, II. 1 . 1.3.5). -

Figure II.9.3-10.

The Last Supper. Mosaic. XIII century. San Marco, Venice.

The pictures of the same scenes from ancient mythology or Holy Scripture made by various artists in different historical times are by no means synonymous with each other, or with the corresponding verbal texts. "The Last Supper" of Leonardo differs from the pictures with the same plot made, say, by Giotto, Veronese or Tintoretto, because their sens­ es are identified neither with the plots presented with their help, nor with

430

11.9.3.

the complex meanings each of them. In particular, many paintings with the subject of "The Last Supper"-which is initially connected with the words of Christ spoken to the apostles-are different not only in their visible form, but also in their content. When comparing their diverse versions, one can see that the difference between the pictures is related not only with an unequal approximation to the evangelical texts, but also with the extent to which each of the visual-spatial codes is involved in interpreting these paintings. If the San 1.1arco mosaic's extreme contrast of the places of Je­ sus and Judas (Figure 11.9.3-10) primarily uses the means of the proxemic code, then Leonardo has attached major importance to the mimic and ges­ tural complex (colour picture 7), while Tintoretto, in amplifying even more expressive gestures, also creates a special expressive effect using the means of the architectonic code in the diagonal construction of the scene (colour picture 8). In each of these cases, one can find the means of other spatial codes, albeit used less actively or in a different way. The means of the architec­ tonic code, for example, are also present in Leonardo's fresco, where the strictly horizontal position of the table creates a state of stability, con­ trasting with the dynamics of the expressively gesticulating figures of the apostles. In the work of Tintoretto, not only the dynamic gesticulations of the figures, but also the location of the table along the diagonal of the pic­ ture in combination with the sharp contrasts of light and shadows gives a completely different state of instability and confusion to the whole scene. Both artists use the means of gesticulations and facial expressions, but Leonardo pays equal attention to each of them, whereas Tintoretto focuses more on expressive movements than facial expressions. Therefore, the works give very different impressions and express diverse attitudes­ Leonardo's is more concentrated, whereas Tintoretto's is more restless. The spatial codes involved in the semiotic structures enter also into various mutual relations, even if they are the same. It is also related to the written L-texts that can be related to depictions in different ways. For ex­ ample, the inscriptions in Raphael's mural (in the books' titles) are com­ bined with the S-text of perceptography in another way than in the case of Altdorfer's picture "The Battle of Alexander at Issus" (colour picture 1 1). In the first case, the written words are included in the picture together with the other depicted objects, as their parts. A viewer sees how some letters are overlapped by the hand, how the shadow falls on them, etc. (see Figure 11.9.3-9). In Altdorfer's picture, the relations between inscriptions and depiction are fonned in another way. The depiction is allocated into a sep­ arate space with its own order and scale of meaningful elements, which belong also to a different temporal series. Whereas the battle is depicted

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

431

literally as a flow and belongs to the bygone era, the board with the in­ scription on it is not only taken out of the space of doings, but also from the flow of historical time. It belongs to an "extra-temporal" history as knowledge, on the tables ofwhich there remains a record of the past event.

7. Changes of Spatial Codes in Art History A static, purely morphological view of the world of arts needs an addi­

tional dynamic, historical view of the changes of relations between visual­ spatial codes in the process of art's evolution. Historical changes of work­ ing with each ofthe codes are the subj ect of art history as well and are the condition for research into interactions with other codes. The semiotics of art is now able to develop the already suggested idea of considering art's evolution as a history of changes of "semantic structures" (Wallis, 1970). Today it is possible to say that the history of art can be described semioti­ cally as a history of assimilation, development and transformation in artis­ tic activity and in public perception of some visual-spatial codes, as well as a history of changes of relations between them in diverse kinds of art.

Figure ll.9.3-11. The Lady and Unicorn. Taste. Late XV century. Tapestry, wool and silk. Museum ofthe MidcD.e Ages Thennes de Cluny, Paris.

432

11.9.3.

The using of one or other means of perceptography is a matter of pref­ erence, relations to which differentiate the stylistic directions in arts. Line and form, on the one hand, were often contraposed to colour as the means of depictions. There is a well known discussion on what is more important for paintings-form or colour-between J D. Ingres, behind whom all old classical tradition stands, and E. Delacroix, who not only represented a new Romantic vision, but also anticipated and influenced the vision of the next generation of Impressionists. Meanwhile, the functions of lines and of spots can change even in the process of creation of one and the same work of art. For example, in the process of drawing, the means indicating relations between the depicted forms can change. At first, these are the contours delineating the borders that cut the depicting plane into "shapes" and "background". Using the means of light and shade, the artist can turn the initial contours into parts of spots, which differ between each other, and at this stage of the drawing process, these differences-the contrasts and nuances between the spots­ already become the main means of forms' depiction. A jortiori, diverse versions of the perceptographic code relate in a dif­ ferent way to lines and to spots as to the pictorial means. The development of the perceptographic code happened in the history of painting with a change of its dominating elements from linear to tonal and colour ones. So a transition was performed from "graphic" flat outlines of depicted figures (in ancient and medieval painting) to a "sculptural" showing up of their volumes through chiaroscuro (in paintings of the Renaissance) and then to a "dissolution" of their forms in a vague colour milieu (in Impressionism). Such a process was described by H. Wblfflin (1 930) as a passage from a "linear" to a "painterly form of vision", and compared with a change of languages. Together with other art historians, he showed the relativity of "painterly", "graphic", "plastic" or "architectonic" qualities in diverse spatial arts. A separate aspect of the perceptographic code and its development is the changed relations between the depicting and depicted spaces. Any flat picture is an ambivalent "veil", simultaneously hiding and opening the depicted objects. It combines the properties of a physically impenetrable boundary, "a wall" and, at the same time, an opening aperture that is more or less transparent to the view "through" it into the represented virtual space. The ratio of these two functions is not the same in pictures of dif­ ferent types. In pre-Renaissance painting, like in decorative art, the depict­ ed space does not detach from the two-dimensional surface of the picture, but rather spreads over it like a carpet or lays on it like a shadow. An an­ cient legend connects even the appearance of painting itself with an im-

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

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printing of the shadow on the wall. The divergence beween the depicting and depicted spaces is little noticeable in ancient Egyptian pictures as well as in the black-figure painting of ancient Greek vessels. Plato's contempo­

raries began experiments with spatial images on the plane that this philoso­ pher considered as "ghostly likenesses of things" and "daydreams" (plato, 1970: 396). Such "ghostly similarities" were created later in medieval stained-glass windows, which served in a Catholic cathedral together with Romantic and Gothic mural painting as a semi-transparent membrane be­ ween the real space and the transcendent world.

Figure 11.9.3-12. Jan van Eyck. Madonna ofChancellor Rolin. Oil on panel, c. 1435. Louwe Museum, Paris.

434

11.9.3.

The three-dimensional space is indicated in many similar cases by more conventional means that do not evoke an illusion of the depth. For example, in Russian icons of the XV century (colour pictures 3, 4), the third dimension is indicated by intersections and occlusions of figures and by special, so-called "iconical hills" that should indicate a big distance in the picture (see Zhegin, 1 970). Such little divergence between the depict­ ing and depicted spaces was traditionally typical also in the applied arts (cf the difference of depicted spaces at Figures 11.9.3-1 1 and 11.9.3-12). As is clear from the last example, already in the early Renaissance, an­ other relation to the treatment of the third dimension appears. The artists of the Renaissance no longer interpreted the pictorial plane as a wall with shadows thrown over it, nor as a stained-glass window with mystical radi­ ance shining through it In a picture, they saw a window that opens the perspective of the real space, deepening beyond the picture plane. Not only mural painting began to be treated as windows opened in the space behind a wall (such as Mantegna's murals in Mantua) or as a continuation of the same room where the mural is depicted (such as Leonardo's "The Last Supper"-see colour picture 7). A new type of image appears-an easel picture that separates from the wall, "absorbs" the depth of the ex­ ternal space and is treated by theorists and by artists of the Renaissance as similar to a window or a mirror (see, in particular, Leonardo, 2000: 298299; Diller, 1981 542). In the space of a Catholic cathedral in the Renaissance and, especially, in the Baroque period, the means of the perceptographic code change and obey the task of a visual breakthrough into the depth of the depicted space. The very vector of the movement here is inverted: the transcendent world no longer comes to the visitor of a temple "through" the surface of a pic­ ture in stained glass or fresco, but, on the contrary, the viewer's eye, ac­ cording to the dynamic worldview of the new human, energetically rushes through all the obstacles into the depth or upwards. So, for example, the fresco "Ascension of Mary" is painted under the dome of the cathedral in Parma (A Correggio), and figures fly to heaven on the ceilings in the churches ofIl Gesu (J B. Gaully) and Sant'Ignazio di Loyola (A Pozzo) in Rome (see colour picture 12). These artists were trying to visually "break through" the plane of the ceiling, opening an endless space for the VIew. Beginning in the Renaissance, an artist makes the depicting surface seemingly transparent to the view penetrating through it into the depicted space. For this view he builds special pathways, roads, through which it can penetrate deep into the space "behind" the surface where a picture is painted. He can, for example, draw the floor with lines or with cells that

Visual-spatial Cooes in Pictorial Arts

435

shrink in perspective, build a series of obstacles for the viewer's eyes which must be overcome, start spatial games with this view, hide part of the picture from it, bring it into the shade, etc. In this period, the art of the painters was in an ability to ''involve'' a viewer in the depth of the depicted space. The depicting space is treated in this case only as the means for the achievement of this goal, and it should be transparent for anything that is shown "behind" it not attracting the attention of the viewer to itself. Just as travellers of the era of great geo­ graphical discoveries opened unknown territories, so the eye of Renais­ sance artists (Leonardo, P. Brueghel, etc.) opened up the landscape, un­ folded it before them, as a special space of contemplation and visual trav­ elling. However, another trend appears in Baroque painting, when artists did not consider it necessary to hide the movements of their brush. On the contrary, many of them chose to demonstrate their mastery, such as P.-P. Rubens and, especially, F. Hals. One can find similar attention to the de­ picting means as a particular obj ect of a viewer's valuation in the graphics of this age. A good example of such attention to the organization of the depicting surface is the engraving of The Holy Face by Claude MeHan, where the depiction is made by one line, the spiralled unwinding of which forms the entire drawing (Figure 11.9.3-13).

A Figure 11.9.3-13, A&B . Claude Mellan. The Holy Face. Engraving. 1649. A. Entire print. B. Detail. The State Hermitage, st. Petersburg.

436

11.9.3.

This reverse direction to the artistic valuation of a picture ' s surface is especially

clear in Impressionists'

and Post-Impressionists '

painting,

where a condition of the depicting flat becomes no less important than the depicted space. A "window" in the deep three-dimensional space "opened" in Renaissance painting becomes "less transparent" there for the view "through" it (see colour pictures 1 7 and 1 8 ). In the work of Robert Delonay, a wavering of the look between the city landscape behind the window and the window itself is especially accented as a symbol of transit from the depicted space to the depicting one (see colour picture 2 1 ; note also the more "transparent window" of colour picture 20). The metaphori­ cal "window" of figurative painting was demonstratively closed in the non-figurative painting of P. Mondrian, K. Malevich, etc . , who ceased to build any images beyond the surface of a canvas. This historical variability of relations between the depicting and de­ picted spaces is connected also with a change of relations between the perceptographic code and other spatial codes. So, easel painting began to separate from murals of a temple when the symbolics of a temple space ceased to set an apprehension of a picture space, and when the percepto­ graphic code ceased to be subordinated to the iconographic one. Such re­

j ection from the iconographic norms is clearly shown, for example, in the picture "The Flagellation of Christ" by Fiero della Francesca, where the main figure of Christ is displaced sideways from the centre and into the depth of the depicted stage, subordinated not to the iconographic but per­ ceptographic "grammar" (see Figure 11.9.3-14; cp. colour picture 4).

Figure 11.9.3-14. Piero della Francesca. The Flagellatian af Christ Wood, oil, tempera. 1 455-1460. National Gallery of the Marches (Palazzo Ducale), Urbino.

Visual-spatial Codes in Pictorial Arts

437

The liberation of the perceptographic code from its ancillary role (es­ pecially in landscape and still life) allows the conversion of a picture into a specific optical instrument, stimulating visual perception like transparent windows, mirrors or lenses. But comparing painting with such new means of optical representation as photo- and cine-techniques changed the valua­ tion of them. The "depressing perfection" (as E. Delacroix said) of me­ chanical means of representation deprived former ways of artificially stimulating perception from their high cultural status and removed the art of depiction from the centre to the periphery of art culture. At the same time, other codes become more important. So the synes­ thetic codes came from the periphery to the centre (as in colour picture 23, where the "edgy" lines becomes more important than a pictorial believa­ bility). They influenced the selection of the means of the perceptographic code in the painting of Post-Impressionists and Symbolists, they noticea­ bly pressed down this means in Cubism, and at last they completely ex­ cluded work with this means in Abstractionism. This change eliminated from painting a complex of spatial codes, where there was a plane of expression, based on depicted figures: body­ language, mimic, proxemic, object-functional, social-symbolic and other codes. Non-figurative painting by K. Malevich, P. Mondrian, etc. worked, instead of them, primarily with the means of the architectonic and related synesthetic codes (for more detail see below, 11.9.4, 11.9.5). If the architectonic code has always saved its key role in architecture, in painting its importance has historically changed. It can be very small in Impressionism, become more essential for P. Cezanne, noticeably increase in Cubism and turn out to be dominant in Suprematism, for which the ar­ chitectonic code and colour synesthesia become the main semiotic means. At the same time, the rejection of the perceptographic means in non­ figurative art, and, together with it, the deprivation of the codes that were involved in pictorial arts, is due to their reduced usage of the field of se­ miotic resources, which remained at the disposal of the artist. As a reac­ tion to this "semiotic purism", Postrnodem art has developed, which in contrast provides its "semiotic richness" by a multiplicity of references to recognizable art pieces of previous artists. Apparently, the connections with the entire complex of visual-spatial codes are so important for the spatial arts that they cannot move far away from this resource. Thus, one can see that the spatial codes involved in the creation of art pieces not only develop their semiotic means in history, but also change the relationships with each other, and that an entire ensemble of semiotic systems used in arts is historically changeable and depends on the prefer­ ences of each new epoch.

11.9.4, "THE NATURAL CODES" IN ARTS

Nature seen by the artist and the viewer as an object of contemplation can be found in both of them as a condition of being the subject of culture. It is revealed not only in what they see, but also in how they do it Artistic vision itself is a product of both culture and nature, a result of their inter­ action. Just as it is inappropriate to reduce the first to the second in the naturalistic way, so is the reverse, i.e. ignoring the connections between the "artificial"' and the "natural"'. The relations between both can be described in the perspective of se­ miotics, which can deal with natural and unconditional ways of various information processes together with artificial and conventional means of communication. In the system of modem semiotic concepts, the old prob­ lem of the relationship between "culture" and "nature" appears in a new way: as a problem of interaction between the two serniospheres­ "cultural" and "natural". Yury Lotman (1 984) introduced the concept of the "semiosphere" in relation to culture, using an analogy with that of the "biosphere", suggest­ ed by Vladimir Vernadsky (1 977), for a description of live nature. Jesper Hoffmeyer (1 996) started considering the biosphere itself as a widely un­ derstood serniosphere. Lotrnan's and Hoffmeier's concepts of the sernio­ sphere do not have to be interpreted as alternative ones. From the stand­ point of a sufficiently general semiotic theory, one can speak about sernio­ spheres of culture and nature as well as about their interaction. "Anthro­ poserniotics" and "bioserniotics" can in this case enter into a dialogue on how their subject matters interact in human activities. Described by E. Cassirer (1923-1929), the "symbolic forms" of culture are largely formed as systems regulating those human behavioural pro­ grams that are "installed" in their biological organization. Without refer­ ence to any natural semiotic systems, many of these cultural symbolic forms cannot be adequately understood (see above, 1.4). Art is a field where cultural and natural semiotic systems can interact most closely. It is true that not everything in art can be reduced to conven­ tions of culture. 1.1any of these conventions are possible only to the extent

''The Natural Codes" in Arts

439

that they are built upon some unconditional basis. Semiotic means in art, their sources being found both in cultural and natural semiospheres, are purposefully selected, transformed and competently used to fulfil certain artistic tasks. It is a frequent case in semiotics that art is treated as an autonomous language, where its own system of conventions has been worked out. Art in this case is quite unilaterally represented in the semiosphere of culture. The fact is that on the other hand art involves the most diverse semiotic systems developed beyond and turns them into the objects of skilful work For example, word arts use the means of what is commonly called "natural language" (although this language does have a cultural origin). However, art can be built by skilfully applying natural codes of a biological origin. This is, in particular, the art of depiction (understood in a narrow sense, which is not equal to the meaning of "fine arts"-see above, 11.9.1). It suggests a skilful selection of natural characteristics and using them in order to artificially stimulate perception of absent objects. These objects' visible indexes form the natural perceptual code of optical signals, which help animals to navigate in the environment. In culture, when artificial images are created, original elements of this code are transformed from purely cognitive means to communicative ones, which provide for the transmission of visual images among subjects. In the art of depiction, these means are subject to reflection and selection in accordance with the pecu­ liarities of a historical epoch, type of art, its style and artists' individual preferences. As a result, lots of cultural modifications arise on the basis of the natural perceptual code. Each of them can be considered as a special perceptographic code, which is an external analogue of the internal per­ ceptual code and no longer mediates intra-subjective cognitive processes, but the ones of intersubjective communication. The difference between these cultural modifications and their natural basis is reflected as the dif­ ference between how easily viewers can "read" images, limiting them­ selves to the same perceptual code they use in everyday life, and how much effort artists make to master the means of "perceptography" and create images. Another type of natural signal-index system involved in the sphere of art is formed by synesthetic codes, through which the sensations of one modality evoke other modalities' images. Similar to the case of the per­ ceptual code, the means of synesthetic codes belong not to the sign, but to the signal-index level of semiotic means. For example, "sharp" corners of a broken line serve as indices warning of the risk of getting pricked, and as signals that trigger a corresponding emotional reaction. Psychological roots of such synesthesia can be sought in the mechanisms of anticipation

440

11.9.4.

and forms of "anticipatory reflection" (Anachin, 1978), enabling the body to anticipate vital collisions with external objects. Spatial arts are fertile ground, where a series of codes regulating vari­ ous kinds of visual synesthesia is cultivated (e.g. visual-thermal, visual­ tactile, visual-kinesthetic, etc.). They help to distinguish between "warm" and "cold" colours, "soft" and "hard" contours, "balanced" and "unbal­ anced" compositions, etc. Relying on natural regularity, these codes, like perceptual ones, are modified in culture; they are "artificially selected" and more or less consciously involved in the sphere of art. Along with the means of perceptography, they are traditionally used in representational arts, but acquire a special meaning in abstract painting, graphics, sculp­ ture, etc. One signal-indexical system is especially important. It relates sensa­ tions of spatial forms to kinesthetic experiences of various mechanical forces (gravity, elastic, tension, etc.). This semiotic system is near to the synesthetic codes and in its cultural modification is developed as architec­ tonic code. This code enables the selection of visually perceived indexes of real or imaginary interactions among these forces (domination of some, subordination of others, etc.). Links between visual indexes and the corre­ sponding motor images are fixed in the way they are communicated from subject to subject, primarily in architecture and applied arts. Thus, on the basis of a natural synesthetic background, a communicative code is formed in culture. Through this code, an architect, using verticals, horizontals and diagonals, etc., can artificially and skilfully make a viewer feel stability or instability, rise or fall, heaviness or lightness, etc. Ways to express rela­ tions between the forces of masses in a visible form can be fixed in cultur­ al traditions, turning into canonized schemes, like in the ancient system of architectural orders (see Figure 11.9.6-1). However, the means of the architectonic code can be likewise skilfully used beyond the limits of architecture or applied arts. These means are traditionally involved in creating a composition in visual arts (insofar as it is not reduced to the "art of depiction", but is also "the art of expression"). For example, the same regulation of horizontal, vertical or diagonal direc­ tions can be used here as the means of creating visual stability or instabil­ ity, equilibrium or non-equilibrium (see Figure 11.9.4-1; colour pictures 8, 15, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26). They were also important for non-figurative easel art, for example, in the works of Suprematists and Constructivists (see below, 11.9.7). The visual signals spatially organized by the means of the architectonic code and addressed to the kinesthetic experiences are found to be related to the auditory, arranged in time by the means of music (which is rightly

"The Natural Codes" in Arts

44 1

called "mobile architecture", just as architecture is commonly called "fro­ zen music"). After all, musical rhytluus are directed to motor impulses, which are either explicitly expressed in dancing and marching, or remain implicitly experienced kinesthetic images. Among the natural codes involved in arts, there are also signal­ indexical means of "body language", diverse kinesic means, involuntary poses, facial expressions and similar expressive indexes that can also serve as signals evoking certain emotional reactions. The natural background of somatic codes regulating the ways they are interpreted makes them quite clearly understandable for representatives of different cultures. At the same time, each of these cultures makes its own contribution to these codes, transforming them in its own way and supplementing them with deliberately made gestures and expressive movements. In art, both "delib­ erate" and "unintended" expressive movements are subject to a new artifi­ cial selection, turning into consciously applied techniques of artistic effect.

Figure II. 9.4-1 . Giotto di Bondone. Dream a/Innocent III. Fresco. 1295. Upper Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi.

An example of a painting using the means of the architectonic code connected with symbolic interpretation. With these means, the figure of st. Francis in the centre of the composition is visually presented as a reliable support for the shaky church, not only in the figurative sense, but also in direct comparison with the colunms.

442

ILH

r� IT.9.4_2. Loa=do '" Vinoi. Sru", if' Fi" G,",,,'1"' H,od,. D,....irc 1493

Diver" ocan;he, cJ' .rt use ':'l:n,�ve m.""" of th, ''body ll'. As the spatial codes differ not only by their syntax, but also by their semantics, a direct replacing of the content of one of them by the means of other codes is impossible, and these codes remain mutually untranslatable. Translation is possible only between the various cultural versions of the same code-for example, between different ways of "spatial syntagma", like a construction of colunm and beams, which have an equal dynamic sense expressed by the diverse means of the architectonic code.

I L_ I I •

:--�;.;,.--� • I

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L_ I I

Figure II.9.6-1 . Proportions of Greek architectural orders: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. (From AHFC, 1 962: 90).

In particular, one can speak with several reservations about a mutual translation of different order systems, if each such system is considered as a separately generated subcode or a "dialect" of the architectonic code (see Figure 11.9.6-1). The reservations in this case are connected with semantic difference of force images, created by the means of the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian order systems even within the frame of architectonic codes, to say nothing about their connotative differences created by other semiotic means (connections with images of a man, a woman, etc.).

On Visual-spatial Codes in Architecture

453

3. The Spatial Codes in Architecture It is clear that the same spatial object can be interpreted by several spa­ tial codes, which are actualized, depending on the situation, to different degrees: the object-functional code is more relevant for technical activity, the social-symbolic code is actualized in the praxis of social behaviour, etc. All these codes can also be involved in the sphere of art, particularly in the art of architecture, although even here they do not play equal parts. As Russian formalists supposed regarding literature, an artistic quality appears due to a skilful using of the language means. This thesis is true also for other kinds of art, in particular, for the art of architecture. It is natural that the artistic qualities of architecture depend first of all on skilful working with the means of the architectonic code, which right­ fully points to this connection by its name, used by semioticians (see, for example, Preziosi, 1979). The specific semantic of the architectonic code is connected with images of static and dynamic forces and their relations. A domain of these images was called by Theodor Lippps "aesthetical me­ chanics" (see Lipps, 1 903-1906), and has been traditionally discussed in the theory of architecture and of other visual arts (see particularly Arn­ heim, 1977; Kepes, 1944; Klee, 1971). The feelings of some mechanical qualities, like heaviness or lightness, stability or instability, etc., are evoked by the kinesthetic reactions to definite visual stimuli due to the means of the architectonic code. An architect, mastering these means, can operate, for example, a vertical, horizontal or diagonal orientation of spa­ tial forms, artificially evoke in a spectator the sensations of rising or sink­ ing, of balance or imbalance, etc. The entire history of architecture as an art is connected first of all with the formation or refonnation of some semiotic ideas concerning the means of the architectonic code. Its historical changes are directly connected with the history of architectural styles. From the point of view of semiotics, the stylistics of architecture can be considered as the peculiarities of the syn­ tax and semantics of the architectonic code. First of all, the stylistic features of architectural buildings essentially depend on the semio-topological qualities of syntactic constructions formed on the expression level of the architectonic code. So a division into single parts and the clear joining thereof is typical for the semio-topology of architectonic texts of Classicism, the Renaissance or Constructivism; in contrast, "flowing" parts of architectural buildings are characteristic for the continual form of the Baroque and Art Nouveau. At the same time, the structures which are typical for Art Nouveau and Constructivism have some other semio-topological qualities bringing them together and differ

454

11.9.6.

them from works of older styles-for example, a tendency towards the predominance of more asymmetrical constructions. The differences of these styles are continued also on the level of se­ mantics fonned by means of the architectonic code. Different semantic characteristics of texts, built by these means, are peculiar, for example, to more "static" ancient Classic, medieval Rornanic or Renaissance ones, on the one hand, and to more "dynamic" Gothic, Baroque or Art Nouveau ones, on the other. The former represent, by the means of the architectonic code, mainly the calmness and balance of forces, and the latter, on the contrary, express movement and the predomination of some forces over others. Such a style as Constructivism, which is similar to the Renaissance style and Classicism in its discrete syntactic structures in the plane of ex­ pression, is, at the same time, close to Gothic and Baroque styles on the semantic level of the architectonic code, since it also cultivate the predom­ ination of dynamics over statics. As mentioned above, the means of the architectonic code can be ap­ plied apart from borders of architecture or design too. The elements of this code are also used throughout the entire history of painting and graphic art not only by the straight depictions of architecture. It can be found, for ex­ ample, in Giotto among the means expressing stability or unsteadiness directly, in metaphorical senses (Figure 11.9.6-2), and, moreover, in dy­ namic diagonal compositions without any pictures of buildings by Tinto­ retto or Rubens. However, the dominating role of the means of architec­ tonic code in painting is taken only in its non-figurative trend developed by K. Malevich, P. Mondrian, T. van Doesburg and others, who liberate these means from their historical connections with pictorial tasks. At the same time, semiotic means of architectural pieces are, as a rule, not limited only by the architectonic code. They were connected during the development of architecture with a complex of other spatial codes, which participated in creating spatial texts to different degrees, depending on the time, place, and mentality of creators and users, etc. The purpose of the whole building or its single details cannot be indi­ cated only by the means of the architectonic code, and their expression needs the means of the object-functional code. The application of the means of this code allows one to distinguish the parts of an architectural construction serving different instrumental functions (for example, doors, windows, stages, etc.), as well as whole buildings which are purposed to perform different socio-cultural and technical functions (for example, a living house, a temple, etc.). The other code-the social-symbolic one-is demanded for the ex­ pression of social relations between inhabitants of architecturally orga-

On Visual-spatial Codes in Architecture

455

nized space. Using also the means of the demarcation code, architecture and urban planning organize the space as a system of borders, which cor­ responds with the divisions of the society in diverse social and cultural groups (professional, confessional, etc.). It fonns a heterogeneous struc­ ture of social space, divided into areas, each of which has its own social­ cultural meaning. In this relation, the joint using the means of the demar­ cation and social-symbolic codes in an architectural space can be treated as the recording and prescription of some meaningful positions, correlated also with the proxemic code. According to these codes, the architecturally organized space functions as a text, which detenninates definite ways of social behaviour: it encourages moving into some areas of the social space and forbids other ones. Certainly, the interpretation of architectural buildings opens lots of possibilities for the involvement of means of the verbal language. This is most evident in the case of religious buildings, where the space and archi­ tectural fonns are interpreted by means of semiotic systems regulating their treatment as theological or cosmological symbols. These symbols are a subject of traditional iconographic investigations, which were rightly defined as a "first step towards an architectural semiotics" (Wallis, 1 973) and can directly merge with the semiotics of architecture and of urban planning (see, for example, Sedlmayr, 1993; Lagopoulos, 1998). The architectural piece, considered as a spatial text, also includes in its semiotic structure-aside from the codes correlating with the verbal inter­ pretations-the codes connecting them with non-verbal means of sense expression. This is particularly the case with the perceptographic code, which can be involved in architecture not only by some pictorial inclu­ sions, like mural paintings or monumental sculpture, but also in a complex of its own architectural means. So, elements of the perceptographic code can be used by the arrangement of an architectural building even without illusive painting or sculpture to increase or decrease the effects of perspec­ tive. This method was used, for example, in such famous pieces of archi­ tectural art as the facade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco by Mauro Codussi and Pietro Lombardo in Venice and the "Scala regia" in Vatican, in which its creator-Gian Lorenzo Bernini-added the natural perspec­ tive shortening of columns to the artificial lessening of distances between them (Figure 11.9.6-2). In such cases the semiotic means of perceptography, creating a pictori­ al effect, would be added to the means of other spatial codes, which can be actualized independently of them. The relations between these codes change in other cases when some architectural buildings are represented by the means of the architectonic, object-functional, proxemic or on a pic-

456

11.96.

ture or an architectural project. Then, a reading of depicted buildings so­ cial-symbolic codes becomes possible only on the condition that the means of the perceptographic code are actualized too. So, it is clear not only that one and the same area of space can be serniotized by diverse codes, but also that the relations between these codes can be formed in different ways.

A

B

Figure 11.9. 6-2, A&B. Using of perceptographic code elements in architecture. A Facade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco by Mauro Codussi and Pietro Lom­ bardo. Venice. B. Lorenzo Bernini. Scala regia. The Vatican.

4. Architectural Piece as a Heterogeneous Spatial Text

The spatial areas, which are ordered to diverse codes, can be consid­ ered as a combination of spatial texts, which belong to various types. Such texts can be formed both by internal relations between spatial forms of different kinds and by the external relations between these forms. All hu­ man environments consist of a multitude of manifold forms, related to various syntactic and semantic types of spatial texts. The space enveloping these local texts can be comprehended as a complex hypertext. A city and a horne, a street and a market, a sports complex and a park all contain spa­ tial "hypertexts" of different types, which are regulated by diverse norms of space semiotization. Not only separated areas of serniotized space, but also its fragments can, as a rule, be regulated and interpreted by several spatial codes. Their combined application turns out such multiply serniotized spaces in a het­ erogeneous spatial text.

On Visual-spatial Codes in Architecture

457

Adequate behaviour in the spatial environment, the parts of which are ordered to diverse spatial codes, demands a constant transition from one system of semiotic means to other ones. The choice and relationships be­ tween spatial codes in each case can be different and depend on the pur­ pose of building, their social and cultural functions, historical conditions, stylistic preferences, etc. The actualization of any code also depends on the definite situation which occurs during the practical functioning or artistic perception of the architectural piece. Passing from one way to another of space interpreta­ tion is determined not only by external signs and signals of the spatial texts, but also by some internal motives, depending on the intentions of the subject of activity. The syntax and semantics of spatial texts, built by the means of any spatial codes, are only conditions for the senses, which are created first of all according to some pragmatic peculiarities of certain circumstances of a given interpreter. He can not only read but also organ­ ize the meaningful elements of a semiotized space in a new text, which is actualized at a pertinent moment. The complete "reading" of this text also requires the mastering of vari­ ous spatial codes and the ability to choose the relevant code in each case. However, one can only use some of these systems, for example, only the object-functional or architectonic code. Different personal or cultural situ­ ations stimulate the domination of a method of interpretation and, accord­ ingly, the preference for certain spatial codes. Changes of a cultural situation often lead not only to the reconstruc­ tion, but also to the reinterpretation of the same building: a house can tum into an office, an old factory into a museum, etc. Historical changes also occur in each spatial code as well as in the relations between them. All these factors influence the meanings of architectural buildings and spatial environment. The contemporary city contains a multitude of more or less independent architectural objects, each of which can be considered as a heterogeneous spatial text built with its own complex of semiotic sys­ tems. Even a small town area can include, for example, a cathedral, a su­ pennarket, an art museum and a railway station; visiting each of them de­ mands the actualization of diverse ways of interpretation and relevant complexes of spatial codes. Therefore a visitor must be a "spatial poly­ glot" to at least orientate himself in the appropriate space. Practically eve­ ry citizen of a contemporary town, as a rule, plays the part of such a "spa­ tial polyglot" without any semiotic speculation. However, a reflection about the distinctions and interactions between the spatial codes is the task of a theory that can perform the semiotics of space.

11.9.7. CONSTRUCTIVISM AND SPATIAL SEMIOTICS

Constructivists' art as well as their theoretical works are of interest to spatial semiotics. In both of them, it is possible to see steps in its direction, such as comprehension of visual-spatial codes means and their creative development. This search was not in fact semiotic one. However, it was beneficial for the later spatial semiotics, which, in its turn, can be useful for its understanding. Constructivists' art and their thinking style itself meet the definition of "structuralism as an activity" given by Roland Barthes. This activity "in­ cludes two specific operations-division and mounting" and is connected with singling out and combining distinguishable units in both science and art, whether phonemes in philology or squares in Mondrian's painting (see Barthes, 1989: 256-257). Constructivism appeared in the period, when there was a tendency to decompose an intricate reality into simple ele­ ments and then to rethink it as a more orderly and rational construction. Such an analysis, often followed by a new synthesis, was also made in science, e.g. the splitting of the atom in physics, the analysis of substances and synthesis of new materials in chemistry, the discovery of genes in bi­ ology, etc. Structural linguistics formed analytical language models (F. de Saussure and others). Analytical philosophy introduced the concept of "logical atomism" (B. Russell and others). Revolutions in Russia and other cOlUltries joined the series of experiments on the "deconstruction" and "reconstruction" of no less than a whole society. The slogans included in their hymn: " . . . We will raze the world to the ground, and then we will build our new world. . . " express the mood, common both for theorists and practitioners of the time of radical changes. They are quite applicable to what the artists were doing at this time. Constructivism turned out to be an artistic expression of the same atti­ tude, an attempt to reach the "foundation" of spatial arts, to find their ini­ tial elements, and then use them in building a "new world" of art and even a "new world" of life. In the spirit of the time, Constructivist artists and like-minded people made structural transformations in their field, i.e. analyses of spatial elements and their new synthesis. In particular, in

Constructivism and Spatial Semiotics

459

search of such elements, Kazimir Malevich singled out a purely coloured square, a circle and a cross in his painting, and in his theoretical works he found "surplus elements" introduced by other "pictorial cultures" and dif­ fering in "characteristic form of straight lines or curves" (see Malevich 1980 [1923]: 8, l 5ff). Similarly, Lazar Lissitzky wrote about a cube, a ball, a cone and a cylinder, considering them as form-making elements which can be organized like elements of the periodic table (see El Lissitz­ ky, 1980: 351). Similarly, Wassily Kandinsky sought "the main elements" of painting and graphics, reducing the former to six colours and the latter to a dot, a line and a plane (see Kandinsky, 1994; 2001). It may be recalled that Piet Mondrian's "Neoplasticism" and Theo van Doesburg's "Elemen­ tarism", which were related to "Constructivism", also limited a set of dis­ crete elements of form and colour only to rectangles and three basic col­ ours constituting their "universal language" (see Lynton, 1980: 1 15). These artists' desire to identify the "alphabet" of such a language and the "letters" forming it, as well as to work out new rules for their articulation, i.e. to refonTI its "syntax", is quite obvious. Considering the artistic searches of Constructivists and their theoretical works from the present day perspective of spatial semiotics, one can see attempts to find elements and structures of some visual spatial codes. With the help of these codes, it is not letters but spatial forms and their relations that are given various meanings and "read" as their bearers. From the perspective of modern spatial semiotics, it can be said that Constructivists worked with the expressive means of the architectonic code in the system where "to read" spatial forms meant to correlate them to certain forces and motor images. This code is a complex of visually perceived features that correlate spatial fOnTIS to images of various me­ chanical forces, e.g. gravity, pressure, elasticity, tension, etc. (see above, 11. 3 . 1 . 2). The bearers of these dynamic meanings in different arts may vary: in sculpture this is primarily a plastic form, while in architecture it is a spatial relationship between forms. However, both architectonicity and plasticity are categories applicable not only to the "similarly named" art forms. As­ sociated with different "forms of vision", these categories, as well as the concepts of "painterliness" and "graphicality", denote differences not so much between art forms as between visual-spatial "languages", where different aspects of visible forms and spatial relations act as means of ex­ pression and depiction. A mismatch of these "languages" and the corre­ sponding art fOnTIS allows one to consider the "non-architectonicity" of architecture, its "plasticity" or "painterliness", as well as "architectonical" plastics, painting, etc. (see Wblfflin, 1930; Hildebrand, 1991).

460

11.9.7.

Obviously, the structural intention of Constructivism and its usage of architectonic code elements unites it primarily with architecture. "The constructive principle leads to the field of architecture", stated Naum Ga­ bo, a founder of this approach (see Read, 1966: I I I). Indeed, the princi­ ples of Constructivism are closest to this area. In accordance with these principles, the architectural projects of Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Melni­ kov, Ilia Golossov, the brothers Leonid, Alexander and Victor Vesnin and other Constructivists in Russia, as well as the works of their counterparts Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, provided architecture with radically new forms meeting its new technical capacity and functions. However, it is not functional but structural features that most charac­ terize Constructivists' architectural buildings. Such features are reflected in the architectonic code's grammar, which can develop independently of the functional tasks of architecture. Expressive means of this code were developed by Constructivists not so much in real building projects, but in non-utilitarian works of art, such as graphic, pictorial or plastic ones. Even the leaders of Constructivism, who later called for the merging of art with forms of practical life, developed their approach not on the basis of engi­ neering, but on that of artistic experiments. In particular, Vladimir Tatlin made his first non-figurative constructions in 1 9 1 3 not to start the program of industrial art, which he began to defend only after the revolution in Russia, but under the impression of Picasso' s collages and spatial montag­ es still retaining a figurative character. Another enthusiast of industrial art, Alexander Rodchenko, also began his career as a Constructivist with ab­ stract compositions of lines, colour spots and three-dimensional forms. Lazar Lissitzky, who unlike the above artists was architecturally educated, also expressed his Constructivist ideas primarily in non-utilitarian graphic works, whereas Naum Gabo, with his engineering background, left tech­ nical projects completely in favour of purely artistic form-building. And certainly Kazimir Malevich, the founder of Suprematism, deliberately dis­ tanced himself from the solution of practical tasks, considering solving artistic problems more important. Contrary to what some ideologists of Constructivism later said (see Teige, 1 999), this artistic trend developed not because of a radical turn to practical functions, but because of its spe­ cial understanding of a spatial language structure. It is a special artistic language that unites Constructivists' works made in different art forms, and which distinguishes them from those of artists belonging to other trends. Close to Constructivists, the Suprematism of Malevich made a radical transformation in painting not only in rejecting its traditional pictorial means, but also in appealing to the ones of architec-

Constructivism and Spatial Semiotics

461

tonic code, which have always been used in architecture. These are geo­ metric figures and their spatial relations as indexes of diverse static and dynamic forces. However, this code's elements had been included in the semiotic structure of paintings even earlier, throughout the history of art. For example, it is enough to recall the importance of diagonals in Tintoret­ to's or Rubens' painting (it is no accident that at this time the painters' diagonal constructions attracted the attention of art researchers as well; see Tarabukin, 1973). However, the architectonic code in the old masters' paintings was never used beyond the complex of other spatial codes ap­ plied for the interpretation of pictures. Those were abstractionists who made the means of this code free from subordination to pictorial tasks. In the non-figurative painting of Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian and other pioneers of abstract art, the expressive means of the architectonic code were first exposed regardless of its connection to any pictorial or practical functions. The turn to architectural means and the dominance of the architectonic code in Constructivists' painting continued the historical series of its at­ traction to different art forms. In painting, there were stages in which the graphic principle prevailed, such as in the silhouettes of ancient Greek vases or the predominantly linear system of icon painting, etc. Painting of the Renaissance, with its tendency to model volumes, began to take a sculptural character. When Baroque artists put parts of the volumes into deep shadows, dissolving objects in space, they in fact turned to the "painterly form of vision" (see Wblfflin, 1 930). Being the most brightly represented in Impressionist painting, this form of vision began to develop in a new direction. Cezanne, who claimed the priority of regular geometric figures, e.g. a ball, a cube, a cone, etc., turned to the elements of the archi­ tectonic code. Cubism even more consistently continued to crystallize these elements in painting, fonning architectonic constructions in a depict­ ing plane. Finally, abstract painting gave priority to synesthetic and kines­ thetic codes, i.e. colour and architectonic ones. Similar to painting, Constructivists' works, though by their formal characteristics are usually referred to other art fonns, began to use the means of the architectonic code. An example of this is the graphics of Lissitzky, whose "Prouns" preserve the spatial structure of architectural projects. There are also Tatlin' s "Counter-reliefs", the "Architectons" of Malevich, as wll as the spatial constructions of Gabo, Pevsner and Rod­ chenko, which are all related to sculpture. However, these constructions, based on discrete geometric forms and related not only in external but also in internal space, are so distant from traditional sculptural forms and so structurally close to architectural buildings that their only difference from

462

11.9.7.

the latter is the absence of practical functions (cf Read, 1966: 108, 1 1 4; 1972 248). Of course, Constructivists also brought tectonic structure back to archi­ tecture, which had almost lost it during the period of its plastic wave in the Modern Style. In all cases, Constructivist works (which are not always architectural, but are always architectonic) are characterized by an active usage of the architectonic cooe' s means, elements and structures. Elements of this code, which have long been mastered in architecture, comprise, for example, a square, a circle and a cross, declared by Malevich as the basic objects for painting. It is characteristic that in a theoretical analysis of their visual language elements, Constructivist-minded artists similarly, though in different combinations, highlight geometric figures described by Euclid, i.e. abstract spatial forms outlined by clear rules (cf El Lissitzky, 1980: 3 5 1 ; Mondrian, 1974: 1 1). Specific spatial structures are formed by these geometric elements in the same code system. They are combined as tectonic structures composed of already finished parts. This fact makes them different from graphic compositions, where the whole is divided into parts fonned as result of this division, and particularly from plastic forms, where the whole is ex­ pressed as a result of a continuous transfonnation of its parts. These syn­ tactic features of the spatial system in Constructivists' works were also reflected in the theoretical opposition between the categories of construc­ tion and composition in discussions about their relationship (see Khan­ Magomedov, 1981). Tectonic structures fonned of discrete geometric elements are specific for the syntax of this code in the Constructivists' approach. It is typical for this syntax to have a great contrast between a figure (an object) and its background (space). Though typical for architecture, it is not, however, an obligatory characteristic for figurative art, especially for painting. In the history of fine arts one can trace the evolution of relations between depictd space and bodies in it. After ancient art. where body mass of depicted ob­ jects dominated its "empty" environment, the painting changed in the Middle Ages, when images were subordinated to the space of symbolic "reverse perspective", and further in the Renaissance, when all bodies were totally reconsidered as convex volumes in space arranged by a sys­ tem of "direct" linear perspective. In Baroque painting, the last rudiments of planar or frontal picture-making were eliminated, while the indexes of spatiality were greatly emphasized. Even more, Impressionism "dissolved" the body in its spatial environment. Cezanne, and followed by him Cub­ ists, began to "pull" the deconstructed elements of object forms out of space again. The Suprematism of Malevich continued this trend, isolating

Constructivism and Spatial Semiotics

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the figures opposed to space and free from a pictorial function. Tatlin's counter-reliefs, where structural elements of the form were removed from the pictorial plane to the outer space, completed the liberation process of bodily masses from the depicted space. Thereby, in the works of Construc­ tivists, the confrontation between space and mass, fonning the "negative" and "positive" poles of architecture, acquired its ultimate tension (cf. Gabrichevsky, 1923; Brinkman, 1935). In the version of Constructivism suggested by Naum Gabo and Natan (Antoine) Pevsner, the space overcomes the mass. They wrote in their Re­ alistic Manifesto: "We reject the mass as a sculptural element in sculp­ ture . . . . We claim the DEPTH to be the only pictorial form of space" (Ga­ bo & Pevsner, 1989 [1920]: 1 1 8). The syntax of the architectonic code in their works is also character­ ized by a sharp opposition of the articulated elements of the construction to each other. All works of Constructivists, made in a variety of materials and techniques, have a typical contrasting clash of both the figures them­ selves and their differential qualitative and quantitative indexes: vertical and horizontal, straight and curved, round and angular, light and dark, large and small, smooth surfaces and "rough" texture. Similarly, in the theoretical interpretation of their spatial language, Constructivists and like­ minded artists emphasize the oppositions of contrasting elements (cf Ma­ levich, 1980 [1923]: 15; Doesburg, 1999: 125; Itten, 1978: 9-12). Another characteristic feature of architectonic syntax in Constructivists' works is that, in most of their spatial structures, the role of diagonals be­ comes much greater, whether it is Tatlin's "Monument of the Third Inter­ national", the abstract designs of Rodchenko, Malevich's Dynamic Su­ prematism, or van Doesburg's diagonal "Contra-Compositions". In the concept of the latter, "diagonals are represented as ' signs' of dynamic spirit as opposed to the static balance of contours and verticals" (Blol