Reading the signs….All the Signs!

I found this week’s lecture to be very interesting, yet feel like it could take me many a year to actually explain it as clear as possible, without rambling on too much that is.

Signification!

Here’s a kind equation, the Signifier (physical form) + Signified (concept it represents) = Signs

Okay so for example we are given the image of a tree and we know that it is a tree; if we are given the word tree we would have the idea that it would be a tall rectangle shaped thing with green around it.

However the problem with this, is that not everything is universal

Romanian pisica, Mayan miss, Indonesian kucing. What are the words highlighted? Are they the same thing? Would everyone know them? These all mean Cat, but still, would everyone know what that is?

When we see the image above we instantly link that to being a cat, pisica or kucing, it’s not real, but it’s an image that is highly used to portray one.

The image below is one I discovered in a cafe, and found to be quite amusing for an example of a sign used for toilets to distinguish between the two genders. 

So anyway, this brings us to some more terms (yay). Let’s illustrate these using 'human' characters as examples.

We start of with Arbitary (symbolic) this being less constrained by reality. Here we have Joe from Viewtiful Joe. 

 He's supposedly a young man, but from what we see he's completely out of proportion from what a man would look like, over sized head small legs and feet, especially because its a flat 2d image, but its style that can represent one. We recognise that its male and human from his features such as clothing eyes and mouth, even the posture can make our brains say "yep, its not realistic but its meant to be a guy."

Then we have a character from Unreal Tournament 1 game.

Compared to Joe his body proportions are more accurate and has a 3d form, making it look more human, though in the sense of being realistic the level of detail appears flat and the character himself consists of sharp blocks and edges. (baring in mind the game was made about a decade ago)

Coming up to the term Iconic (in the sense of being realistic that is) i chose Grendel's mother in the fillm Beowulf, probably because of all that work that went into Angelina Jolies' character to look like...well Angelina Jolie. 

The level of detail can be quite convincing and, well okay Grendal's mother isnt exactly a human, but compared to the other two images it reaches the highest bar mark for being realistic, this goes for shadow and lighting, facial features and colour which all makes the character here resemble a real human being.