What is an icon? This seminar looks at the modes of operation and limits of a very common type of sign. Perspectives from art history, semiotics and historical media theory allow us to broaden our understanding for the status of pictorial... more
What is an icon? This seminar looks at the modes of operation and limits of a very common type of sign. Perspectives from art history, semiotics and historical media theory allow us to broaden our understanding for the status of pictorial signs and question their claim to be universally understood. From Charles Sanders Peirce’s foundational definition to Otto Neurath’s efforts to create an international picture language and the speculative experiments of so-called “nuclear semiotics”, to today’s applications in computer graphics and the emergence of a new, dynamic type of image on the margins of image and sign – the focus of the seminar is not so much on the problems of theoretical demarcation of the concept, but on the political and societal questions that are posed throughout the history of the “icon”.
