I'd be inclined to say - and these are really just random reflections - that the appearance of "non-signifying signs" is much more a question of convention, i.e. the convention of "agreeing not to notice", or perhaps rather to minimise the significance of, such subordinate registers of textual signification to avoid, as it were, a supersaturation of semiosis. When necessary or required, the signifying capacity of such textual, let's call them "elements", can readily be recovered. In the case of trade publishing, for instance (in the USA, tho not in the UK), a note on the typeface is usually appended to the back matter of the book. Many of us will have requested students to submit essays in Times Roman 12 point and possibly even penalised them for not doing so (if the essay arrives in say Arial 9 with footnotes in 8). Certain theoretical texts invite - though they do not necessarily themselves include - consideration of textual (in the strictest, i.e. material, sense of the term) properties: a good example might be Derrida's Glas. I think though I can't provide chapter and verse that David Damrosch in his work on the hermeneutical tradition may have included some discussion of the "look" of the Talmudic text, with scripture surrounded on three sides by commentary (partly mimicked by other "sacred" texts e.g. the Arden Shakespeare). Fredric Jameson briefly discusses the footnote as a "small but autonomous form" in (naturally) a footnote to his essay on Adorno in Marxism and Form. With specific reference to film, again it seems to me that may of these elements can and do receive consideration in particular critical and theoretical contexts. Not only Baudry-esque apparatus theory (in a general way) but any history of film style and technology (in the particular, e.g. Barry Salt) explicitly addresses issues such as color stock and printing. David Fincher's Fight Club reflexively acknowledges typically deregistered (in signifying terms) exhibition conventions like the reel-change "bubble", here as part of its transgressive thrust. The "inclusion" (that is, simulation) of leader reel is something of a cliché of modernist/artfilm practice, most obviously Persona. Even the nose on someone's face might legitimately receive consideration in a star studies context in relation to questions of star appeal etc., while the physiognomy of featured players is often very important, e.g. Una O'Connor. This may be less true of the noses of extras, but these too will in most cases have been chosen by casting agents for their demeanour, appearance, etc., and in all cases costumed to suit the production. I think what I'm suggesting is that (a) the nature of cinema as a collaborative and industrial medium means that there are in fact very few actually "non-signifying signifiers", in the sense that most elements of the artefact and of the process of its manufacture can and do receive critical attention in specific contexts, and (b) the indiscriminately indexical aspect of the photographic process - I guess I'm bracketing the digital here - actually necessitates a more ruthless selective blindness to its manifold minor (not non-) significations than is the case with literature, where nothing is included "accidentally". It surely is as Don Larsson suggests a question of spectatorial positioning (both the positions proffered by the text and those adopted autonomously by the spectator), and as he also says of the appropriations made by the spectator of such signifying practices as s/he perceives in/receives from the text. Richard Williams famously reviewed John & Yoko's "Wedding Album" as a double album, sides 2 and 4 of which comprising merely minute differentiations of almost subsonic toanlity: in fact, he had been sent a test pressing with the "real" sides 1 and 2 on separate discs, each backed by a set of blank grooves... His review doesn't help any listener of the album in its commercially released form: but it does say quite a lot about the popular/journalistic reception of conceptual art in the late 1960s! cheers, Barry Dr Barry Langford Lecturer in Film Studies Department of Media Arts Royal Holloway, University of London -----Original Message----- From: Larsson, Donald F To: [log in to unmask] Sent: 02/06/2004 14:50 Subject: Re: query: non signifying 'signs' An interesting set of questions! I'm not sure about specific sources, but I'd guess that Umberto Eco has had something to say on the matters of how the mode of presentation (typeface, etc.) "signifies"--or not. There are some parallels here too with Bordwell's incorporation of non-diegetic material (such as credits) as part of "plot/syuzhet" (vs. "story/fabula") in film. But there are also issues here for various kinds of reader-response criticism. (Is it in the cartoon THE CRITIC that voice of Mel Brooks muses on the "meaning" of what turns out to be a hair caught in the projector--except of course that hair has been placed into the "film" that the invisible Brooks is watching? Or is my memory at fault here?--another matter of concern, and not just for my aging brain!) Part of the issue that Mike raises returns us to questions of "intentionality," or at least what's perceived as such. For example, as Mike implies, we usually take for granted such things as the decision to make a film in color or the fact that most films we see derive from a written screenplay. However, the 1937 A STAR IS BORN foregrounds that screenplay by presenting it to the audience right at the beginning (and again at the end), framing the entire film, self-consciously, as a fiction in way that most films of its time (and even now) did not. That, in turn, foregrounds the use of Technicolor (unusual in what is ostensibly a melodrama or "woman's picture" in 1937) in a way that its use in NOTHING SACRED (same producer and director) does not. On the other hand, for years I enjoyed the dappled and textured lighting effects of Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. It was only after half-a-dozen or so viewings of the film (including in movie theaters) that I finally saw a print in color, as it had been filmed. Same movie--different effects! This question has been around in print for a while--when is an accident of printing or editorial intrusion truly significant? Don Larsson ----------------------------------------------- "Only connect!" --E.M. Forster Donald F. Larsson Department of English Minnesota State University Mankato, MN 56001 [log in to unmask] ________________________________ From: Film and TV Studies Discussion List on behalf of [log in to unmask] Sent: Tue 6/1/2004 9:34 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: query: non signifying 'signs' part one: some of you reading this message right now are looking at serif type face, some of you at sans-serif, depending [i guess] on a combination of your software and settings, my software and settings, and other cyber matters way too arcane for my understanding . . . but the typeface in which you are reading this text, though obvious, probably in no way shapes what you take this message to 'mean' . . . there are, additionally, blatant features of this message that are NOT functions of cyberspace but are clearly 'intended' by me, the writer or 'author' of the message, that still are likely to be taken by you, the reader, as irrelevant to the 'meaning' of the inquiry . . . perhaps the most obvious among these is the absence of upper case letters in short, there seem to be features of this message that are not aspects of its 'meaning' as usually construed . . . for the moment let me call these 'marks' as opposed to 'signs' for the question is whether they are signs at all (admittedly, each of these marks, taken as an index, does signify something . . . the typeface may be read as evidence about the way computers work, or about software design . . . the lack of capitals might say something about my intelligence or upbringing . . . since all of these 'marks' are so over-determined they may be seen as indexes [indices] of an endless variety of causes . . . the index, we might say, opens into an endless universe of forensics and divination . . . still, all of these potential indexical meanings are not part of normative reading processes, and my guess is you are paying attention to the typeface of the message before you [if indeed you are] only because it has been explicitly called to your attention by the meaning of the words encoded in that typeface) part two: the features of a text that the reader/listener/viewer attends to as part of the normative process of apprehension is shaped, at least to some extent, by the physical characteristics of the medium . . . a crude and reductive and obvious example: if i am making a movie and show a character's face and there is a nose on that face, most readers would not take the existence of that nose be significant [in the literal sense of signifying something about this specific movie that you needed to keep in mind] . . . but if i were writing a novel an i included the sentence "In the middle of his face there was a nose," almost all readers would take that as significant . . . in other words: the presence of the nose on the face in a conventional film does not signify . . . now i know that this example is crude and reductive and needs a lot more explanation and qualification . . . but i think most readers of this message will understand the larger point . . . specifically, that [depending on the medium] there are aspects of a message that are not relevant to normative ways of decoding its meaning . . . another real, rather than hypothetical, example . . . in most print messages--like this one--the shape of the text on the page [or screen] does not matter, and you could reformat this message with longer or shorter lines and you would take it that the message remained the same . . . but in george herbert's 'iconic' poetry, for example 'the altar' in which the lines are laid out on the page in the shape of an altar, the shape of text does signify the point is merely that texts, understood as material objects, have qualities or characteristics that are not part of their signifying machinery . . . these characteristics are, we might say, inert rather than active ingredients in the signifying process the question: actually two questions . . . first, does anyone know of any conventional way of talking about this whole issue? . . . as my repeated use of inverted commas above, and the choice of that bizarre phrase 'signifying machinery' will attest, talking about these things is very slippery . . . but surely these matters have been addressed, and i'm wondering whether prior discussions have led to an accepted vocabulary for dealing with these matters more efficiently . . . second, i would be most grateful for bibliographical references to helpful prior discussions many thanks, in advance, for any comments or suggestions mike ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. 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