How can technology guide the citizens of the world to a new level of cultural literacy? This discussion of symbols and visual literacy is a primer to the importance of the palimpsests all around us and how the the data integration and visualization of the future need to capitalize on their ability to convey this information and make it meaningful to users.

1. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Visual Languages:
Semiotics,
Symbolic Anthropology,
& Cultural Literacy

2. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy

3. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
We’re surrounded by visual languages all the time--
We implicitly know how to make meaning from some of these languages without even realizing
we “speak” them---they are environmental, biological, and psychological ‘archetypes’
Others we’re trained to understand--either fluently or partially…
-- in order to function and understand our larger culture and society
And still others we accumulate along the way via sub-
cultures and specific communities we engage with…
And these
ones like to
swap round
on
themselves
A LOT

4. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
How do we study them?
How do we make meaning of making meaning?
= “the study of meaning-making”
= “the study of sign processes
and meaningful communication”
SEMIOTICS
The Father of Semiotics:
Ferdinand de Saussure
1857-1913
As the proposed ‘meaning-making’ system
of the future, we definitely want to look
more into this field ;)
Defining Terms (the boring bit)

5. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Semiotics
Social Semiotics
(fashion, linguistic slang,
marketing 
Social things affected by
economics)
Pictorial
Semiotics
(image processing)
Semiosis
(the act of interpreting
a sign)
Visual Semiotics
(Visual narrativesand modalities, super
finicky separatists)
Literary
Semiotics
(languageuse, structure,
tone, all those literary
vocab words like
oxymoron, hyperbole,
etc)
Cognitive
Semiotics
Film
Semiotics
Semiotic Anthropology
Contextualism
Symbolic
Anthropology
Anthropological
Semantics The Most Bad Ass
General Semiotician:
Umberto Eco
1932-2016
AnthropologyLinguistic Anthropology
Social Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Anthropological Archaeology
Cognitive Science
THE AMERICAN SEMANTIC ONTOLOGY OF
SEMIOTICS
Sociology
Archaeology History
But it’s really all a mush--
divisions are
based on academic in-fighting
& funding regulations
Biological Anthropology

6. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Symbolic Anthropology(a.k.a. Symbolic InterprativeAnthropology, vs. Cultural Materialism)
General definition =
The Most Marvelous of
Symbolic
Anthropologists:
Clifford Geertz
1926-2006
“how the study of cultural
symbols
can be used
to better understand society”

7. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Software of the
brain –trained to
interpret cultural
symbols
Hardware of the
brain responds to
universal human
symbols/concepts
Semiotic Anthropology
Contextualism
Symbolic
Anthropology
Anthropological
Semantics
Cultural Literacy
The fun squidgy bits of long duree
storytelling that pull from and
require both

8. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
The Tom Hanks Introduction
(as Dan Brown’s fictional Professor of Religious Symbology, Robert Langdon)

9. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
In an Antipositivism model, Symbolic Anthropology = studying symbols
to look at over-arching historical trends and universal ‘archetypes’ of
the Jungian Collective Unconscious
Studying the humanities ‘scientifically’
as ‘big data’ but being aware that the very act of
studying something is all part of the construct you’re
trying to study, so you can’t actually just study it
without having an existential crisis about your role in
society how everything and how the way you’re
looking at is all made up anyhow and nothing is
real…. #FrenchPostmodernism
The theorized ‘structures’ of
the unconscious mind
which are shared among beings of the
same species
Archetypal Events Archetypal Figures
Archetypal Motifs
• Birth
• Death
• Initiation to
Adulthood
• Mating
• Childbirth
• The Great Mother
• The Father
• The Child
• The Trickster
• The Wise Old
Woman
• The Hero
• The Creation
• The Deluge
• The Apocalypse
• The Rebirth
Arguably, the
prevailing post-
Enlightenment
philosophy of
thought

10. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
The Best Big Data for Symbolic Anthropology:
World Mythology
The Most Esteemed
Mythologist:
Joseph Campbell
1904-1987
A place where we repeat our visual
symbols over and over all around the
world, regardless of culture or community
but within the framework of that culture
or community

11. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Archaeometallurgy vs. Ghosts
Superstition & Storytelling pop up before and more easily than ‘scientific’ practices---than merge, than separate
Example: The Birthplaces of “Ideas”
Places that thought to melt rock to make metal Places that thought up an afterlife and denizens thereof

12. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
“Western culture” “speaks” three mythological
paradigms at the foundation of the visual language of its
“cultural literature”
Occidental
Judeo-Christian “Religion” Greco-Roman Mythology & CultureEuropean Fairy Tales
(3.5 or 4 if you count Shakespeare as a mishmash of all three that’s become it’s own mythological paradigm)

13. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
BUT we’re forgetting how to speak them!
We’re losing our cultural literacy.
• We don’t learn them formally anymore
• We’re surrounded by an avalanche of content
• If we are familiar with it, we know it through a diluted lens
How? Why?

14. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Examples from Judeo-Christian Mythology
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Hagiography
Can someone please tell us the story of David & Goliath?

15. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Now, Can someone please tell us the story
of King Saul & the Witch of Endor?

16. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
The first serves a cultural story archetype that society likes.
The second is too easily misinterpreted and could be seen as
promoting values ancient (and subsequently modern) society doesn’t
want you to like---
which one did know better?
You knew the one society wanted you
to know, so you’d work within the
construct of society…..

17. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Tell me about Apple

18. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Now tell me about Apple
-----in the context of a Judeo-Christian Visual Language schema--
….Because that’s why Apple is called Apple

19. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Fairy Tale Ontologies & Cartographies of Time
Fairy Tales Are Obsessively Studied for
their
Archetypal breakdowns
Now
0 1000 CE1000 BCE2000 BCE3000 BCE4000 BCE
Bronze Age/Iron Age
Transition
Old Testament Written,
But it’s About
Old Testament Written,
But it’s About
Greco-Roman Mythology
Being ‘Written’
First Human City (Sumer)
Oldest known,
still told, fairy tales
Shakespeare
EUROPEAN FAIRY TALE EXAMPLES
Fairy Tales Are Serious Fucking Business

20. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
The Little Mermaid

21. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Disney preserves but dilutes the fairy tales in pursuit of a
happy ending…
Original ‘Real’ Castle (Dover Castle,
England)
Fake ‘Romanticized’ Castle
(Neuschwanstein, Germany)
Disney Castle –Our New ‘Archetype’ for
“CASTLE”
“Disneyfication” = anthropology vocab word-----
whereby the fake version becomes the archetypal version,
despite questions of phenomenological authenticity-
 changes promote cultural norms and iterative societal values
(& It doesn’t always specifically involve Disney)

22. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Examples of Greco-Roman Mythology & Culture in our Visual Language
= Roman goddess Minerva/Greek goddess Athena
Goddess of wisdom and war
But she’s not our goddess for being
her awesome self, it’s a super
erudite reference to how Athena
was born as an adult, just like
California was ‘born’ as a state
without having ever been a US
‘child’ or territory (We used to be
part of Spain, #neverforget!)
California is named after Califia, the name of the medieval Spanish literature
version of the Greco-Roman mythological Queen of the Amazons.
We are the only state that has such an awesome mythological name.
= Greek for “I’ve Found It”

23. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Why is it Greek AND Roman Mythology & Culture?
• Tolerant polytheism of
Eastern Med
• Syncretic Traditions of
Alexander the Great
• Easier to adapt and Empire
build by finding
commonalities and
correlations between deities
than shut them down (like
in monotheism)
• Author/Content crossover,
Greeks wrote about Greeks,
Romans wrote about Greeks
• ++++++++++++++

24. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Greco-Roman Architecture as a Symbol of Sustainable Democratic Power & Authority
Roman Pantheon, Rome, Italy French Pantheon, Paris, France US Capitol Building, Washington DC, USA
Acropolis, Athens White House, Washington DC, USA
Roman Pantheon, Rome, Italy French Pantheon, Paris, France
Hadrian’s Triumphal Arch, Gerasa, Jordan Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France
French
NeoClassical &
Greek Revival
Styles

25. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Why did Greco-Roman Culture become the foundation for Western visual language?
• Greco-Roman
philosophy/critical
thinking/logic as basis
of modern ‘rational
thought’
• Seen as the birthplace
of our modern society
• Democracy
• Globalization
• Science &
Technology
• Cultural Institutions
PLATO
ARISTOTLE
DIOGENES OF
SYNOPE
PLOTINUS
STRABO
APELLES
CLAUDIUS
PTOLEMY
EUCLID
HERACLITUS
PARAMENIDES
HYPATIA
PYTHAGORAS
ANAXIMANDER
Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn
Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd or Averros
EPICURUS
ALCIABIADES
OR
ALEXANDER
THE GREAT?
XENOPHON OR
ANTISTHENES?
SOCRATES
APOLO ATHENA

26. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
We’re still speaking it, so why are we losing our ability to ‘make
meaning’ Greco-Roman Mythology in our Visual Culture?
• Changes in our education system---we don’t teach critical thinking anymore—
therefore we don’t teach its original philosophers and their discourse
which means we don’t get the ‘timeless’ jokes of previous
centuries anymore—can no longer read the buildings of the
Renaissance or the artwork of the French Revolution—we can’t
make meaning of the cumulative cultural symbolism all around us =
lack of cultural literacy

27. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Shakespeare As An Example
• Shakespeare is Super Erudite to us all NOW
• But everyone would have understood it at the time. It was their
entertainment and their entertainment insisted that they be culturally
literate in order to enjoy it.
Both were entertainment, but one references our older archetypes. One doesn’t.

28. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Why aren’t we being ‘taught’ cultural literacy?
Rise and fall patterns of interest in Greco-Roman culture
2000 CE2000 BCE 1000 CE01000 BCE
Tyrants
take
Athens
The Dark
Ages
The Black
Death
Golden
Age of
Athens
Pax
Romana
High Middle
Ages
Shakespearean
England
Renaissance
Enlightenment
French &
American
Revolutions
Awesome things seem to
coincide with points of
cultural literacy.
Not awesome things
coincide with bad points
in history
Movement
away from
rational thought
& science
towards
conservatism &
rise of
#fakenews
World Wars

29. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Current dip in cultural literacy could also be related
to our extreme, unprecedented access
to information & huge population numbers
(more people = more consumption = more content delivery systems = more content = more diversity of content)

30. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
HOWEVER diversity of content only goes so far--
there are layers of abstraction BUT they’re still
the same archetypal stories (albeit Disneyfied and often remixed)
And sometimes
we just cheat
and pull straight
from our older
stories to
repopulate our
new allegories

31. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
What does this mean? (The Semiotics OF Symbolic Anthropology)
• Are we just in a valley of the long duree pattern of cultural literacy, and should be preparing
for it to peak again soon?
 in which case us embedding the symbolism of the classical past into our system
= a good thing to do
Example: Teaching Sacred geometry  chance to embed the history of maths

32. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Or is different this time because of all the new variables?
• Humanity has never had so much access to content before-could mean a paradigm shift for
what’s considered classics/what’s read by many/what constitutes “cultural literacy”
HOWEVER---popular fads for globally relevant narratives still pop up---so the willingness for large groups
to congregate around archetypal stories, like Harry Potter, the Marvelverse, and yes, unfortunately, even
Twilight-- may be oddly solid evidence that humanity isn’t abandoning its cultural literacy entirely, but we
still might want to be careful and stay on the Harry Potter end of storytelling vs. Twilight. One will stand
the test of time and be added to humanity's canon of stories that reflect our archetypes, one won’t.
Let’s be on the sustainable side of cognitive storytelling.

33. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Or then again…all of this could just be a construct, built out of a post-colonial,
imperialist, capitalist narrative retrospectively trying to make sense of the past
as it was run and as it is interpreted now …..
It’s a Trap.

34. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
But Then….
• If all the old white guys were wrong---what patterns are there? What were
they missing? What can we see looking more comprehensively by looking at
the symbolic anthropology of both East & West in conjunction?
• What archetypes were shaped by their perspective and the subsequent
study of those perspectives?
• What patterns could we find re: the collective unconscious that have gone
unutilized or been under utilized by all previous mechanisms for
storytelling/knowledge transmission?
• What universal visual language can be created that will be accessible to all?
Or how can we teach everyone all of the visual languages of the world to
create a globally society with a universal cultural literacy?
• = We need to evaluate what semiotic archetypes of
storytelling/knowledge transmission can we adapt as cognitive levers?
Or is rational thought which dictates
decipherable patterns in long duree big
data a lie? Is logic real or isn’t it? What and
when can we trust our critical thinking skills
when it comes to qualitative data?

35. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
But More Pressingly:
What Are We Each Missing About the World Around Us?
What symbols don’t we notice?
What are history and our ancestors saying to us that we can’t
hear anymore even though it’s imprinted on our buildings, on
our money, in our pop culture, in #allthethings?
How can we build technology that helps everyone to listen and
speak these languages again?

36. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
How can we annotate & guide people through
digital data that pulls back the curtains and
reveals all of these layers to them without it
being dense and tedious like this powerpoint
presentation and this sentence?

37. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Further Reading
Did semiotics strike your fancy? Did comparative mythology hit a
chord? Did Cultural Literacy Speak to the Colors of Your Wind?
Here are some suggested texts to follow up with:
• Joseph Campbell: ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ or ‘The Power of Myth’ (the latter of which is also a
rather famous PBS documentary)
• Clifford Geertz: “The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays” (‘Notes on a Balinese Cockfight’ is one of the seminal anth documents)
• Roland Barthes: “Mythologies” and “The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies”
• Claude Levi-Strauss: “Myth & Meaning”
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty: “Phenomenology of Perception”
• Michel Foucault: “The Archaeology of Knowledge” and “Of Other Spaces”
• And Umberto Eco’s: “From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and
Interpretation” (lookson point, but haven’t read it in full (yet)).

38. Visual Language: Semiotics, Symbolic Anthropology, & Cultural Literacy
Spoilers:
Bad Wolf = A Phrase repeated across time and space in all contexts,
in all civilizations as a future indicator to The Doctor & Rose Tyler
Did you notice the Bad Wolf
references scattered throughout the
presentation?