Semiofest, Porto 2024: A Personal Photo Essay

I got back from Porto on Sunday. That's another Semiofest over for 2024.

Our 9th edition. Madness.

As always, I am sated and happy, with the feeling of having had the equivalent of a hard drive groaning with a surfeit download of positive content. Giddying overwhelm of so many ideas to conjure with some of which I’ll use but many of which I'll probably never have time to fully assimilate. It's the exhilaration of so many amazing conversations going on simultaneously I cannot fully finish any of them off. I also leaving with the nagging sense that lifelong friends are buried in the mass of people I've fleetingly met but have not had the chance to get to know beyond the superficial cordialities. These are all prototypical Semiofest experiences.

Then there is the sense of longing for the next Semiofest. I call it semiosaudade.

I typically get this way before the actual event is over and usually somewhere in the middle of the 2nd of the two day event. It’s a totally illogical feeling because there is, at that point, so much great original content still to come but it speaks to my love of this event and the fact that I really can’t get enough of this feeling.

The point I'm making is that these are NOT bad things at all.

They're only happy by-products of the amazing camaraderie and the generosity of spirit fostered by Semiofest. I get so much, but am still left wanting more.

Anyway, now I am back in London I thought I'd just share some of the colour and the carnivalesque spirit of this unique event through the photos I took over the last few days. I also shot some videos but those needing editing, so are to come!

This is first and foremost so I don't forget any of the amazing things I saw and means I am more likely to retain the learning points, it is for participants to relive the experience and of course for those interested in Semiofest to get a sense of the 'vibe' to see if they would like to be part of it in some capacity in the future.

All speakers, I was taking notes and photos of your talks but also had other organisational matters to consider (like taking videos etc) so if I have garbled or misconstrued something in my accounts then feel free to correct either in the comments or in direct message to me. All errors and shortcomings are my own.

DAY 0 - WEDNESDAY 22nd MAY - MERCADO DO BOLHAO

Vijay Parthasarathy - "Designing Your Unique Operating Philosophy"

Since the 2013 edition, we have started Semiofest on 'Day Zero' as we like to call it with some training just to get everyone’s semiotic muscles limbered up and to add a skill of something they may not have done before. In 2013 it was visual shopping, in 2014 it was positioning luxury brands, in 2015 it was French structural frameworks, in 2016 it was using cultural semiotics, in 2017 it was in embodied semiotics and cognitive metaphor and in 2018 it was using cultural symbols to do research and 2022 it was visual note making and turning doodles into storytelling. This year we had a workshop on designing a unique personal operating philosophy. This was run by business consultant Vijay. It was billed as:

"Traditional capitalism's profit-driven focus fosters self-centered thinking, neglecting organizational best practices and undermining brand coherence. This four-hour workshop will introduce an innovative interdisciplinary approach that integrates qualitative research, semiotics, linguistics, and psychology to promote self-awareness and holistic decision-making in business."

It started by talking about how we can all gain some sincere storytelling magic to align our personal and professional values and to more meaningfully different differentiate ourselves in the market and so combat the ways in which capitalism are emotional identity. Whose own operating philosophy is “to go with the flow pursuit of wisdom” worked with 3 volunteers, Semiofest regulars and previous organisers Sam Grange, Vladimir Djurovic and newcomer No?l Theodosiou. Vijay took them through their paces asking searching questions such as 'what story from your childhood sums up your personality' and 'what are you like and how respond when criticised?' and we had a lot of revelations about these individuals. We learned that Noel was courteously challenging that Sam is a translator explaining and simplify for his clients and that Vlad loves creating spaces for people, but he himself most enjoys pattern recognition.

“We can all operate in that liminal space connecting the magic to the formulaic”

We were all left energised and thinking about how we would encapsulate our own Unique Operating Philosophies - mine would be 'providing brands and their agencies top quality semiotic thinking to help them close the gap between what they THINK they're communicating & what they're ACTUALLY communicating"

That's for my business though, personally I have so many that it depends on the day... Like heteronymic Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa said 'Countless Souls inhabit me'. I guess one would be: Angry Buddhist in a world of the Post-Human.

We went out to dinner that night. Delicious seafood. Catching up w/ old friends.

And then it began.

On Thursday morning we all rocked up at the beautiful Casa Da Musica venue.

What to say about this venue? It's an architectural marvel. And it wasn't cheap. But was TOTALLY worth it as it contributed a magical atmosphere at the event.

As organisers Sonia and Susanna write: "The Casa da Música concert venue and the skateboard park outside - two seemingly oppositional subcultures - coexist side-by-side; one doesn’t undermine the other as a higher or lower art form. The dual functionality is an expressive analogy of the liminal/liminoid concept. A sense of creativity, innovation, spontaneity and playfulness concur."

DAY 1 - THURSDAY 23rd MAY - CASA DA MUSICA

Our topic for Semiofest was liminality. "Liminality reflects the end or diminishing of a predictable phase followed by periods of transition defined as being situated somewhere betwixt and between, neither here nor there. Rites and rituals play a significant role in the experience of liminality, providing a structured framework for navigating the liminal space and facilitating the process of personal and collective transformation." As Sonia & Susanna wrote:

"Semiofest Porto presentations will reveal liminal, transitional, ‘in-between’ spaces in postpartum experiences, how institutional habits can empower social groups experiencing ‘in-between’ states of invisibility, and how to steer future crisis management strategies through the lens of the pandemic. Liminality plays a crucial role in how to frame communications around these complex issues."

For more on Liminality, see here: https://www.semiofest.com/2024/theme/

KEYNOTE

Raquel Varela - "25 De Abril: The Carnation Revolution And Liminality"

Academic Raquel Varela gave a visceral, bracing keynote speech with salutary historical and cultural context for this Portuguese Semiofest . She sketched out the significance of the 'Carnation Revolution' that took place in Portugal on the 25th of April 1974. This is the time many of us Gen Xers were born (I was born in 1973 for instance) and makes us realise how many freedoms were hard fought.

She took us through squalor and stultification imposed by the Portuguese junta. 1.3 million men conscripted for colonial wars in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique 40% of national budget to the military, only 30% literacy - women not allowed to be educated. But through a rare military coup of sympathetic communists and allies ushered in a liminal period within which people took matters into their own hands setting up resources for the people by the people. Raquel took us through some anecdotes of the spirit of this liminal time to show that though the revolution was short lived, the feeling of freedom and that things can always be done differently has remained a reference point. 600,000 people came out in the streets to commemorate this Revolution just last year. It is still important in the cultural imaginary of Portugal. The quote I most remember from this talk was one I believe attributed to Trotsky: "All revolutions are impossible until they become inevitable”. No-one thought a party for semioticians was possible either.

?Viva Semiofest!

Later - on Saturday - I went to the Contemporary Art Museum which gave me a vivid look at the art of the Carnation Revolution to consolidate these feelings.

Juan Manuel Montoro - "How To Be A Country Among The Rest: The Experiences Of Liminal Diplomacy In Kosovo"

Then we moved to Juan Manuel Montoro with his presentation on the liminal State of Kosovo (that means that the state is is still somewhere on a waystation towards full statehood). When Spain plays them at football their name is placed in lower case lettering as Spain does not recognise them. Given such a status is conferred by others, it was fascinating to see the way semiotics can contribute to the means of persuasion whereby recalcitrant nations - like Spain - can move towards gradual if grudging recognition of those marginal geographical entities. This was a masterclass in showing how semiotics understands how to deploy Soft Power through cultural diplomacy. But yes, they should sort out their flag!

Dominika Noworolska - "Liminality of Autistic Self-Discovery Through the Ritual of Adult ‘Diagnosis’"

Then we had Dominic Noworolska who gave us an exposé into what it’s like to be a neuro-divergent person grappling with the implications of a late diagnosis. This was an intimate, touching and hugely educational talk for all of us, I think. Dominika went into the ins and outs of diagnosis, self diagnosis, gave us an insight into neurodivergent communities and showed how the representation of autism needs to be subtle, often implicit and not too telegraphed or heavy handed. But this was also about the personal, not jsut the political or semiotic and the take out for me was also that diagnosis processes take care and in this liminal states of ritual can provide safeguarding rails for difficult transitions. She also made me think again about one of my fave dramas BBC's Normal People.

Miriam Bouabid "Sea Skin: Liminal Spaces, Frontiers And Enunciation"

After the coffee break, we had Miriam Bouabid who we were very lucky to have given the Visa issues she experienced coming over from Tunisia talking about migration and the intensely liminal states of a migrants waiting to cross the Mediterranean in a transit state where they have effectively lost their identity. This was a human and intimate version of Manuel’s talk about Kosovo in the sense that it showed how when you fall through the cracks of the international system things and become 'liminal' get complicated. Her research followed a person in his journey across Africa to Tunisia. This was a harrowing and at the same poetic account of a subject we all need to know more about; full of theory too. I think everyone wanted to read more about Siguirim and his ongoing plight.

It also really put the callousness of UK Govt's immigration policy into harsh light.

Rahul Murdeshwar - "Liminality And Cultural Innovation In The Semiotics Of Juri Lotman And The Tartu Moscow School"

Rahul Meshwar stepped up next an academic paper about rave culture and how each musical happening could be seen as a liminal event bringing together a new diverse types of people in 'communitas' through the medium of ritualistic space. Maybe a bit like Semiofest! We got a reminder of Jüri Lotman and his notion of both the semiotic explosion and the semiotic border following the idea that 'liminal transformation only happens through explosive contact between radically different systems'. Which refers as well to the flotsam and motley crew you find at a rave a reminder of the utopian ideals behind a lot of dance music.

And yes, many of us Gen X-ers were reliving our youth through this presentation!

Thierry Mortier - "Is There A Limit To The Liminal?"

Then we had Thierry Mortier. I always occurs to me Thierry stepping on stage is like watching Leo Messi collect the ball. You just always know he’s going to do something that amazes you, bring some magic to proceedings, even if you can’t puzzle out quite how he did it! This year was no different as he took us through a whistle stop tour of diagrammatic trichotomies inspired by Charles Peirce and how they relate to liminal spaces. This reminded me very much of the Unithree symbol (representing trichotomies in unity) he brought to Semiofest Barcelona 2013 took it further and gave it a twist. This paper has been accepted at Sign Systems Studies. I've read it, it's excellent. And very lucky they are to have it!

William Liu - "Liminal Thinking Of The Chinese: Manifestation Of The Eight Diagrams (Yin/yang System)"

Then we had William Liu who has dual status as a commercial semiotician, but also as one of the members of the Shanghai Rainbow Choir, perhaps the most popular men's choir in China. He broke down the Yang Ying system and in doing so brought the notion of liminal as a harmonious intermediate position between natural concepts. He took us on a journey through Chinese philosophy from the Golden Mean of Confucius to Fu Sui attributed to have invented the Ying Yang or trigram he showed how this was also the way Chinese brands mediate their product offerings in order to make them palatable to a mass market in China.

LUNCH

Joshua Glenn - "Liminality In Fantasy Narratives"

Next up. Josh Glenn of Semiovox, and Convenor of Semiofest Session, who some have referred to as 'the Gatling Gun of getting things done' from the USA presented on his G Schema (2 quadrants superimposed one at a 90° angle to the other) to show often how it is the intermediate positions in the relationship tension between characters within any narrative that are the most interesting confounding and compelling. In the case of Star Wars (1977) Han Solo and Darth Vader. Josh made the point that George Lukas was just 'winging it' when he wrote the first Star Wars movie made in 1977 and some kind of archetypal intelligence seem to infuse the story. Josh had us all scrambling to write down the characters in our favourite stories to see how they would plot on his map.

Maitreyee Pakti and Jayanth Narasimha - "Journeying Liminalities: From Stuckness To Transformation"

Jayanth and Mayatree we next and they taught us how to negotiate crisis, and why they learned from streaming dramas centred around modern dating and 'so called 'situationships', which are fundamentally liminal in their nature. I liked the way they broke down liminal states into PARALYTIC, more stagnant, repetitive and CATALYTIC which helps propel us towards a threshold of change. They ended with two interesting, controversial commercial and political case studies. It was great to finally meet Jayanth as he studied with me a couple of years ago on How to Do Semiotics in 7... but we've only had the chance to meet on Zoom.

Victoria Gerstman - "Postpartum Liminality: Decoding The Cacophony Of New Motherhood"

Victoria Gerstman is someone I’ve had the pleasure of working with this year on a related topic presented on postpartum liminality and just what a bad job many brands do preparing women for the realities of motherhood. Whilst at the same time looking at the way brands seek to cater to women and to a certain extent to commodify this time. “understanding the postpartum period as a period of becoming his critical to the success of parenting” and could integrate principles of ritual into their actions to help support new mothers through this difficult time.

I think this presentation should be made into a manifesto and compulsorily read by anyone working on baby brands so they become more new mother friendly.

Malex Salamanques Amiel and Julius Colwyn - "Rituals Design For Transition"

Then Malex Salamanques and Julius Colwyn took to the stage to talk about rituals which they defined as 'sequences of actions with transformational meaning'. This was a great anatomisation of the way ritual (which many of us probably don't think about) plays a role in consumer journeys of all types. They broke down the way even something as apparently mundane as burning candles for relaxation consists of a concatenation of micro-movements. Each action has a meaning and therefore is an 'embodied experience'. It made me think of my morning meditation rituals with Buddhist mala beads for instance. Rituals have co-evolved with us they argue and are ways in the modern day that help us exerts influence on the world as well as being technologies for transformation.

SEMIOFEST BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT

Hamsini Shivakumar, representing the Board of Semiofest, where she sits with myself and Lucia, excitedly announced about our upcoming subscription model.

"We are delighted to share with you the next concept for Semiofest.

As many of you know SF began in 2012 as a conference of, for and by applied semioticians. It was the annual conference which has travelled the world with the support of a team of country organizers, many of whom are here today.

During COVID, we started the Semiofest online Sessions. Now we are thinking of introducing the next stage of support for the applied semiotics practitioner community. And that is the concept of membership - and a Semiofest members subscription service. Most professional bodies offer it to their professional group - designers, anthropologists, qual researchers, planners and so on.

We have developed a prototype which we would like to share with you.

It has been developed in discussion with our advisory council of past organizers. Let me take you through the core features.

1. Library of past content presented at previous conferences and previous Sessions.

2. Directory for listing members

3. Learning - definitions & methods as well as case studies/success stories

4. Collaboration - semiostart and semioteams.

I would like to invite each of you to give us your feedback via a short survey. It should take 10 min or less. Thank you for your support and we hope to launch the service in a few months time." The survey will be shared very shortly.

We then all went to Praia Da Luz by the seafront, an amazing seafood restaurant!

DAY 2 - FRIDAY 24th MAY - CASA DA MUSICA

KEYNOTE

Alexandra Schüssler - "The Dark Side Of Being Betwixt And Between"

Artist, curator and designer Alexandra Schüssler talked about the dangers of being betwixt and in between which she said is because it is crossing over thresholds and systems like certainty, policing those that cannot be classified.

She started by talking about Janus with the forward and backward facing face - and his role in Greek Mythology which provided a visual leitmotif for the talk

Victor Turner’s theoretical explication for everyone to get their bearings also going through a performance piece she had run some years ago in Germany. ?

In this she showcase the 3 parts of a ceremony / ritual of shepherding a group of 12 strangers through a ritual of her own making which included being seated opposite each other, having their feet washed and then, walking through talcum powder and then dining together eating bread and wine with strong Christian symbolism. It was fascinating to see how sometimes it is the ritual itself that is calming and how human beings react and act when they are Supervised, Regulated, Ritualised. Rites of passage where we live the ‘in between’. As she says: “After each transgression of a threshold someone undergoes change”

This was really a masterclass keynote because it included both her notes on liminality from which we could all learn but also taking us through art too.

Mariane Cara - "The Museum Of The Portuguese Language: Liminality, Transitional Challenges and Re-Adaptations"

Mariane Cara brought her passion for the Portuguese language to Semiofest. She started by telling us how her parents arrived in S?o Paulo from Portugal. Lusophone countries with historical and linguistic ties. She then told us how she'd been commissioned to help The Museum of the Portuguese language to disseminate digital learning objects to schools across Brazil. What was so impressive was the scale of the project with semiotics and qualitative research canvassing 631 teaching professionals across 10 cities in Brazil. She developed specifically learning resources for adult, autistic deaf learners all of whom must need different resources. I’d like to learn from Mariane to see what I can learn pedagogically (so to speak) for use on How to Do Semiotics in Seven Weeks!

Hamsini Shivakumar - "Effective Hybridization & Semiospheric Borders: What Can Liminality Add?"

Cofounder, Hamsini Shivakumar came on stage with an interesting thought about the way in which companies can manage conceptual blending within their innovation strategy. She looks at the case of migrating non-meat into the meat category and the way in which that had not worked in India. I have to say a lot of the packaging shown was incredibly unappetising to my eyes. Turn to cognitive science into the idea of conceptual blending for a key to understand when concepts blend well. I did a project on vegan meat only last year where there was a lot of blending. She remarked that stark religious beliefs around taboos - which I'm reading from limited knowledge of Indian culture is linked to ahimsa, sattvic - and not eating meat made blending even harder in the Indian context.

Alfredo Troncoso and Adelina Vaca - "Day Of The Dead-ish"

Next Alfredo Troncoso and Adelina Vaca, attendees at Semiofest Mexico 2022 came on stage speaking about the 'Day of the Deadish', the deliberate pun of the suffix? accounting for the facts that’s in the day of the dead in Mexico, the dead are never truly dead and gone. And the living are gently (but also quite wittily) reminded of their own mortality. This was a fascinating presentation that combined cultural anthropology, history and design aesthetics to break down the components of the ritual (skulls, pre-humous eulogies etc) showed how the ancient liminal death and human sacrifice cults of the old Mexica have turned liminoid and somewhat carnivalesque in the contemporary consumer context.

Example of the Victoria beer can from Modelo was a great example of Tradition Forward design codes and a twist to the Baroque Maximalism code I've learned.

Ximena Tobi -"Communication For Cultural Change Towards Energy Transition"

Ximena Tobi made a fantastic positive reframe inviting us to think of a migration to new more progressive and sustainable forms of energy as being a collective transition based upon a mass rite of passage. Speaking about her native land of Argentina, in energy crisis since the mid 1980s, she set the scene that users of energy still see themselves as passive nodes in a network and just want the current unreliable system to work as it should. So to shift to being responsible and autonomous producers of their own energy is a jump. Ximena proposed to denaturalise the current set up showing the unique historical conditions behind the extractive energy system, showing how our community of energy works, then introducing the notion of autonomy as user generator and then training uses to do that following via 3 steps of separation, liminality then re-integration.

Rudra Cariappa - "New Formations: Creating Value In Crisis"

Rudra Cariappa then to the stage and took us through the different mindset coexisting in the Indian semi sphere during the traumatic COVID-19 period where as huge displacement of migratory workers from urban connotations back to their rural homes took place as the urban infrastructure collapsed.

Separating minds distancing minds, the victim mind and the various rhetorical strategies associated with each one of these were brought forward. this got me thinking about the hell that was the internal migration in 2020 and I felt great compassion for all caught up in it but also it showed how liminality can help here.

Lucia Laurent-Neva - A Tribute to Osmar Gon?alves (1980-2024)

Lucia Laurent-Neva gave a tribute to a dear member of Semiofest's community who passed away this year Osmar Goncalves. There were many who'd worked with Osmar in the audience and this was an amazing tribute accompanied by a beautiful musical photo essay dedicated to his life and work. Thank you, Lucia.

LUNCH

Christopher Ryles - "AI And The State Of Utopia"

Christopher Ryles of Space Doctors talked about a shadowland of utopia when it comes to AI and that every potential utopia has a dystopia. Christopher talked about the dangers of these modern 'oracles' that we are giving over so much to in the world of AI and questioned who is regulating them and their development.

Quoting the great Bruno Latour who said that ‘technologies are not mere means’ he cautioned us to ask the question 'whose utopia is it anyway'? The perfect tool for looking at potential utopia which are speculative desired devices he said for Western imaginaries, is the technique of shadow mapping whereby you can plot on the same map the potential negative consequences of an action.

The INFINITE versus INTIMATE and INDIVIDUAL versus COLLECTIVE were the axes chosen to display the quadrants and each map was utopian or dystopian.

Do we really want to live in automated post-scarcity, whether you want it or not! Or deep integration that obscures your uniqueness? Me neither, actually. So we need to be more cognisant of what is effectively at the moment a real black box.

I remember reading Nick Bostrom's 'SuperIntelligence' and him breaking down the dangers and finding it spine chilling and this talk really took me back to that.

Gianlluca Simi - "On The Edge Of Meaning: How Can Semioticians Navigate The Black Hole Of AI-generated ‘Anti-content’?"

Gianlluca Simi delivered a cautionary message about AI left unchecked.

This is potentially the 'liminal age' we are entering of stochastic content (stuff that is put together based on its syntactic closeness and likely juxtaposition). And this could lead to us being flooded even more by the gibberish of ant-content put together by machines as mash ups of original creations. Gianlluca contrasted this content black hole against the structured and meanigful semio sphere. He also talked about content sludge which is where you keep feeding a large language model with outputs of previous inputs showing over time that the specificity of the information degrades such that for example visual glyphs being fed in (through a sort of artificial game of Chinese whispers in which the message gets garbled) recursively become blurry and vague. the world of signs and symbols which, in spite of contingent fakenesses could be relied on to be a reflection of the world of human meaning could become instead he warned a 'vacuum chamber of echoes and shapeless reflections' which does not reflect real meaning potentially leading over time to a form of 'semantic apocalypse'.

He ended on a positive note by asking how we negotiate with this new model of meaning and how we can retain our place as semioticians, noting that cultural trends often issue from the very 'noise' that's being filtered out in these models.

This was something Thierry said in an interview remaining upbeat afterwards since "Peirce said it best: the higher the probability, the lower the information. We do the opposite. We find the improbable there's where the information is."

Shibboleth Shechter - "Developing And Exploring Critical Thinking With Maps: Towards A Critical Cartosemiotic Pedagogy"

Shibboleth Shechter began her presentation with a short animated film and showed how cartography, mapmaking and the various codes we can use to represent physical space, and what are married different ways people found to do so can allow those who are not local to an area to somehow make it their own and feel more comfortable. This very much seems like the definition of place 'a space with meaning or sense of uniqueness' to it. Like what I have pictured here the representation of various blocks in an area with the spices of this Iranian student’s mother shown to make it more homely. This presentation really reminds me of the placemaking work I do with the LDN Collective etc.

Then... for something completely different! This:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ThOvAE_e6A

Martha Arango our resident salsa teacher... Martha lives in Sweden where she preactises semiotics but also teaches Latin dance and she LOVES to put us through our paces with impromptu salsa aerobics sessions. This time it was a Brazilian favela funk classic 'Merengue de Favela'. Arriba! Abaixo! Al lado!????

Well at least I learned a bit of Portuguese on this trip! ;-)

Pete Thomas and Cecilia Garside - "Is The Future Rubbish?"

Is the future rubbish? This was the provocative title from Pete Thomas and from Cecilia Garside from Liverpool Moores University. Rubbish is a liminal entity that loses its value until it gains it again by being repurposed maybe through getting recycled or decontextualised inside a gallery. They showed how the flotsam and jetsam of our consumerist lives can also help us to understand possible futures or protoplasm as they put it. Making the point that speculative design can often be too obsessed with technology, they talked about discarded items which are 'cognitive anchors' of the past; in workshop settings which spark more humane conversations. So-called rubbish discarded artefacts are connectors or jumping off points for participants in communities to think about their possible futures.

PRESENTATION & PANEL

"Biosemiotics: Methodologically Evolving Applied Semiotics To Account For More Experiences, Deepen Relationships, And Transform Systems"

The bio-semiotic session in a way was a fitting finale to Semiofest for a reason in that profiled the best of our discipline: an interdisciplinary and pioneering spirit and the application of the life sciences and bio semiotics to the health sector. A sector that suffers from being reductionist in vision and is heavily regulated. There was so much to say about this. Malcolm shared this was the culmination of an ambition he set out in his 2016 Semiofest Keynote, No?l who led the initiative made it clear this is still a working progress in terms of fine tuning methodology but they have already done projects - integrating so many different perspectives to solving intractable health issues such as obesity. We heard from Yogi about the science and bio-semiotics of the human body, from Natasha on the unhelpfulness of the body as container metaphor and then from Colette and Susanna on the challenges of the actual methodology in action. The process of applying it to cardiovascular health and other issues is exciting. From work and personal experience that issues like loneliness and addictions cannot be medicalised out of existence and pathologising conditions and treating them only clinically seems like a busted flush at this point.. we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in health and at the cusp, I’m sure of a greater integration of the semiotics we know into health and the body into semiotics in our work generally.

Adelina Vaca, Alexandre Robert, Masha Papanthymou - "Wall Of Change"

Three artist semioticians from Mexico, France and Russia / Greece manned a stand in the main room to show a liminal art project which had a constant trail of curious visitors throughout the conference - often drawn by their eye catching 'Semiopirates' T-shirts. This was an art project exploring what 'change' means to people in the world via asking them to create art postcards on that theme.

The Semiopirates state: "Welcome to the Wall of Change. In a context of often overwhelming change, we wanted to explore what ? change ? means to people. We asked them to illustrate this word using the technique of their choice (painting, drawing, collage etc.), confronting them with a huge concept and a blank postcard. We collected over 100 postcards from 5 countries, that will be exhibited both physically in Ikaria, Greece, and digitally, here. Symbols and patterns across cultures will be analyzed. Keep tuned for more!"

You can find out more about the Semiopirates here: https://semiopirates.com

They say, go to the website and share yours too, and stay tuned for the results!

After a hard day 'semiotizing' many of us wanted to relax with a glass of port and listen to some beautiful vocals which we found in our Club De Fado evening.

To listen to and / or buy their music search for Carla Cortez or Rogerio Rocha.

DAY 3 - SATURDAY 25th MAY - CLIENT DAY with LIPOR - CASA DA CORIM

Semiofest wasn't totally over, as there was still to come its very beautiful coda.

The client day on the Saturday of Semiofest is designed to get our attendees to work together to solve a live client problem.?We started this addition to the overall programme back in Paris 2015 with French clients Citroen and Essilor and it proved such a great success that we haven’t looked back! We have done it in some capacity in every Semiofest since, as it always delivers good value. We have since migrated to social innovation brands to avoid conflicts of interest.

The feedback we get is that it is a lovely way to end the proceedings by proving to external parties the power of semiotic thinking. Clients, for their part, get the benefit of globally sourced, top quality, brand communication problem-solving driven by semiotics and the benefit of smart international perspectives on their problem in a compressed time frame. Participants are thrilled to work with some colleagues they may have either met for the first time at conference and struck up conversations with or people they have admired for some time online. In this unique setting they get a chance to pool intelligences in a mixed ability group.

The output from the day was a cascade of new ideas from new product and packaging ideas, service design, brand campaigns, corporate repositioning, cultural insights and lateral thinking around the status of their business and smart ways to frame it. For our part we saw it as a cultural mission to confront users which the sanitised invisible of rubbish and to reframe putrefaction as a positive and a route to fertility in the context of cycles of regeneration. As often happens the client was stunned at the sheer volume of ideas generated in only 2.5 hours and the power of semiotics in doing it. Ultimately, for me it's proof of concepts that semiotics is a problem solving methodology and that we practice the thinking not just for its own sake but so we can deploy it for client benefit!

So that's it. Thanks for reading. And how do I feel?

Not only that my spirit is fed by the amazing content, people and conversations but more importantly the way I can live the event vicariously through the eyes of others. These eyes are lit up. Often it is solo practitioners have never been truly affirmed in their vocation as part of professional practice or part of a cohort of others who have similar struggles and triumphs and who can finally feel ‘seen’.

It’s the students who have graduated and worry that they’re not going to be able to get a job and see people making a living at this thing we call semiotics and suddenly believe that with some time it might just be possible for them too.

It is the academics who are used to the cut and thrust and let’s face it one up man (and woman) ship of academic conferences and can’t quite believe the level of openness, sharing and generosity of spirit they encounter with us.

This is the best bit of Semiofest for me – realising we’ve built a platform that breeds acceptance, affirmation and engenders confidence through inspiration.

It made me realise Semiofest is a liminal space between the competitiveness of many academic conferences and sharper practices of commercial conferences. This is why initially we cast ourselves as an 'Unconference', because we wanted to provide an experience a service, that we ourselves could not find elsewhere!

It also made me realise this a right of passage for many people. Newcomers said that coming here has made them feel like doing commercial semiotics as possible. One even expressed the feeling that “God exists” by the fact that they have seen now other versions of the unique species they thought they were. For those that find semiotics hard to sell in their market and lonely to practice, every Semiofest is indeed an oasis. I found it in 2012 and others have found this since.

Through this ritual of Semiofest every two years we create a liminal space for a growing communitas to mutually connect. I’m so glad to have played some part.

So to organisers Nuno, Colette and Peter, but especially to Susanna and Sónia:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! OBRIGADO! OBRIGADO! OBRIGADO!

If you want to join our next Semiofest Sessions happening monthly, then you can subscribe to our site for notifications here: https://www.semiofest.com

If you are interesting in bidding for Semiofest 2026, it's a bit early ;) but once we do announce our official opening of bids you can mail us [email protected].

Cheers,

Chris