"Except for the immediate satisfaction of biological needs, man lives in a world of not things but of symbols."
Von Bertalanffy L. General System Theory (1968), Braziller in Bolinger D. Language the Loaded Weapon (1980) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.7

"We can identify a system by looking at what has been discarded from the system and classified as dirt or rubbish." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.9

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) Swiss professor of linguistics (p.13)
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) American philosopher, a parallel study of signs he called semiotics. (p.13)
The sign as central to both of their studies

The "divorce between meaning and form is called duality." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.17

"Duality freed concept and symbol from each other to the extent that change could now modify one without affecting the other." Chafe W. Meaning and the Structure of Language (1970) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.17

"All that is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of people that one thing will stand for another." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.18

René Magritte The Betrayal of Images (1929) and The Key of Dreams (1930) p.20

"The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity." Wittgenstein L. Philosophical Investigations (1953) in Gablik S. Magritte (1970) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.20

Marcel Broodthaers The Farm Animals (1974) p.21

Pierce, coined the term "semiosis" to "describe transfer of meaning; the act of signifying" and "not a one-way process with a fixed meaning." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.34

Saussure "looked at what we mean by something in relation to what we do not mean by something." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.36

"For Saussure, signification is achieved by using the mental concepts, the signifieds, to categorize reality so that we can understand it." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p. 36

"Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from the simultaneous presence of the others." de Saussure F. Course in General Linguistics (1974) (1st edition 1915) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.36

"Where there is choice, there is meaning." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.43

Roland Barthes, 1960s developing Saussure's ideas
"Barthes' ideas centre on two different levels of signification: denotation and connotation" Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p. 54

"Whereas Saussure saw linguistics as forming one part of semiotics, Barthes turned this idea upside down and suggested that semiotics, the science of signs, was in fact one part of linguistics." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p. 54

"Language, says Barthes, is language minus speech; yet at the same time it is a social institution and a system of values." Barthes R. Elements of Semiology (1967) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.59

"His essays on myths in contemporary culture, draws attention to a range of misconceptions in French society about the properties and meanings we attach to images of the things around us."
"The purity of washing powder, the sport of wrestling, the Frenchness of wine."
Barthes, R. Mythologies (1972) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010)

"Barthes sets out a system for reading text/image combinations, which comprises three separate messages. The first message is described as the linguistic message. This is the text itself, usually in the form of a slogan or caption to the image."
"The second message is the coded iconic message. This is a symbolic message and works on the level of connotation. The reader is playing a part in the reading by applying their knowledge of the systematic coding of the image."
"The third message is described as the non-coded iconic message... This works on the level of denotation."
Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.73, 74

Alan Murphy Feline Hell p.73

"The medium cannot be separated from the message"

McLuhan M. and Fiore Q. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (1967) p.74

"Relay text advances the reading of the images by supplying meanings that are not to be found in the images themselves, as in film dialogue." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.74

Tom Gauld's Map of the Area Surrounding our Holiday Home (Relay text) p.79

"Bourdieu begins his assertions about legitimate language with Saussure's observation that neither languages nor dialects have natural limits." Bourdieu P. Language and Symbolic Power (1991)

Stefan Sagmeister Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far and Keeping a Diary Supports Personal Development. [official language]
"This one-minute clip about the importance of keeping a diary was shot in one day in an abandoned park. These stills show how a personal piece of information, which exists as an unofficial and unsanctioned statement, can be transformed into something that appears to have an authoritative voice." cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.99

"[Paul Willis] returns to Bourdieu's notion of fields by placing the subsidized artist on the periphery of the field of symbolic creativity rather than at the centre, reversing the traditional view by placing the public at the centre. Willis maintains that this symbolic activity is not only vibrant but necessary because human beings are communicating as well as producing beings; furthermore, whilst all are not productive, all are communicative. He stresses that the necessity of symbolic work has been forgotten and offers us a definition: 'The application of human capacities to and through, on and with symbolic resources and raw materials [collections of signs and symbols-- for instance the language as we inherit it, texts, images, films, songs, artifacts to produce meaning].'"
Willis P. Common Culture (1990) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.133

"Mary Douglas points out that dirt is the by-product of a system of order. Dirt has been rejected in a process of classification as the elements that are out of place. Douglas argues that if we look at what counts as dirt then we can begin to understand and identify the system that rejects it." Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.144

Douglas M. Purity and Danger (1966) p.144

"Our pollution behavior is the reaction which condemns any object or idea likely to confuse or contradict cherished classifications." Douglas M. Purity and Danger (1966) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.145

"Unofficial language is the dirt in a system that has rejected it in favor of an accepted and legitimate language choice:" Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.146
"As we know it, dirt is essentially disorder." Douglas M. Purity and Danger (1966) p.147 cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010)

"Since order and pattern are made from a limited selection of elements, there is then an implication that pattern is restricted in some way. Disorder, the enemy of pattern, could then be considered unlimited. Disorder has no pattern in itself but its potential for making pattern is infinite. " Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.147

"If a newsflash tells me that tomorrow the sun will rise, I have been given very little information as I could have worked this out for myself. If, however, the newsflash tells me that the sun will not rise, then I have a lot of information as this is a highly improbable event." Umberto Eco The Open Work (1962) p.166

Inversion of probability and information, Umberto Eco
"the amount of information is greater where the source is improbable" Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.168

"the richest form of communication-- richest because most open-- requires a delicate balance permitting the merest order within the maximum disorder." Eco U. The Open Work (1962) cited in Crow D. Visible Signs (2010) p.173