What’s in a landscape?  The term Landscape denotes the interaction of people and place or a social group and its spaces.  Landscape is one of the key terms of the discipline of geography.  Landscape refers to the spaces from which a social group derives some part of its shared identity and meaning.

How do we understand Landscape?  How are landscapes produced and consumed?  We need to examine what elements are involved in each side of the relationship. Landscape Perceived - Mati Klarwein

Representation and signifying practices  Representation connects meaning and language to culture.  It is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture.  Landscapes are a form of representation.

Signs and Representation  The general term we use for words, sounds or images which carry meaning is Signs.  Any sound, word, image or object which functions as a sign, and is organized with other signs into a system and is capable of carrying and expressing meaning is a language.  The process which links things, concepts and signs is what we call Representation.

Codes  The relationships between concepts and signs is fixed through Codes.  They stabilize meaning.  They make it possible for us to speak and hear intelligibly.  Codes are a product of culture such that, in various languages, certain signs will stand for or represent certain concepts.

Meaning is constructed  So, what’s the point: that meaning does not inhere in things, it is constructed, produced.  It is the result of signifying practice—a practice that produces meaning, that makes thing mean.  Things don’t mean: we construct meaning using representational systems—concepts and signs.

The Signifying Process  A sign can be broken down into two elements:  Signifier (which is the word or image of an IPod, for example)  Signified (which is the concept in your head of a portable music device)  In short, the sign is the union of a form which signifies (signifier) and the idea of it (signified).

Writers and Readers  Every signifier given or encoded with meaning by a sender has to be meaningfully interpreted or decoded by the receiver.  Signs which have not been intelligibly received and interpreted are not, in any sense, ‘meaningful’.

Semiotics  Since all cultural objects convey meaning (think landscape), and all cultural practices depend on meaning, they must make use of signs: and in so far as they do, they must work like language works, and be amenable to an analysis.  Semiotics is that analysis: a method for analyzing how visual representations convey meaning.

The Devil Wears Prada  Let’s take a look at a cultural code in action and how it incorporates all the elements we have talked about so far:  Signs (Signifier and Signified)  Signifying Practices  Representations  Codes  Semiotics

Semiotics and Landscape  Just like fashion, landscapes can be read and interpreted.  Sometimes there are knowing subjects who are aware of the codes and can read them with ease.  For others, the landscape must be studied in order to derive meaning from it.  In all cases, meaning is likely to differ from reader to reader.