1. War Languages, 2009 Art, media, gender Vesa Matteo Piludu University of Helsinki

2. Art and media Art was and is a media, is communicative In the past, art was the media par exellence In art rarely we find realistic descriptions of war Art is suitable to propaganda Art could have a strong emotive impact on pubblic In art the people try to find hidden truth that aren’t express in journalistic writing

3. Roman Jakobson and art semiotics Semiotics, conceived of by Roman Jakobson, has 6 components: 1. Addressor (artist) 2. Addressee (viewer) 3. Message 4. Code 5. Medium of communication 6. Context

4. Semiosphere - artistic production in a communicative frameworkd Cultural contest (Christianity) Artistic contest (Renaissance) Sender (artist)Message (painting) Receivers (general pubblic, Web of symbolscommissioners, scholars, interpreters) Code (language)Reaction (painting)(positive indifferent negative protest)

5. Symbols, meaning Difference between the symbol (signifier) and the meaning of the symbol (significans) Certain symbols have an enormous capacity of resistence (conservativism of symbols) The same symbol can have different meanings in different cultural contests (cultural relativism) If the coultural contest changes, the interpretation of the symbol could changes (symbolic dynamic) Juri Lotman

6. Late Ervin Goffmann: Gender roles We cal learn about expectation about sex roles by looking at the signifiers (symbols) itself Focus on details, on the visual symbols In visual arts: interesting variables as activity and passivity dominance and subordination Childishness and maturity Sexuality and death Peace and war Generation and destruction Killer and killed Raping and raped