NEWS

The 4^th International Conference on Semiotics and Visual Communication is organised under the theme ‘Myths Today’. The event will take place from the 13^th to the 15^th of November 2020 at the premises of Cyprus University of Technology in Lemesos.

It is organized by the Cyprus Semiotics Circle together with the Semiotics and Visual Communication Research Lab and the Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts of Cyprus University of Technology. The conference aims to investigate the broad subject fields of Semiotics and Visual Communication in a widest context, celebrating the exploration of connections, tensions, contradictions and complementarity between the diversity of research outputs under the subject of ‘Myths Today’. The conference is organised under the auspices of International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS) and the Hellenic Semiotics Society (HSS).

The notion of myth as defined by Roland Barthes in the late 1950’s, provided a theoretical framework under which daily habits, as well as consumer practices can be examined as socially constructed signs, idealized through verbal narratives. While ‘myth is a type of speech’, it is also a type of image, typeface, cinema, photography, sports, online network, cyber space, politics, TV show, sound, fashion, since all these can serve as a groundwork to mythical discourses. Myth is a mode of signification that is ‘not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message…’ Whether verbal or nonverbal, when signs become meaningful they enter the mythical sphere and communicate culturally constructed messages. Under this framework, the current conference builds on the enduring significance of this concept, and aims to explore myths today, in the context of global networks, globalisation, visual and mass communication.

What types of myths are constructed and chosen, nowadays? How does official culture, oppositional and/or popular culture, constructs powerful new myths? How are these myths communicated through, or symbolically reflected, verbally as well as audio-visually, for example on advertisements, social networks, logos, tourism campaigns, multimedia, the internet, films, or mass media? Whilst these are macro-examples, we might also look at micro-examples, such as music co-opted into myth; the meaning of tourism memorabilia; the sub-texts of advertisements drawing on nostalgic images of the past; branding; the typography on holiday brochures; political speeches and gestures (for example how Presidents wave from planes, their guiding hand on a fellow leader’s back as they step into a summit); social networking; self-branding ideologies; the significance of a Monarch’s headwear, the myths of the fashion system, celebrity, gaming and entertainment culture, popularity and online recognition, typo-myths, etc.

Under the scope of uncovering and investigating myths today, we invite papers that examine the Conference’s theme through macro and/or micro examples, during a quite socio-politically unstable era where comprehending these phenomena and providing effective readings becomes not only increasingly important, but sometimes vital for survival. The Conference seeks to bring together scholars, researchers and practitioners who share a common interest in Semiotics and Visual Communication.

The Conference accepts papers in English and Greek language. Only accepted authors with physical presence at the conference will be legible to publish their work in the selected proceedings. We welcome proposals for individual papers (approximately 20 minutes long plus 10 minutes for discussion), related (but not limited) to one of the following main themes:

1. Signs and the Rhetoric of Myths
2. Myths and Political Communication
3. Myths of Identity
4. Visual Arts and Images of Myths
5. Myths in Social, Political or Commercial Advertising
6. Myths in Architecture or Applied Design (Graphic-Interior-Product-Fashion-Landscape)
7. Myths in Lifestyles and Branding
8. Myths in Mass Media Communication (Newspaper-Magazines-Television-Cinema)
9. Myths in Interactive Media and Social Networks
10. Memes-Myths