A Report on the Semiotic Summer Retreat in Olomouc.
By Nick Cavazos
In the fantastic book Sonic Experience, which describes the relationship between sound and the urban environment, philosopher Jean-François Augoyard and sociologist Henry Torgue define the phenomenon of resonance as being “the vibration, in air or through solids, of a solid element. The production of resonance requires a relatively high acoustic level and a concordance between the exciting frequency and the object put into vibration” (Augoyard, Torgue 2006: 99).
In less academically defined terms, we can say that resonance seems to occur when two or more objects of various sorts enter into a complementary and “resonant” relationship through vibration. The effects of this vibration can sometimes be rather subtle while other times these vibrations can lead to disruptive situations such as the moment a glass of wine shatters due to someone singing just the right pitch at just the right volume. This wineglass example is a classic one that illustrates the fact that resonance as a phenomenon seems to possess quite an explosive potentiality at its core.
In our own everyday usage of the word ‘resonance’, we tend to take a less academic yet related approach. We say something ‘resonates’ with us whenever an experience such as a lecture, book, song, painting or conversation stands apart from other similar experiences and seems to connect with us at a deeper level than initially expected. Something about that song resonated with our past experiences or relationships, or maybe that book makes you feel a certain way that you hadn’t in years.
Noting these two loosely defined versions of the word we have considered above, we could say that resonance is one of the more interesting concepts we come across within our studies since it appears in so many various aspects of life. Resonance appears not only in the acoustic, sound and physics domains but also in the mathematical, biological, and as this conference showed, the semiotic as well. In whichever domain we discuss the term, resonance seems to mark a tipping point, a point at which any given system (social, acoustic, psychological, etc.) enters into a state of rapid change. If we were steadfast Lotmanians, we might even venture as far as saying these moments possess quite an ‘explosive’ character.
It would be appropriate then to say that the Semiotics of Resonance conference, hosted by the International Semiotics Institute in Olomouc, Czech Republic, did an incredible justice to the term since by the end of the entire retreat, I could say that there, in fact, seemed to be quite a shared sense of this communal “resonance” across every participant. Everyone seemed to share such similar interests in many of the topics; everyone seemed tuned to the same frequency.
The retreat, hosted in the beautiful Palacký University Arts Centre, took place across four days of fascinating discussions relating to the concept of resonance within a semiotic framework. Throughout the program, an incredibly wide variety of themes and topics were discussed, such as the usage of sound and resonance as a weapon, the semiotics of musical perception and even discussions on the relevancy of terms such as “primary” versus “secondary” modelling systems in today’s semiotic climate. The lineup of thinkers was incredibly diverse, and it was an incredible experience to witness the breadth of intellectual backgrounds many presenters carried. It felt like a true coming together of minds within the semiotic community, and I walked away from every presentation with a handful of new ideas and ways of looking at things through a semiotic lens that I previously hadn’t had.
As for the programming of the retreat, each day consisted of a mix of both shorter-form student presentations alongside lengthier plenary presentations and workshops. Each presenter was given time to showcase and discuss their ideas with a following discussion panel where the audience could also participate and ask questions. This format overall seemed very successful and led to a very natural back-and-forth dynamic between the presenter and the audience. The student presentations were mixed in between some of the longer plenary speakers, which kept the day feeling very dynamic and alive; it seemed every day had roughly equal attendance across all of the lectures as well, which I think speaks to the overall level of interesting content the conference curated as a whole.
As for the content of the retreat there were an incredible amount of standout student presentations and unfortunately due to constraint for time (as well as my lack of thorough note-taking abilities) I can only name a few in particular.
Several times throughout the conference, the recognition of the semiotic link between the voice and the face was brought to attention and Andrea Miccolis’ Between voice and face: semiotic relationships was probably the one that got me thinking the most. When we think about the fact that both facial expressions and human language are sign systems, which one can we then say takes priority? The situation presents an interesting phenomenological interplay since both the face as well as voice (even tone) are all conveying a semiotic mixture that we must understand for any form of meaning to concretely be arrived at in communication
Another fascinating student presentation was Archimboldo’s smile: fractures in the realism of Roberto Bolano’s 2666 by Jorge Luis Flores. The lecture focused on the dystopian novel set out by famed Hispanic writer Roberto Bolano, who seems to posit that art, perhaps alone, has the ability to strike through the degenerating society of the world of 2666. In a world that may seem increasingly like the one of Bolano’s novels, this lecture stood out for having such an incredible relevancy to us in a time where global disinformation and social discohesion are increasingly becoming the norm. The student presentations were alone worth the price of admission but the plenary speakers also held no punches. Presentations such as Ekaterina Velmezova’s A “crisis” or a “golden age”? Phonetics at the beginning of the 20th century (about the notion of epistemological expectation) led us through the winding twists and turns that are the history of the last century’s deeply contested debates within the linguistic sphere.
Július Fujak led students through a fascinating musical workshop where even the very room of the conference itself was being used as “instrumentation”. Students were encouraged to use any means necessary to produce sound in the room, whether it be stomping of feet, clapping of hands, or even slapping the wall. By the end of the workshop, Fujak himself was lying on the floor, tapping and slapping the ground to show that almost any sound can add to a composition if done in a deliberate fashion.
The day’s presentations and workshops were then followed up by multiple evenings of garden parties, pub crawls, DJ sets and many other activities that got us up and around the city of Olomouc. Having never been to the Czech Republic myself, I was quite taken aback when I first arrived in the city. Olomouc is perhaps one of the more interesting small-yet-connected European cities I have been to so far, and just like Tartu in Estonia, Olomouc has quite a large student population. The city itself contains quite a large area of cobblestone streets and alleyways, which might at first sound just like any other European city (Old Town in Tallinn, for instance), but to say that about Olomouc would be doing it quite a disservice. The architecture is quite varied, with numerous church and school buildings having a very unique character of their own. The public transportation system is incredible as well, and it can get you to pretty much any area of the city within 15 minutes. The whole city felt very alive, which I think made it an excellent choice for the conference.
Having now gone over the event, the speakers and finally the location, what can we ultimately take away from all this? As stated previously, the theme of resonance was an incredibly apt one to choose overall for the Semiotic Resonance retreat and I think the coordinators of the conference should feel incredibly proud of themselves for the work they did in terms of curating the event. Both Ľudmila Bennett and Israel Chavez did such an amazing job putting on this retreat that I (and I’m sure many others) felt inspired by their efforts and saw that it was indeed possible to bring interesting thinking within semiotics to a scale I myself hadn’t quite witnessed before. The ideas discussed were fascinating, rigorous, challenging as well as enlightening; no one presenter seemed to be there just to add another line to their CV. It is for these reasons that I think the Semiotic Resonance retreat was a resounding success, and that I am eagerly awaiting the International Semiotic Institute’s next project.
– Nick Cavazos
Featured photo credit: 2024
References:
Augoyard, Jean-François; Torgue, Henry 2006. Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.