Archive for January, 2016

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Semionaut Award 2016

Thursday, January 28th, 2016

 

The editorial team is delighted to be launching the second Semionaut Award for new writing in the area of semiotics, communication, culture and branding.

The winner will receive a prize, sponsored by Space Doctors, of $1000 USD – plus the opportunity to work on one or more applied semiotics projects for commercial clients and benefit from collaboration with experienced professionals in this field. The prize will be awarded to the winner of a short essay contest (600 to maximum 1500 words), in the Semionaut genre embodied by the pieces on the site and the entries shortlisted for the last award , with deadline for entrants of 17th April 2016.

TarkSol

All candidates shortlisted will, like the winner, have their work published by Semionaut and receive detailed feedback from experienced analysts plus guidance on next steps in terms of Semionaut network contacts and possible career development.

The contest is open to students and recent graduates world wide.  It will be judged by a panel comprising representatives from Semionaut editorial and Space Doctors along with one of the best know names in academic semiotics internationally. The award will be based on the quality of insight, analysis and creative flair displayed in the 600-1500 word essay submitted by the successful candidate.  This may, if appropriate, be supported by a larger body of work showing evidence of the skills we are looking to showcase. All material submitted should be written in English.

Key criteria in reaching the final decision will be the accessibility of the analysis and writing, with potential appeal to a non-specialist non-academic readership, and what people in the marketing and consumer insight world call actionability – work which embodies the usefulness of this type of analysis and the things that can be done with it, in terms of brand strategy, public policy, or advancing a cause.

For full competition rules and to submit your entry please email awards@semionaut.net

Links to the papers shortlisted for the first Semionaut Award:

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-arief/

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-celeny/

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-hannah/

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-matthew/

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-taras/

http://www.semionaut.net/short-list-troy/

 

Posted in Clients & Brands, Consumer Culture, Culture, Experts & Agencies, Network, Semiotics | No Comments »

Tamasha: the other you inside

Monday, January 25th, 2016

Tamasha, released in November 2015, did only moderately well at the box office. But it got people talking. Underneath all the Mona-Ajit humour and the love story, there is a message in the movie that may be worth digging out and looking at.

It is not the familiar tale of following your dreams. There are plenty of Bollywood fables around the struggle of becoming a cricketer, musician or runner.

Tamasha_(film_poster)

It creates conversation because it is perhaps the only one that conducts a considered exploration of the dilemma between individual and societal identity in India.

For aeons, identity in India has been contiguous in nature. You never imagined your existence independently – still to date, in youth focus groups, ambitions centre on buying a house and car for the parents – the future self was visualized through the lens of family and society.

It was not just a shared identity but a societal identity one had to undertake. You had to cater to a societal ‘idea’ of who you were. You had to choose from a caste system of cookie-cutter identities on offer, doctor, engineer or IAS (soon followed by MBA).

No matter your individual uniqueness, you were obliged to fit into one of these moulds in order to be certified ‘successful’. Each ‘identity’ came with an unwritten code on how to live, talk, and behave. You had to give up your real self once you joined this program.

Everything ‘you’, that did not fit the mould was extruded out to become a ‘hobby’ you were free to practice on a Sunday. ‘Hobby’ was a mechanism to release the ‘abnormal you’, so as not to interfere with your social mobility and societal standing.

Individualism had little space in this struggle for upward mobility. Individualized hairstyles were largely absent. People with weird hair and casual behaviour were in the arts and journalism. They lived as they wanted but we were warned adequately that these people had to struggle all their life.

Meanwhile the exiled, abnormal you would make occasional appearances when it had an opportunity or when society gave permission to be yourself. It would find expression in college festivals or on Holi or at quiz competitions or at a wedding sangeet or at an office cricket league or betting pool.

Tamasha talks about this extruded us, the abnormal us, the ‘other you inside’ that we always carry within. Tamasha is about the bi-polar existence of us. Tamasha is (an exploration and) a calling to get in touch with the real you.

Tamasha is reflective of the changes taking place in Indian society. The technology, economic and business environment is throwing up opportunities that no longer fit the traditional mould. The digitalization of India makes it possible for us to pursue our unique strengths and yet be successful without submitting to any program that robs us from ourselves. The societal and individual identity for once is collapsing and fusing into one. Today it is possible to be successful without giving up on who you really are. Indian youth for the first time have a tremendous opportunity to live out extremely authentic lives, 24X7.

For the first time there is talk of running a race of your own choice rather than running on a track designed by your parents and society. Today it is possible to dream your own dream rather than being a vehicle for playing out a dream handed over to you by your parents and society.

(We see evidence of this blossoming individualism in the mushrooming of hairstyles. Today’s youthful hairstyles of spikes and textures and slashes and cuts, stand up and speak out aloud the individuality of the person sporting it, rather than being helplessly flattened with hair oil to convey conformity. The Indian cricketer’s varied hairstyles are perhaps a good example of this proliferation of individual identities).

Tamasha celebrates this world where this unique madness of ours is worn on our sleeves and we live out the ‘tamasha’ inside us instead of choosing to live a normative life chosen by others. The time is right to let the ‘other you inside’ step out and play and cavort on the stage that is today’s India.

© Subodh Deshpande 2016

See here for Tamasha production details and plot summary.

Posted in Asia, Culture, Emergence, Global/Local, Making Sense | No Comments »

Adele Revisited

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016

As we can see in Saturday Night Live’s “A Thanksgiving Miracle” sketch (November 21, 2015), in the United States, Adele has entered the pantheon of iconic showbiz figures — along with Marilyn Monroe, Bill Murray, and Flavor Flav — about whom nothing more need ever be said. She is operating on the astral plane of influence.

 

 

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Homes in India (2)

Tuesday, January 12th, 2016

Editor’s note: Continuing our headlining of an extended cultural and ethnographic study.  To request a copy of the full document please email editorial@semionaut.net or sraboni.bhaduri@futurebrands.co.in

Continuum of the private and the public space:

Traditionally the separation between the private home space and the public space is notional. There is an inherent need to stay embedded within the community network and keep up with each other’s life with a mixture of concern, support and gossip. The home and the immediate area outside the home, peek into each other without any discomfort. Homes are built around a central space like the courtyard onto which the rooms open out, which is structurally true to the notion of seeing and being seen. The idea of privacy is a modern one. Shutting the door is a very loaded act and signifies cutting off from the collective ‘view.’

home2

The threshold as a symbol:

The self extends to a shared community space but at the same time the world outside the home is where the pollutants and the evil influences reside. The sanctity of the home needs to be retrieved from the outside world. The threshold becomes an important structure which marks this separation between the self and the other. The threshold and the main door even in modern homes are heavily decorated and personalized to announce status and ownership, while various devices ward off the evil eye.

home1

Fluidity of spaces:

Within the home, the drawing room continues its dialogue with the community. Showcases stuffed with trophies won by children. Their toys and souvenirs tell the story of the family and all that makes them proud and memories that they hold precious. The other rooms remain tucked away from public view. Modernization manifests itself through the appearance of aesthetics. For the first time, décor has become part of the narrative. The rooms now have boundaries but the separation is still fairly fluid. The fluidity is marked by softness that a curtain offers versus the hard separation of the door. The specialized function of a room remains negotiable so it is not unimaginable to have study table in the living room or to tuck away a bucket under the bed.

© Sraboni Bhaduri 2016

Posted in Asia, Culture, Global Vectors, Making Sense | No Comments »

Hello from the Other Side

Wednesday, January 6th, 2016

 

Editor’s note: Adele lives down the road from Semionaut’s secret undersea base near Brighton UK and, for us Brits, she mythically resolves the contradiction between your mate and a stellar talent greater than any who came before her (also author and immaculate vocal interpreter of the best Bond song ever, by some significant distance). Taylor Swift, eat your heart out.  And so on – pick whoever you like. They won’t come close. So it’s refreshing to receive a brave and insightful contribution from the other side of the world, one which has the courage to have a shot at decoding the ‘meaning’ of Adele. For which, many thanks Subodh – our new contributor. Connotations of “the other side” in colloquial English: beyond the grave (look at Adele’s face on the cover of 25, not wanting to start any Abbey Road-type rumours or anything); the opposition, the enemy; across the water (for Brits the Americans on ‘the other side of the pond’); the Other of the primal I-Thou pairing, a founding source of identity – all subjectivity having been intersubjectivity long before neuroscience discovered the mirror neurons; the other side of the end of a relationship, one which thought it would last for ever. We publish this as a conversation opener. Please come back to us. Anyone. Everyone. It’s good to start with a decoding voice from a culture where a man can still use the word ‘frumpy’ without having to resort (as would be necessary for the word to be sayable in the West) to camp archness or ostentatious half-ironic bitchiness – and to do so without pre-emptive fear of gender armageddon from the other side, from those who once made the mistake of caring too much. The house lights dim. Hello, it’s me. Who is speaking? 

Hello from the Other Side: the Meaning in Adele’s Music

Adele’s 25 has become the year’s biggest-selling album in the US, with a record 3.38m copies sold in its first full week of release. She cuts a distinctive figure amidst the female pop stars of today with her unique brand of music. Her heart-broken ballads are heard everywhere from taxi radios to cafes to salons and airport lounges. What makes her unique brand of music so popular?

Adele has often been quoted saying that she strives for a certain effect in her songs, its ability to move her. This tear-inducing quality is the key ingredient of Adele’s music. Adele’s lyrics have a strong universal character. She appears to be narrating our story. She has this operatic ability to convey the tragedy of modern relationships; that makes our hearts ache with reminiscence. Listening to Adele becomes a cathartic act. She creates a new genre of music; she is a ‘Cathartist’.

adele-announces-25-release-date-cover-art

Adele embodies this tragic figure. She comes across as a smiling survivor; bravely carrying on with her life. Her generous figure, ordinarily dressed (sometimes bordering on the frumpy), is very unlike the sleek, glamorous, airbrushed stars. She appears very much the ‘hapless girl’; the one who gets dumped; half expecting the love of her life to turn back.

There is perhaps another function to Adele’s songs. The technology of today erases time and distance and we experiences lives where everything is within immediate reach. Adele’s music negates this and creates a sense of distance and loss. Her music is like a reverse telescope. It manufactures distance: people appear further than they really are. In a world where we are constantly connected, her songs suggest the pain of separation. Today when lives are lived out on Facebook, it is hard to lose touch with people even if you un-friend them, and one often ‘bumps’ inadvertently into ones exes in the digital world. Adele creates a tunnel of nostalgia and wistfulness for us to dive into. Ensconced in her music; our loss appears considerable and significant, as it ought to.

Just as the telephone was this heavy contraption that made our relationships precious by making our loved ones barely audible and out of touch, (The sheer ease of smart phones compresses our world; people appear close at all times) Adele’s songs make us feel a palpable sense of loss in a world where technology with its pervasiveness and immediacy conspires to dilute it. Adele makes us believe that it is in fact a dense wall that separates us from those we once loved and once in a while we can peer across and say hello from the other side.

© Subodh Deshpande 2015

Posted in Asia, Culture, Fuzzy Sets, Lateral Navigation, Making Sense, Technology | No Comments »