Introduction to Cybersemiotics: A Transdisciplinary Perspective - Paperback

by Carlos Vidales (Editor), Søren Brier (Editor)

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory.

Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter (Commind) constrains the former (interactants), but the former fuels the latter.

The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics.

Back Jacket

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory.

Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter (Commind) constrains the former (interactants), but the former fuels the latter.

The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics.

Author Biography

Søren Brier is an Associate professor, PhD, Dr. phil, in the Department of Management, Society, and Communication at the Copenhagen Business School. He is an interdisciplinary researcher that has moved from an MA in biology (ecology and behavioral sciences) over a gold medal thesis in psychology (philosophy of ethology) both Copenhagen U. through a PhD in philosophy of information sciences (Roskilde U.) after 10 year teaching at the Royal School of Library and Information science to a Habilitat in Cybersemiotics combining the natural, life, social and technical sciences with the humanities though an integration of a Peircean biosemiotic and Luhmann's autopoietic system science into a transdisciplinary framework (Copenhagen Business School).Cybersemiotics is now described in several international encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks in linguistics, semiotics, Informations science, cybernetics and system science. He created an interdisciplinary journal in the area called "Cybernetics & Human Knowing" in 1992 and have been editor-in-chief ever since.

Carlos Vidales is a Faculty Member of the Department of Social Communication Studies at the University of Guadalajara in Mexico. He is the author of several books, articles and book chapters all related with semiotics and communication theory. He is scholar of the International Communicology Institute, and the general coordinator of the undergraduate program in Public Communication in the University of Guadalajara. He is member of the National Research System of the Mexican Council of Science and Technology. "Managing Editor of the Journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".