Abstract
Research in fields such as multimodality and semiotics has focused on creation of value in different forms: aesthetic, economic and symbolic. However, the destruction of value has attracted much less attention. The aim of this article is to identify social, semiotic and ideological functions of acts of destruction based on an analysis of the traces these acts leave on the urban environment. Five overarching acts of destruction are discussed, but the authors’ main focus is on what they call transformation-driven and social presence-driven destruction, with two examples from Sweden and South Africa. The article discusses sanctioned destructive acts that are largely in compliance with dominating semiotic regimes at a certain time and place, as well as disruptive actions that challenge or even disobey those regimes. The analysis shows how a distinction between sanctioned and disruptive is in no way clear and often depends on complex power distributions between semiotic regimes at a given time and place. In fact, traces in the physical environment that may point to or index highly destructive acts can, in relation to other semiotic regimes, be regarded as creative and constructive. The authors argue that the semiotic processes of destruction and the traces they leave deserve more attention from research in the fields of multimodality and semiotics.
Highlights
Expressionistic destructionThe first form of destruction is what we call ‘expressionistic’ destruction. This type of destruction could be a result of individual emotions such as frustration or anger
Multimodal approaches often look at the ‘making’ of something: a text representing an idea; a building as an invitation to specific social actions; or an artefact that can be viewed or sold
Traces of destruction are related to semiotic regimes, namely the norms that enable and restrict different types of meaning-making at a given time and place, albeit in sometimes complex and contradictory ways
Summary
The first form of destruction is what we call ‘expressionistic’ destruction. This type of destruction could be a result of individual emotions such as frustration or anger. An example of destruction through consumption could be throwing a takeaway coffee cup in the garbage bin after finishing its content This is a fully sanctioned act of destruction linked to the modernist consumer economy, namely ‘use and destroy’. The unsanctioned version of consumption-driven destruction leaves traces exactly where the act of destruction through consumption takes place: shattered glass bottles in a park, open ice-cream packages on the streets or crushed plastic containers along the highway. Industrialization depends on this type of destructive behaviour. The ‘semiotic regimes’ in an environment that values re-use can transform the theoretical semiotic potentials of resources, combining them with other semiotic potentials, perhaps aesthetic ones or those tied to sustainability
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