Spatial composition as intersemiotic translation: The journey of a pattern through time from a translation semiotics theory perspective

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper I examine cases where spatial composition produces intersemiotic translations for artistic and advertising purposes in a period where globalization permits and profits by the intertextual evoking of cultural texts. Thus globalization gives us the chance to promote new messages that contribute, in their turn, to a series of cultural interpretations that enrich the forms of modern communication. Accepting one of the basic theses of Translation Semiotics that intersemiotic translation or transmutation may occur among nonverbal sign systems, I will be examining cases of intersemiotic (intericonic) translations having as source texts artistic texts. My basic conclusion is that in these intersemiotic translations the source text although absent, is always present due to world cultural memory. Furthermore, the repetitiveness in the use of these old and well-known original texts, and their inscription in the collective memory as high cultural value texts, seems to affect the fact that they have been chosen as texts capable of being transmuted. Finally, I argue that translation can also be understood as a re-narration of cultural knowledge using different signs but on the same or similar sign space.