Burt O. States' "The World on Stage"

 At the beginning of this essay we are asked to consider the ways in which one may generally  approach, "signs."

 

 

 Semiotic Approach:

 

 

 --What is happening on stage? Are these props placed here reason - or are they just for shits and giggles?  The article opens by suggesting that things are deliberately placed on stage for "artistic purposes"  and are considered 'signs'. It is a personal choice by the designers created to make one consider what it's purpose is within the design. These signs possess "iconic identity" in other words "it is, what it is." Take it or leave it.

 

 

Phenomenologic Approach:

 

--Signs or certain objects have a, "life cycle, achieve their vitality--and in turn the vitality of theater--not simply by signifying the world but by being of it."

 

 

Here the power of signs is put nicely by  Peter Handke (Kaspar and Other Plays):

 

"In the theater light is brightness pretending to be other brightness, a chair is a chair pretending to be another chair, and so on."

 

 

Phenomonologic signs are a matter of perspective. Look at the chair--what does it possess? A history? Where was it made? What is it made of? What does it mean to the person using it?

 

 

Ideas from the Author (Burt O. States):

 

 

--Opening with a quote from Victor Shklovsky,

 

"Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important."

 

--He suggests that this stems from the phenomenological approach in that we are removing an objects iconic identity and seeing things from a fresh and individual perspective.

 

--States is also heavy on Shklovky's idea that, "art is a way of bringing us  home via an 'unfamiliar' route".

 

--"Phenomenological philosophy is a continual desymbolization of the world." --"It is the disease that interests the phenomonologist not the germ that causes it or the stages of its progress."  (see pg. 24 footnote 10)

 

--SIGN vs. IMAGE