Abstract
Indexicality as a logic category of signs anchors semiotic cognition and reality. As photographs record the existence of objects, indexicality is considered as the evidence of the "objectivity" of photographic signs. With the development of digital technology, indexicality seems to decline and even disappear, since the objects of images no longer necessarily exist. Yet, in Peircean semiotics, the relationship between indices and objects could be either "existential" or "empty", and the latter is further interpreted by Roman Jakobson with the concept of "shifters", a term re-visited in contemporary semiotics of art and image. In the semiotic production of digital images, embodied cognition and mind construction enable indexicality to strike back in the present tense: filling of "empty" indices has become an important feature of semiotic communication in the era of digital technology.
First Page
136
Last Page
148
Recommended Citation
Peng, Jia. 2020. "Indexicality Strikes Back: From the Photographical Past to the Digital Present." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 40, (6): pp.136-148. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol40/iss6/5
