Semiotics and phenomenology

Semiotics is a sign system, a way of interpreting and reading signs in theatre. Sometimes within an image it allows us to discover particular things about the area or people within them because of what the image is portraying from items such as clothes or the way someone is standing in comparison to someone else etc.
You can tell how someone feels about themselves by the way they are acting in the picture or the way they are interacting with the environment. it allows us to determine a time in which they became comfortable with themselves due to the clothes they wear because these could be a demonstration of that.

Dennis Severs house is a good example of a theatrical but practical piece of semiotics, the house was bought by an American called Dennis Severs and was adapted and built up to look like a house that belonged in the 19t century. All the aspects of the house were a representation of that period and allows the viewer to believe they re witnessing a house from that period and all the rooms were made to look as if the people were still around the house but you never see them. This is an example of semiotics because a lot of the items were only a representation rather than the actual but collectively those 'signs' allow the viewer to believe in that experience and those characters of the family even though they are never seen.

'Scenography involves the manipulation of the visual and spatial environment of a performance'
   Joslin McKinney

As theatre designers we deal with the whole picture and focus the audience to aspects within that space.

Phenomenology: a philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are perceived or understood in human consciousness and not independent of human consciousness.

Bert O. States said Furniture designates space as a place, meaning that the situation or placement of something determines the interpretation of that space. We read everything by scale in comparison to us.

Books recommended:
Daniel Miller-stuff, collection of things
Arnold Aronson-looking into the abyss
John Berger-ways of seeing
Martin Heidegger