My grappling with the reverie of symbols began in the early days of August when I spent a few consecutive days with a traveling artist. Said artist and I came in contact the same way as many people do in NYC during the information age: dating app. He made it known that he was an artist, “cool,” only visiting NY for vacation, “great,” and included a photo of him walking for Valentino [?], “interesting.” It’s not every day you get to talk to a model. I swiped right, we matched, set up a date, and spent the weekend together before he left the country. As we went about our days, many of our discussions were on topics regarding intentionality, work history, making modalities, and cultural differences; often accompanying whatever restaurant, park, or bar we were in.
We would occasionally talk about his experience with couture modeling, walking and photo shoots. I asked him what being a part of that world felt like. He [simply] said, “Weird.” He spoke of seeing exact duplicates of himself when going to open calls and distant family members bragging about him to their friends. As I listened to him talk, I became conscious of how I, like [non-hyperbolically] most people, feel the otherworldliness of the prolific “runway model.” Once someone finds themselves existing within that territory of fashion and design, they no longer model; they are, in fact, a model [emphasis on the preposition]. The social transcendence the artist experienced is perceptually rarer and more exclusive than shifting socio-economic class. We were cognizant of the social shift that was occurring to his identity as we talked, yet we lacked the proper vernacular to articulate the complexity his personhood superseded. Within a month of his first major modeling opportunity, the artist transformed from a man to concept, then product, and back again. He became a symbol.
We cannot and will never precede the symbols we consume. The symbols that concretize our understanding are as human as we are—working to be key sensorial ingredients for us to make sense of what we perceive. This first article in the symbols series aims to cover a fundamental understanding of a symbol as a form of communicator, its composition, some history, and a breakdown of our current systematic and sociological attachment to them from a design perspective.
This investigation of what a symbol is will begin with four key definitions. It is necessary for all critical explorations to establish a common ground of vernacular and comprehension; that way, these concepts are made malleable for clear abstraction. [To note: synonyms will never replace "symbol" throughout this essay. The words' utterance is continually reiterating a symbol as an umbrella term for other depictive communicative devices like glyphs, icons, notes, etc.] Two of the definitions I will be examining come from online institutional sources, while another two come from locally interpretive sources. "Local" being an origin comprising immediate community and environments that influence the interpretation of a symbol. It is vital to explore informational sources that are not standardized as the only basis of logic to draw on, as other means of understanding provide different insights. No one definition takes priority, as all are relevant and maintain biases. It is necessary that the material laid out can be returned to easily; as a result, I will display each definition and provide a name so that they can be easily annotated.
First off, I will begin with the standardized definitions. According to Merriam-Webster [“America’s Most Trusted Dictionary”], a “symbol” is first and foremost “an authoritative summary of faith or doctrine.” This understanding will be the “power” definition. Secondary to that, Webster describes a symbol as “something that stands for or suggests something else by reason, relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance.” This will be the “pragmatic” definition. Both of these main-sourced definitions recognize the idea of a symbol as a generalized demonstrator of crucial foundational belief. Take consideration when witnessing the intentionality behind the power definition occupying Merriam Webster's first space. This presentation of power is blatant in the word choice of "authoritative" within the definition. The pragmatic definition, a subsequent follow-up interpretation to the power definition, vaguely communicates the internal mental constructions of how a "symbol" first gains tactility and then develops in form. The relationship between a domineering definition and its establishment of a word's meaning, presented by a prominent informational source, is noteworthy. The implicit interpretative biases of a word become clear when examining the layers of its definition's placement. The order is a display of power by itself.
The first of the local interpretations of a symbol defines it as “a singular unit of a specific (sensorial) attribute with elements often layered to construct a message.” This interpretation is the “assembly” definition. Last is the "in-practice" definition of a symbol. This category defines a symbol as “a mechanism for cultural connection that abstracts complex ideas into comprehensible sensory materials as a way of communicating motifs. Linkages to symbols are dependent on cultural context and nurture conditions.” These understandings of a symbol bring into view the qualitative structure of a symbol’s being, externalizing its general features to fabricate a communicative instrument. By defining the symbol into categories of power, pragmatic, assembly, and in-practice definitions, a larger, holistic understanding of a “symbol” is properly set up for the next step of deconstruction: how a symbol is made.
All materials composing the Earth and space, up to and including nothing, can serve as a symbol, functioning as communicative conveyors with (or without) proper and conscious intentionality. Take, for instance, the symbol of a blossoming tree without its spatial context. The tree that I am conjuring for this demonstration can exist within a void and still be a symbol. The image of a blossoming tree is often associated with new beginnings and fresh starts. However, what visual clues of the tree help to invigorate this interpretation? They're symbolic units. What will be referred to as a “symbolic unit” is a singular characterizing attribute or material essential for the layering and production of a complete symbol. Symbolic units consist of color, ethnicity, tone, materiality, medium, texture, opacity, scale, quality, form, race, porosity, pitch, gender, saturation, and fidelity. Symbols and symbolic units can function independently, without the need for context, to collectively create a subjective reality. The power and in-practice definitions provide a backbone to construct a symbolic illustration. Even with this armature, a symbolic material still needs to be consumptive enough so that signification can occur. This is where heuristics become relevant.
Wikipedia describes heuristics as a pragmatic form of problem solving that is not perfect or thorough but nonetheless produces a conclusive approximation and attribute substitution. This instinctual method functions as a mental shortcut to ease the cognitive load needed for decision-making and quicken the process of finding a solution. Heuristics work similarly to that of an input-output cycle. Input materials consist of active or passive observation, experience, background knowledge, and local logics, while output materials are reactions and reality affirmation. Racial stereotypes are the most relevant matter depicting the relationship between heuristics and symbols within daily life. The phenotypes of a race [the symbol] are given meaning based on several past and present conditional observations [the heuristic], which become the backbone to legitimize general yet false logics [the stereotype], thus allowing one to develop an opinion without context based on perceptive signifiers alone. What was once utilized as an intentional instrument to dehumanize other people to justify pillaging, violation, and extraction has maintained itself as a passive systematic cultural device that requires active deconstruction. This is why the pragmatic and assembly definitions are important to a symbol, attributing to their combined influence with heuristics.
Looking back at the composition of a blossoming tree, its defining symbolic units are identifiable. Generally, a tree is (non-specifically) brown in color, has a vertical cylindrical base with winding tributary arms, has an uneven assortment of scratches, bumps, and notches giving it a rough and non-linear texture, and is larger than human scale. That alone brings us to the archetype of a tree. To achieve “blossoming,” the tree has to be in a condition of almost nakedness; the leaves are not the scale, strength, or color of an adult leaf but are small and frail—a connection to youth and weakness. One might think of the tree with smaller light green leaves or pink and white flowers, a motif for lightness and energy.
Symbols are simple conductors of nuanced convictions—both real and fictitious. Implicitly in correspondence with heuristics, symbols work because each attribute of their being, from singular symbolic unit to built symbol to full-fledged aesthetic, interpretatively makes sense of the world and establishes identity. Pragmatically, all of these fragments meld into a toolset to conceive narratives, imagery, and tonal frameworks for communication [the assembly and pragmatic definitions]. Functionally, all of these fragments interact to physically and tangibly construct materials to represent moral, ethical, and faithful convictions [the humanistic and in-practice definitions]. Exaltation of the symbol is the cause, obedience to the heuristic is the effect, and construction of reality is the product.
Symbols range in simplicity and complexity. No matter the dynamics of its form, it will always function. As displayed, a symbol can be disassembled into its symbolic units, but the inverse can occur as well, where symbols, in addition to style, lighting, rendering, and time, are built into an aesthetic. If symbols are a communicative device, then aesthetics are community centers where expression takes place. All the aesthetics that exist rest on the foundations of history, geography, race, culture, symbols/symbolic units, religion, spirituality, sexuality, and gender. Everyone subscribes to a series of aesthetic conventions, whether conscious of it or not. How an individual presents their decorative norms is an active exhibition of their internal identity. Rejecting an external aesthetic value is equal to refuting identity. Once a motif is constructed around an intentional or unintentional depiction, the symbol gains a status that determines its alignment racially, politically, sexually, etc., and how to react to it in relativity. Augmenting a symbol or iterating upon a motif is shifting an identity.
Whether the tree grows into adulthood or is cut down in its youth, its motif alters and its identity changes. A cut-down blossoming tree does not convey the same interpretation as a standing one. Orientation and essence matter. We can look at the deconstruction of racial stereotypes as an identity shift. Removing prejudiced motifs from general racial features that encourage stereotyping and discrimination changes societal reaction to the race itself. The gradual de-stigmatization of type 4 ‘kinky’ hair within the US serves as an example of this societal identity shift. The conversation about legislation's influence on identity perception is relevant to this discussion but is for another article in this series. It is important to clarify that I am not saying the conditions of a symbol’s depictions are 1 to 1 to its interpretation. Ex: A blossoming tree only means youthfulness, nativity, etc. Instead, what I am saying is that there are multitudinal realities [identities] for a singular symbol strewn across the spectrum of human emotive interpretation. So, one might say, symbols are the emotional conveyor element, and aesthetics are the emotional context. I know the color pink; I can see the color pink, but how it is being depicted—hue, saturation, culture, nurture, and environment [AFK, rendered, or imagined]—are contexts coaxing emotive behavior.
Symbols, symbolic units (heuristics), and aesthetics do a lot of heavy lifting. These devices are mechanisms for idea articulation. Within a society, idealistic aesthetic foundations are motivators for the conception of symbolic interpretation. None of these categories are substances that remain stagnant even if the way values are expressed does not seem to shift [ex: 21st-century Republican American women]. Though fundamental composition and texture update through time, there has to be a source from which symbolic ideations materialize. In order to determine what these sources look like, I will have to briefly examine prose.
“The Employees,” a sci-fi existential thriller by Olga Raven in collaboration with sculptural artist Lea Gulditte Hestelund, depicts the unhinging of a planet-exploring human-synthoid crew strictly through a corporation's HR interviews. The reader stands witness, through testimony and redaction, to a crew becoming increasingly obsessed with a set of objects extracted from the planet “New Discovery.” Inspired by Hestlend’s work, Raven translated the essence that the artist’s sculptures evoked in her through the crew’s commentary. Statement 011 in particular is of interest for this essay’s symbol exploration. The unidentifiable member goes on to state:
“...I know the smell of oakmoss because you’ve planted it inside me, just as you’ve planted the idea that I should love a man only and that I should allow myself to be courted. All of us here are condemned to a dream of a romantic love, even though no one I know loves that way or lives that kind of life. I know the smell of oakmoss, but I don’t know what it feels like to the touch; still, my hand bears that faint perception… Tell me, did you plant this perception in me? Is it part of the program? Or did the image come up from inside me, of its own accord?”
This entry is the impetus for dissecting the establishment of symbolic interpretive sources and their collective capacity for fabricating reality. The passage introduces three general genres: 1) sensorial data producing assumptive judgment 2) the locus of control for interpretive origination, and 3) societal responses to binary symbolic interpretations. For this first article, I will focus on the second genre.
Prior to examination, this excerpt is relevant to this investigation because it relies on the audience's assumptive knowledge of binary Western constructs of gender roles and novel ideations of love. One can infer that the character speaking is a woman through the mentioning of heteronormative courting practices and faithfulness. These are cultural teachings that are continually reiterated throughout childhood. Through the use of “you” and “the program,” the text implies the speaker is a synthoid when addressing the invisible HR coordinator. Knowing the limitations of the speaker’s humanness proves valuable, as an adult human would be well acclimated with heteronormative notions and wouldn’t necessarily need to question them under these interplanetary circumstances. The speaker’s lack of humanness indirectly encourages the audience to ask themselves the origin of their beliefs.
Literary analysis aside, the realm of understanding interpretive origination separates into three scalar territories. Territory A) The contemporary—the space/climate in which a notion is influenced by larger societal and cultural schemas; B) The fringe—the space/climate in which a notion is influenced by relative community and nurture conditions; and C) The niche—the space/climate in which a notion comes from within oneself and small, local connections as a form of piecing together reality or “originality.” These three socio-spatial territories are not blatant boundaries but are more gradient-like, influencing one another. With these transitional impacts, patterned movements of behavior transpire in the forms of binary acceptance or rejection. The way I will use the word "binary" works in relation to the definition of gender binary. Here, "binary" is holistically including race and sexuality, in which whiteness, white being, and heteronormativity are culturally and societally assumed default.
The dynamics of these patterned behaviors work inversely. Materials—things like ideas, trends, and media—that exist within the contemporary often softly focus on the fringe and niche for inspiration yet are apathetically disengaged from the niche itself. However, materials that circulate within the niche focus on the fringe and contemporary while also being consciously apathetic to the contemporary itself. The realms of the contemporary, fringe, and niche are measurable in percentages of 60, 30, and 10. I propose these ranges' measure the proportion of knowledge within a population that is generally common or “heard of.” If 60% or more of a population holds said “heard of” knowledge regarding any material, it exists in the contemporary. If more or less than 30% of the population holds "heard-of" knowledge regarding any material, it exists on the fringe. If equal to or less than 10% of the population has “heard of" knowledge regarding any material, it exists in the niche. Demographics are the independent factor that alters a material's existence within these territories. The scale for examination shifts as values and demographics move farther from the binary.
Another perceptible aspect of these three spatial zones is favorability, or couthness. The contemporary is binary conformity, as materials existing in this space are acceptable societal norms. As an assortment of non-binary materials make their way into the contemporary world, the envelope for what is binary becomes multifaceted and diverse. Counter to this, niche, which is a condition of experimentation, manifests as a binary questioner, breaker, radical, etc. Unlike the other zones, the fringe acts most like a current in which materials navigate between the contemporary and niche. Style trends are one of the more easily observable cultural materials to examine, as they depict how external expression manifests itself in relation to a shift in values.
Returning to the conversation of the de-stigmatization of type 4 hair, it is possible to examine the progression of the cultural-societal significance of the Afro through time. Vilifying type 4 hair, along with all other qualities of Blackness, was a binary tool for motivating the exploitation and undereducation of West Africans during slavery. The contemporary interpretively yet objectively understood the Afro as something that is unacceptable and ugly. The ironic fetishization and "submissive" sexual taboo of the Black body serve as a vile depiction of the contemporary's unrealized attraction [hatred of Blackness] to the niche [Black existence]. [The Delectable Negro by Vincent Woodard]. The Afro exists within the niche as a fragment of Black culture. Coming out of slavery, past Jim Crow, and into the Civil Rights era, the Afro transitions from the niche to the fringe as more Black people begin wearing it in active, conscious resistance against the contemporary as a proud display of Blackness, struggle, and heritage. Here, the Afro transitions into a binary denier. Going into the 80s, 90s, and 00s, Blackness in general, and the Afro specifically, find themselves capitulating in the contemporary through trickle-down and up mechanisms. Now, the current contemporary moment brings with it many avenues for Black beauty expression, ranging from the natural hair movement, multitudes of Black-owned, afro-textured hair care brands, legislation such as the Crown Act, and the more mainstream play of afro shaping.
Understanding the dynamics of the contemporary, fringe, and niche provides a socio-spatial foundation to navigate the movement and transition of values in conjunction with history and culture through time. By articulating these currents, it becomes possible to visually analyze the progression of norms, trends, and societal couthes that continually invigorate symbolic and aesthetic interpretation and representation. As proper representation develops, mechanisms to produce change, specifically through legislative advocacy, generate more acceptable ways for others to exist without fear of harm.
After examining the dynamics of symbols, their production, and sources for their interpretation and representation, it is possible to holistically re-evaluate the artist from the introduction. Why did I even bring him up in the first place? I discuss the artist because his transcendence to “model-dom,” his symbol status, made him an active cultural material for socialite optical consumption. In Western culture, aspirations of luxury, coolness, and youthfulness are dependent on economic and optical hierarchy [the power definition]. Everyone has an archetype of "a model" that invigorates and continually drives its representation [the pragmatic definition]. The artist’s symbolic units of man-ness, masculinity, blondness, whiteness, height, weight, demeanor, etc. come together to create his “a model” condition and align him with the binary [the in-practice definition]. The depictions of sophisticated aesthetics and the integral confidence of harmonious makeup, lighting, and composition compound the “a model” aesthetic further into elitism [the assembly definition]. Considering all of these factors, his augmented identity and attained symbolhood transform him into a figure of worth for all scalar territories of the contemporary, fringe, and niche. “A model” brings with them an essence of validation, professionality, high standard, and composure to any material. There’s a reason why I swiped on his profile in the first place. It’s not every day you get to talk to a model.