Barebones now has its own Hall of Fame Gallery.
Go see it in the blogroll. Present celebrities are:
The gallery will of course grow, but it will stay relatively limited. Very exclusive it is 
The Hall of Fame Gallery is exclusively for people that have contributed to the barebones communication resources, or in other ways have made their name in neon within the communication area. From philosophy to advertising.
Good luck with it
Elements of Semiology.
And that is just what I had in mind. It will be elements of semiology. No more than that.
This is also the title of a famous little book written by French philosopher Roland Barthes in 1964. Translated into English 3 years later.
I will refer to the English translation. And I will use the book as the steppingstone to the semiological tools that will go into the barebones toolbox. As you remember, semiology, or the American cousin semiotics, are one of the main resources for the barebones project. As I used Wertheimer’s early article as the door to gestalt theory, I will use Barthes book as the opening door to semiology.
Some of you may argue that this is a shift of source “sincerity”: Wertheimer was a primary source. Barthes is not. In particularly not in this book where he first and foremost refers to the Swiss scientist Ferninand de Saussure, and his “Course on General Linguistics”, published in 1916.
And yes, you are right, maybe I should have walked straight back to Saussure? But that will not be.
Barthes makes and excellent and brief introduction to the area, and since his book is written about half a century later, he has an historical outlook on semiology, that was not possible for Saussure to have in the beginning of the century. And besides, Barthes talks about the wider notion of semiology, as opposed to the more narrow linguistics.
Barthes operates with 4 main themes in his book. Those are:
1. Language and Speech
2. Signified and Signifier
3. Syntagme and System
4. Denotation and Connotation
These 4 areas will be the headlines for the semiology themes, that I will cover in the blog. Some words have already been said about denotations and connotations. The light version that is, because Barthes text in the book are much more troublesome to get through.
As always, I will do my best to illustrate the themes in question.
Let me just warn you that it is not my intention to write a summary of the book, or even stay very faithful to it. I will simply use it, as I already said, as a first steppingstone to semiology. Or rather; I will use elements of it, since what I am interested in here, as elsewhere, are the bits and pieces of semiology that are handy as communications instruments in the barebones project.
And is was my intention, actually, to move beyond Roland Barthes, but again with offset in his book.
If you want to precede me in this project, please be my guest, since the first half of the book is to be found right here.
May I add, there is also another very good reason for spending time in the company of Roland Barthes. He is heavy into visual communication. He writes a lot about photography - and I am a fan of Barthes’ trials in this fields. That much for my personal bias .
Please be aware that I am still in the process of gearing up the garage.
As usual, stay tuned.
Barebones communication is, obviously, a blog on communication. Furthermore on efficient communication.
The blog will try to lay bare resources and tools from different scientific orientations, as well as experiential results, and set up a comprehensive toolbox for understanding, making and evaluating acts of communication. Being it text, images or other. For this purpose it will concentrate around a group of blog themes.
The aim is to have a highly operational barebones universe, that can be used on a daily basis when doing communication. You need to read the pages, to get the full grip of it. Pages are part of the blog header.
This is a blog, in time, that you don’t want to read. You will want to use it.
The blog was set up December 8, 2007. A good a date as any. What you see right now is only the beginning. The blog will be quite extensive.
Why barebones? Well, I’ll have to revert in length to that later. And you will be made aware during the process, anyway. You will find an initial clue here.
You should not read this blog as a normal blog. Chronology is not important, so please use the tag cloud to navigate to the topics, that you are interested in. I will try to be precise with tags. If you e.g. are looking for “gestalt factors”, then just hit the tag “gestalt factor” in the tag cloud, and it will all come to you.
At the moment I am trying out different blog presentations, so don’t be surprised if the blog has changed the next time you visit. Form and content are still under development.
The blog is written by Knut Skjærven. The blog author lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Just to let you know that this is personal blog. Posts, pages, comments, pictures and opinions set forth, are the “opinions” of the blog author, and represent no other parties or interests.
Barebones communication is a non-commercial blog.
If you need to get in contact, or have questions, then please use this email address: direct@barebonescommunication.com
The blog is under eternal construction, but hard work could shorten the period.
