Semiotics of Space and Mediation

Abstract

Space, as with all of the structuring categories of thought and the identity of the subject, bases itself on the process of mediation: in order to think of space in terms of signification instead of experience, in order to interpret space instead of only confronting it in existence, it is necessary to articulate it with other categories. The signification of space and time creates an identity of the subject in three ways. In the first place, the subject starts up the experience of a type of semiotics, in particular in psychic semiotics of space that is based on the mirror, in a formulation of signification of space and time. On the other hand, it is in the signification of the identity of the subject and its relation with others where the semiotic dimension of space and time is established. Finally, the signification of space and time establishes the intelligibility of the enunciative activity of the subject

But in order to think about the semiotics of space it is important to define the three mediations in which its signification is inscribed. The mediation between the singular and the collective defines the political mediation of space. The mediation between the real, the symbolic and the imaginary defines the semiotic mediation of space in the strict sense of the word. It is in the articulation of these three dimensions where space acquires a semiotic dimension for the subject. The mediation between the aesthetic and the political defines the aesthetic mediation of space, which takes the form of what we know as landscape, and its political mediation that takes the form of what we would call territory. The borders structure the political spaces upon articulating them with identities.

The borders are the limits that separate countries from each other and permit recognition of their political existence by the other countries. The notion of the border is fundamental since it is that which in political semiotics of space, defines the identity of a country and expresses the recognition of its existence in international space.

Thus, since that it may concern psychic or political identities, space is the location where the constitutive process of identity is carries out: what we call identification, the constitution of public space and political identities. In this sense, it is space that gives to our identities materiality that gives them reality, being in itself the first of the political institutions in which the others are confronted.