Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007) offers a critique of the mass media’s efforts to restore American valiance with heroic narratives of ordinary people in the aftermath of 9/11. Amending prior scholarly readings of Zodiac as a serial killer narrative, I reconfigure my analysis by taking Fincher at his word and treating it as a journalism film. Borrowing a term from political theorist Elisabeth Anker, I argue that, unlike other contemporary journalism films, Zodiac is constructed as a “melodrama of failure” that, rather than seeking mastery, unveils the instability of evidence and the obsessive uncertainty of procedure. With his film sitting between both the failures of journalism surrounding 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, Fincher harkens back to the 1970s to unmask the malignancy of failures past. Manifesting low-level anxiety and doubt within the public, I contend that Fincher presents media as at once looming and intrusive, present and absent, and detached yet affective, privileging fragmentation over unity to put us in touch with temporal potentialities, to what Homay King attributes to the virtual. Fincher’s return to an era of malaise and an apparent obsession with indexicality underscores our unstable epistemological and phenomenological relationships to old and new media.

Utiliser un zoom pour donner l’apparence du travelling est une illusion d’ordre perceptif, c’est pourquoi je voudrai penser le zoom comme le passage d’une image à l’agrandissement (ou rétrécissement) de cette même image. Il est fondamentalement une image d’image qui s’évaluera à l’aune de nouveaux concepts que sont le centrement, la mobilité du surcadre virtuel, la durée descriptive et l’aplanissement. Dans une problématique de la duplication, le rapport entre l’image et son référent sera à questionner : l’image du zoom sera semblante ou ressemblante car elle tire sa qualité de l’écart qui se creuse entre l’image et son image initiale. Elle engendre un centre imaginaire comme fiction ou au contraire une empreinte du réel. C’est en ce sens que le zoom crée des images, des images qui nous regardent et en retour nous donnent conscience de notre propre regard. Souvenons nous de Brunelleschi et de son expérience par effet de miroir qui fit que l’homme se voyait regardé par son propre regard au "fond" d’un tableau en perspective, dans l’ouverture de cette porte qui aspire le regard et renvoie le peintre dans un face à face avec son double, son image. Le zoom, à l’instar de la perspective est aussi une métaphore du regard : il produit l’image d’un objet façonnant l’image du regard. L’image du zoom, ce signe à déchiffrer, s’est substituée au réel en le redoublant et, dans le même temps, a été menée à disparaître derrière la transparence d’une image de la réalité. Nous sommes confrontés à l’idée que la réalité serait susceptible d’attester de l’image et que finalement l’image pourrait être créatrice de réel. / The zoom lens, originally invented for advanced optical instruments, soon came into use in the field of still photography before being adapted to the motion picture camera. It is a development that brought an end to the stability and the transparency of the image in favor of movement and visibility within that same image. To make use of a zoom to give the impression of a tracking shot is to propagate a form of perceptual illusionism, which is why I choose to consider the zoom as the passage from an image to the enlargement (or shrinking) of that very image. The zoom is fundamentally an image of an image that is to be understood in light of new concepts such as central framing, descriptive long takes, the flattening of the image, and the virtual frame within a frame. While evoking the notion of duplication, the connection between the image and its referent is to be questioned: an image made by a zoom lens is one of resemblance, as it is characterized by the gap that is formed between the image and its origin. It engenders an imaginary center as a form of fiction, or on the contrary, is marked by reality. It is in this sense that the zoom creates images that stare back at the spectator, rendering him conscious of his own gaze. One could evoke Brunelleschi’s experiment, which used a mirror so that one is observed by his own gaze in the "distance" of a painting in perspective, thus drawing in the gaze of the painter, confronting him with his double, his image. The zoom, like the notion of perspective, is also a metaphor for vision: it produces the image of an object that is shaped by the image of the gaze. The image of the zoom, a sign to be decrypted, substitutes reality by doubling it, yet is also vowed to disappear behind an image of reality. We are confronted with the idea that reality can be called on to vouch for the image, and that the image has the capacity to create reality.

Dissertation thesis Semiotics of schizophrenia aims to analyse manifestations of the symptoms of schizophrenia from the point of view of semiotics. The goal is to find common features of otherwise heterogeneous manifestations of schizophrenia and the features that make them abnormal. The method of the thesis is semiotic reduction, i.e. approach to phenomena as to sings and significations, which approach is based on the semiotic theory of Charles Peirce. The proposed thesis characterises symptoms of schizophrenia as a disorder of indexical relation between a sign-object and the group of signs of the Self. An object can be a voice or an image in the case of hallucinations, a proposition in the case of delusions, a rule of communication in the case of disorganization of speech or behaviour or a habitus in the case of negative symptoms. Abnormality of the manifestations of schizophrenia is due to a disorder of indexical relation between signs of the Self, which have features as indisprovability or basis for interpreting the world, and these objects. The author compares conclusions of the thesis with clinical studies and so called unifying theories of schizophrenia.

What we encounter in painting is not so much the authentically revealed self of the painter, but rather signs that insinuate that this absent self is somewhat present in it. /Isabelle Graw/ So, then what is a painting? Perhaps it is all about time, a certain amount of time in the constant murmuring stream of consciousness and the unconscious. A shape cut out of the amorphous. A recording of time spent in uncertainty, not knowing what is going to present itself. To bear the contradiction of in one hand allowing the permission of having an aim versus the absolute requirement of at some point let go of the model, the aim. And thus, submit to painting. In the glitch between distance and sensibility, an utterance, a pronouncement takes place. This text reflects a thinking process that revolves around painting as will and resistance, concepts regarding aesthetics, subjectivity and perception.

Dissertation thesis Semiotics of schizophrenia aims to analyse manifestations of the symptoms of schizophrenia from the point of view of semiotics. The goal is to find common features of otherwise heterogeneous manifestations of schizophrenia and the features that make them abnormal. The method of the thesis is semiotic reduction, i.e. approach to phenomena as to sings and significations, which approach is based on the semiotic theory of Charles Peirce. The proposed thesis characterises symptoms of schizophrenia as a disorder of indexical relation between a sign-object and the group of signs of the Self. An object can be a voice or an image in the case of hallucinations, a proposition in the case of delusions, a rule of communication in the case of disorganization of speech or behaviour or a habitus in the case of negative symptoms. Abnormality of the manifestations of schizophrenia is due to a disorder of indexical relation between signs of the Self, which have features as indisprovability or basis for interpreting the world, and these objects. The author compares conclusions of the thesis with clinical studies and so called unifying theories of schizophrenia.

The notion of a “feminine” style has been staunchly resisted by third-wave feminists who argue that to posit a “feminine” style is essentialist. Yet, linguists such as Norma Mendoza-Denton and Elinor Ochs discuss indexicality and shifting through salient variables, a process called entextualization. Further, French feminists such as Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva use the linguistic concept of intertextuality to explain certain poetic uses of language that might cause what Luce Irigaray calls “irruption of the semiotic chora”—moments within language where boundaries in the semiotic chain of signification are “blurred.” Thus, while current feminism has moved strictly away from the idea that there is an exigent “feminine” to which all women must aspire, there exists a tenuous, but salient connection between the linguistic concepts of indexicality and intertextuality on one hand, and jouissance and “irruption of the chora” on the other that can inform those styles we might term “feminine” and allow for a more productive and responsive perception of “femininity.” Amos’ lyrics illustrate these theories working together; Amos’ lyrics represent such a “feminine” style as indexed through use of salient variables; thus, Amos’ lyrics represent a sociolinguistic phenomenon wherein gender-based salient variables reform what “feminine” is and means, challenging social attitudes and the specular feminine persona within both the personal and public spheres. The implications of these theories could eventually influence perceptions of women in any particular profession or sphere, as gendered linguistic markers influence gender roles and implications, which, in turn, inform social change.

Cette recherche s’attache à rendre compte de la factitivité du monument de la Shoah, à savoir sa capacité à « faire-faire », en l’occurrence, stimuler la mémoire de l’observateur. Les applications du concept de factitivité relèvent en premier ressort du cadre des relations humaines – intersubjectivité – pour s’étendre à la relation sujet/objet avec la « sémiotique des objets ». Ce champ de recherche de la sémiotique s’est réapproprié le concept de factitivité en vue de démontrer qu’en dépit de leur dimension inanimée les objets du quotidien sont dotés d’une intentionnalité consistant à manipuler – orienter – le comportement des utilisateurs. En transmettant à ces derniers un « savoir » – compétence épistémique – les objets usuels se destinent à structurer la séquence pragmatique inhérente à la pratique de l’objet. Cette thèse s’efforce d’élargir la conception classique de la factitivité dont l’application dans le champ du mémoriel interfère avec un nouveau type de compétence. Si le monument parvient à manipuler la mémoire de l’observateur, ce n’est plus seulement en transférant au sujet une compétence épistémique. Cette dernière est appelée à coexister avec la compétence esthésique constitutive d’un « éprouver ». Nous chercherons alors à éclairer les stratégies énonciatives se destinant à transformer l’observateur du monument en sujet pathémisé. Comment exprimer le passé dysphorique de la Shoah à travers les productions de la sculpture commémorative, sous-catégorie de la sculpture que nous avons scindée en trois classes-types : installation, sculpture et sculpture-lieu. En interrogeant la factitivité du monument, il ne s’agit pas seulement de sonder le langage plastique de l’objet mémoriel, mais d’investiguer différents types de langages œuvrant dans un dispositif mémoriel qui subsume une sculpture commémorative, un lieu géographique et la plupart du temps, un énoncé linguistique couplé à un objet-support. Enfin, en dehors des stratégies énonciatives centrées sur la dimension métaphorique, iconique ou symbolique de la transmission, nous verrons que la capacité des dispositifs mémoriels à émouvoir le public repose aussi sur une caractéristique fondamentale du lieu, son indicialité. / This research seeks to account for the factitivité of the Shoah monument, its ability to « faire-faire », or more precisely, to stimulate the memory of its observer. The concept of factitivité has been applied first in the frame of human relations, but the operative character of the concept has been extended to the « semiotics of objects ». This new field of research adpats the concept in order to demonstrate that, despite their inanimate character, common objects are also endowed with the intention of manipulating - directing - the behavior of their users. By transmitting to users a knowledge - epistemic competence - the usual objects are able to structure the pragmatic sequence - gesture, motricity skills - presiding over the practice of the object. This thesis, again, aims to broaden the theoretical frame of the factitivité, whose effectiveness requires now the introduction of a new type of competence. If the monument succeeds in manipulating the memory of its observer, it is no longer only by transferring an epistemic competence to the observer. The epistemic competence now coexists with the compétence esthésique wich means emotional feelings. This thesis seeks also to enlighten the enunciative strategies whose purpose is to transform the observer of the monument into a pathemic subject. How to express the past through the objects of a commemorative sculpture ? This sub-category of the sculpture is being divided into three classes : installation, sculpture and sculpture-lieu. Thus, questioning the factitivité of the monument becomes not only to be a question of probing the plastic language of an object, but also of investigating the different languages at work in a memorial device combining a commemorative sculpture, a locus and, most of the time, a linguistic message adherted to a support-object. Finally, apart from the enunciative strategies revealing a metaphorical, iconic or symbolic dimension of the transmission, the ability of the memorial device to affect us also relies on a fundamental characteristic of the locus, its indexicality dimension.

My diploma thesis shows patterns of alternation by bilingual children between their two mother tongues, Czech and English. The patterns are studied in two different types of language alternations; code-switching, meaning switching between language codes in whole ideas and discussed topics, and code-mixing, meaning inserting a word or phrase in language A into speech in language B. The code-switching and code-mixing types and patterns were studied on basis of 12 recordings and observations of a class of pre-school children during one morning of English school activities per week and 14 recordings and observations of a following year class of first-year school children during their after-school English activities. All children attended state education, pre-school nursery and the following year Czech state primary schools. Most of the children's parents are a combination of a Czech and an immigrant from an English-speaking country (with three exceptions) and they both speak with the children exclusively in their respective native languages. By studying the patterns of children's alternation between the languages, I also analyse how socialisation through the use of two languages influences social competences. The rules of the speech community, the school, as well as the family speech communities are...

Through its ability to create images of non-representable incidents animation expands the range and depth of what documentary can represent and how. This master thesis investigates the potential of animated documentary within social memory exemplified by the interactive animated documentary Saydnaya – Inside a Syrian Torture Prison (Forensic Architecture, 2016). By applying a feminist spatial approach, I aim to contribute to the understanding of the role of animated documentary images within social memory.Embodied and haptic spectatorship as well as haptic materiality are crucial in this case study due to the nature of the virtual screen images and interactive navigation (compared to montage) of the architectural 3D model. Testimonies and evidence presented in documentary film require a discursive establishment of truth. Indexicality is discussed in this regard and eventually a theoretical shift towards movement suggested. I demonstrate that Saydnaya extends the strategies in animated documentary that have been in focus so far, such as representing mental states and subjective experiences, by deploying methods of forensic aesthetics. This opens up novel ways to establish truth claims and persuasion in documentary filmmaking that require future research.

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