Agency in Ancient Writing

1. The Mediated Image: Reflections on Semasiographic Notation in the Ancient Americas

21 In recent years, the long-standing model of a dichotomous relationship between text and image, a mainstay of the semiotic approach to visual communication, has fallen increasingly under criticism.1 Our daily interactions with computers and icons of all kinds make it obvious that the world is populated by countless varieties of conventionalized and codified visual signs that operate outside the strictures of language. There are any number of visual codes that are neither purely text nor purely image. This realization is reflected by increased scholarly attention and greatly expanded curiosity about the workings of these alternate forms, which are known as “semasiographies .” This shift ultimately makes the present analysis possible. Scholarship on semasiography ranges from discourse analysis and visual culture studies to linguistics and cognitive science. It is a challenging array of disciplines; the category includes everything from symbolic diagramming and math to transit maps and, of course, pictographies and hieroglyphics—genres of great interest among Americanists. Such multiplicity points to the fact that “semasiography ” is actually an umbrella term covering a range of graphic systems and operative structures. Sometimes called “discourse systems” or “nonphonetic writing ,” semasiographies are capable of conveying relatively specific O n e The Mediated Image Reflections on Semasiographic Notation in the Ancient Americas Margaret A. Jackson DOI: 10.5876/9781607321996.c01 22 Margaret A. Jackson information in codified or conventionalized form, but they are not designed to directly reflect speech. Scholars such as Brice (1976), Sampson (1985), Boone (2004), Boone and Mignolo (1994), Elkins (1999), Houston (2004a, 2004b), Jackson (2000, 2008), Martin (2006), and others have sought to define “semasiography ,” which is based on the Greek semasia (“meaning”) combined with graph (“drawn/written”). Yet, just as with words like “writing” and “pictures,” the concept encompasses a vast, contested territory, making an absolute definition elusive. Semasiography refers to those conventionalized systems of visual notation arranged primarily around nonphonetic principles of ordering whose overall meanings are derived from the spatial and/or performative relationships among the constituent elements. Semasiographies may incorporate a range of meaningful elements, including phonetic signs, logographs, ideographs, pictures, or direct material relationships. The systems are distinguished from complex iconographies by their capacity to create and record new information (Boone 2004, 317–18; Martin 2006, 76). They seem to work best (and occur most often) within strictly limited areas of reference (Sampson 1985, 30; Brice 1976, 41–43), even though, in theory, it need not necessarily be so. Semasiographic systems are often active participants, or mediators, within specific performative contexts, as suggested by the title of this chapter. The idea of mediation is used here in its most traditional sense, that is, as something occupying an intermediate place or position, one that, in some instances, serves to mediate between parties to reconcile or bring about an accord or understanding . It is not used in its most contemporary sense, as a word that connotes a situation where traditional forms, like print or painting, have become “media” through translation into digital or electronic form—that is to say, older forms that become “remediated” (see Bolter and Grusin 1999, 34–50). Because they focus less on phoneticism, semasiographic models offer a flexible —and less value-laden—way to address visual systems that are not directly tied to spoken language. This does, in fact, represent a new paradigm for studies of Ancient American visual art. The Saussurian dialectic that dominated semiotic discourse for most of the twentieth century, elaborated in what follows, has strongly affected the ways in which indigenous visual cultures in the Americas have been approached, in many cases perpetuating the idea that native people were illiterate (with the attendant pejorative associations). Semasiographic studies represent a means by which to alleviate and (one hopes) eventually eliminate this particular colonialist stigmatization. Apart from the social considerations, the introduction of a revised paradigm allows us to better understand and differentiate among communicatory approaches that may have varying degrees of verbal, visual, or other sensory modal components. The focus of this chapter, therefore, is to illustrate different semasiographies through drawing attention to several Ancient American examples, summarizing some of the key features distinguishing them, not necessarily decod- 23 The Mediated Image ing the meanings of those examples but rather suggesting the places where semasiographic functions occur. In doing so, it becomes possible to discern variable quantities of pictures, phonetic signs, and operational structures in each visual tradition, which, in turn, bear important correlations to agency and...