Semiotic Compass

Ongoing

How important is conversation? Every day, people communicate with signs, symbols, sounds, and gestures. Commuters navigate traffic stops, employees respond to the boss’s orders, and pedestrians offer salutations while passing one another on street corners, but the spaces once reserved for more meaningful communication are being lost in a societal transformation to a digital culture. The acts of talking to others for company and interacting to establish social ties have changed to match the pace of society’s virtual transformation. Environments that were once designed to promote discourse in a pre-digital age now offer refuge to second screens as people slowly come to expect more from technology and less from one another. If there were a place that gave you an opportunity to strike up a conversation with a neighbor, would you talk to them?

The Wiregrass Museum of Art presents Semiotic Compass, a collaborative public art exhibition which will be the basis for corresponding public programs. A large, outdoor sculpture installation, its design inspired by concepts of earnest communication, storytelling, and a sense of geographic belonging, will spur conversation both at the installation site and among the local and regional community.