Biosemiotics: the study of living things from a semiotic perspective
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosemiotics
Archive for July, 2006
Q: What do business and marketing strategy, evolutionary biology, and art & design have to do with each other?
Q: What do business and marketing strategy, evolutionary biology, and art & design have to do with each other?
A: Everything! Sensory biology is a rapidly developing field in evolutionary biology that deals with the evolution and maintenance of signals and signal reception and perception. While mostly focusing on the biological mechanisms, this area grew out of studies of sexual selection and now overlaps significantly with cognitive science. Strategic branding and identity design with these principles in mind is one way to engage an audience.
The following is an excerpt from TechnoBrands: how to create & use “brand identity” to market, advertise & sell technology products by Chuck Pettis. New York : AMACOM, c1995.
**I’ve commented on each of these points in bold red
Brand Defined
What exactly is a brand? A brand is:
- The sensory; emotive, and cultural proprietary image surrounding a company or product
–Indeed sensory is the key concept,relyingg on social and cognitive architecture for its success. Evolutionary dynamics affect sensory trends, especially across developmental stages (+5 years).
- An assurance of quality, making selection worry-free
–What biologists call “an honest signal.” Yet, there are also dishonest signals and signals that perform multiple functions which may or may not affect the outcome of the selection.
- A significant source of competitive advantage and future earnings
–Signals have typically evolved as displays of competitiveness (intrasexual competition), attractiveness (mate choice), or reproductive potential (e.g. good genes).
- A promise of performance
–In some ways, branding is the extension or re-situation of an individual’s signaling to that of a social group (e.g. company).
- An enhancement of perceived value and satisfaction through associations that remind and entice customers to use the product
–There may be a few different implementations of this including sensory bias- a
preconditioned receptivity to a particular stimulus.
- Arguably, a company’s most important asset
–Depeending on the goals of the organization, yes.
Branding goes back to the beginnings of history, when people began putting symbols on products to identify the maker of the product. From ancient Egyptian bricks to trade guilds in medieval Europe, people have been using “trademarks” on their products as a guarantee to customers of authenticity and quality and to protect their products from being copied by others.
–or even earlier, as in when frogs developed mating calls or birds bright plumage…
St. Petersburg Exhibition Shows Nabokov Under (and Behind) a Microscope – New York Times
Vladimir Nabokov is one of the best fiction writers to weave natural history and biology into engaging stories. In a sense, Nobokov modeled the seamless integration of science content and an articulation of the visual into his verbal reflection of contemporary life. Here is an article about an exhibition that explores these relationships.
St. Petersburg Exhibition Shows Nabokov Under (and Behind) a Microscope – New York Times
and a link to the Nabokov Museuum in St. Petersburg
Discussion of BioArt
Here is a link to a discussion about Bio-Art that took place in early 2006 on the YASMIN network. Some key issues were raised about terminology, the exact forms that bio-art undertakes, and its relationship to other parts of society.
Towards the end, Roger Malina asks an interesting point question. “What vision do artists have for the future of life on our planet?” This is a very elegant way of asking how we envision our own evolutionary trajectory. The metaphor of adaptation to the environment is inprecise in tthe sense that we are constantly changing our environment to make it more hospitable for us to live and make babies. Though we do respond to our environment (particularly the biotic one), perhaps we ought think in terms of constructing our environment instead of adapting to it. Thus, we are encouraged to take responsibility for our role instead of transferring “fault” to an external source as if we are “just trying to adapt.”
YASMIN @ Media.UoA | Art-Science-Technology interactions around the Mediterranean Rim
An online magazine feature of BioArt
A set of articles on bio-art…in some ways a nice overview of the last 10 years or so. Though..I sense the tide is shifting. Is bio-art really about working with biological material, or is it better situated in terms of problematic areas in society?
When a lie snowballs into truth
When a lie snowballs into truth
Review of Pierre Huyghe’s A Journey That Wasn’t.
Peacock’s tail fans our flames – Arts – Entertainment – theage.com.au
Peacock’s tail fans our flames – Arts – Entertainment – theage.com.au
Popular reading for evolutionary explanations for the maintenance of art & design in human behhavior…more later.
The new politics of life science
“I made very clear to Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayer’s money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life – I’m against that,” –GWBush
Who’s lives are we talking about? US soldiers? Iraqis? Marine mammals? Cheap labor?
What if we promote science that destroys life in order to destroy life- or science that saves life to save life?
When did we agree when life begins or ends?
..for more on the comparative politics of the gene and other issues visit Sheila Jasanoff’s site
