Song and video: "Semioteque"

The Schopenhauer Experience, my musical alter ago, has over the last three weeks or so composed and produced a song entitled "Semioteque". The song can be heard on Picosong, and a video (made by my wife Helena da Silva-Tønnessen) can be watched on YouTube.

The song and video has been made at the occasion of my mother, Elise Seip Tønnessen's, 60 year anniversary, which was celebrated yesterday. "Semioteque" does not feature ordinary vocals, but instead samples from Umberto Eco's lecture in Tartu, Estonia on May 6th 2009, 'On the Ontology of Fictional Characters: a Semiotic Study' (more specifically samples of rector Alar Karis, me, and Umberto Eco). That whole session can be watched on video on the webpages of University of Tartu.

The full transcript of my question and Umberto Eco's answers has been posted in Utopian Realism, with a comment written in hindsight, in 2009. The edited excerpts made use of in the song "Semioteque" reads like this:

[not transcribed: Alar Karis, speaking in Estonian. ...]

MT: And I would like you to say something about what role fiction can be said to play within natural science...

Eco: No... No, I missed ... the real question.

MT: Let me finish. Um…

(MT: And I would like you to say something about what role fiction can be said to play within natural science... )

(Eco: No... No, I missed ... the real question.)

MT: And often in applied science, we start out with imagining something that does not exist – it’s totally mind-dependent; and then we carry it into life. … Isn’t that the work of fiction?

Eco: No! I... Take, for instance the cold fusion. Typical example of a scientific hoax.

Eco: I don’t say that it’s a fiction – it’s a mistake, which is different.

Eco: I say that there is fiction when the author pretends to say the truth, and asks you to pretend that you are believing it.

Eco: If not, it’s a lie. If I tell you there is an elephant outside… and you naively go out to see whether it is there or not, that is not a case of fiction, I am only a *** liar... And you are too naive, hehe.

Eco: Except, you are not Thomas Aquinas! His comrades told him… 'Thomas, there is an ass flying on the skies', and he went out … (to) look. Hehe…

MT: Isn’t that the work of fiction?

This edited transcript has been added to The Schopenhauer Experience's lyrics section, along with previous material (which includes original song lyrics, original poems, and cover songs).

New biosemiotic research project

Kalevi Kull's research project "Biosemiotic models of semiosis" [Semioosi biosemiootilised mudelid] (ETF/ESF 8403) has been granted support from Eesti Teadusfond (Estonian Science Foundation). I am listed as senior personnel (January 1st, 2010 - December 31st, 2011), along with fellow Tartu biosemioticians Riste Keskpaik and Riin Magnus.

In this project, we are going to study the changes in general semiotics that are resulted from the development of biosemiotic concepts and biosemiotic theory. One of our points of departure will be the general semiotic theory as presented in "A theory of semiotics" by Umberto Eco (which is until now one of the very few existing treaties in the general theory of semiotics), and also some of Eco's later work that has developed the general theory. We will also consider the theoretical work of Juri Lotman (and in some extent of Floyd Merrell, John Deely and Paul Bains). The concepts we are going to study from the point of view of general semiotics will include umwelt, organic code, organic relation, inheritance system, organic need, functional cycle. The biosemiotic work to be analysed will include the models presented in the works of Jesper Hoffmeyer, Howard Pattee, Marcello Barbieri, and Terrence Deacon. The results will be published as review articles and case study analyses in the international top periodicals of semiotics.

My ETIS (Estonian Research Portal) data is to be found here.

Cf. also my question to Umberto Eco on science and fiction.