Creativity and Advertising

8 Embodying culture

We tend to think of sign-making as an intrinsically human activity, but this is not the case. Quite arguably semiosis, or activities involving signs, is apparent in the most simple of organisms – even those of a single-celled variety. The purpose of this chapter is to place semiosis beyond Saussurean accounts and consider the consequences for creativity and advertising if we frame these in biosemiotic terms, or that which explores codes, signs and meaning in a biological setting that also encompasses non-human sign producers and sign receivers. As to why we should do this, there are a number of reasons, but perhaps foremost is to destabilise the blinkered sovereignty of the human sensorium; to better appreciate the unique ...