Commemorative spectacles: The performativity of monumentalized bodies

Description

In this talk, I address commemorative atmospheres showing how space is controlled, rejected, appropriated and experienced. Combining the social semiotics and multimodality approaches, I offer a transdisciplinary reading (Halliday, 2001) of a range of semiotic resources and modalities of performance (Van Leeuwen, 2005; Bell & Gibons, 2011). When the denial of violence endures for too long, commemoration manifests itself through performative bodies filling the space with the loudest spectacles – louder than a static monument could ever produce. Such “living memorials” ultimately point to the dynamic entanglement of people and semiotic landscapes, achieved through an affective, monolithic, massive body and its experiences.