1. A City Surprised
An Analysis of Visual Content and Public Debate,
“Skopje 2014”
Nita Çavolli
MA Communication and New Media
Skopje, May 2014

2. “Skopje 2014” as a societal paradigm

3. “Skopje 2014” as an image
• Images are media for the
production of power and
knowledge in
communication and the
shaping of identities in
individuals and groups.
• Visual studies offer
methodologies for the
inquiry of images as
modes of communication
and evoking cultural
associations.

4. Visual Semiotics and Multimodality
• The image is a system- a social formation of
cultural convention and systems of belief and
signification. (Roland Barthes)
• Multimodality- all expressed meanings are
social, considering the importance of individual
differences and the fact that societies are not
equal, but are combinations of groups with
diverse, unstable and clashing interests.
(Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen)

5. Semiotics of a changing city
• Buildings are mechanisms
of representation-
organizational systems,
political constructs.
(Wigley)
• The classical canon is used
in times of economic and
social turmoil, mobilizing
all cultural capacities for
social change. (Tzonis,
Lefaivre)

6. Semiotics of a changing city
• Images, architecture do not posses essential meanings,
however through the relationships they create, they seem
a natural part of culture.
• The points of contact are the social motives that lie at the
core of theories such as social semiotics and multimodality.

7. Politics of Representation
• Media assist the
construction of
meanings in the
world: the ways we
look at things.
• Politics of
representation
change the existing
settings for power
and identity.

8. Skopje Spectacular
• Media, institutions and
governing powers of
contemporary
societies construct
commodities and
spectacles .
• Materialization of
ideology: it fully
expresses the essence
of all ideological
systems:
impoverishment,
enslavement and
negation of real life.

9. When the real world turns into simple images, the simple
images become real and effective motives for hypnotized
behavior. (Guy Debord)

10. Skopje Simulacrum
The simulacrum never hides the truth, the truth hides
that there is none. The simulacrum is real.
(Jean Baudrillard)

11. “Skopje 2014” as Heritage Display
Constructs of unreal artificial spaces, visual environments
utilizing historical narratives in a framework of trivial
spectacles.

12. “Skopje 2014” Public Debate
The Internet opens up
perspectives for
alternative
economies and
cultures, as well as
mechanisms for
political action.
(Douglas Kellner)
• Prva Arhi Brigada
• Freedom Square
• Raspeani Skopjani

13. “Skopje 2014” Remix
• Visual remixes: creating
genuine images with
new values and
connotations by
appropriating existing
ones.
• Remixes are examples
for the power this type
of expression has.
SHOW, BUT NOT TELL.
(Lawrence Lessig)

14. “Skopje Thou Shall be Joy”
through relational aesthetics
The contemporary artist
is a semionaut who finds
trajectories between
signs to create meanings
that rely on cultural
references which the
image carries with it.
(Nicholas Baurrioud)

15. “Skopje Thou Shall be Joy”

16. “Skopje Thou Shall be Joy”

17. A sentence for thought:
Images are not innocent.
(Roland Barthes)

18. Thank you!