2.3 It's A Sign

This is a sign. It denotes possession of a thing and branding by a larger organization. It is clear, concise and largely unremarkable (unless you like me, feel like going out of your way to remark on it.) The false ownership that discourse communities feel through brand preferences becomes a fully realized phenomenon in the signage of our day to day lives. People love to literally label. We have a machine called a label maker and we use it exactly as the name implies: put your name on your belongings so everyone knows they're yours.

These are also signs. Unlike the personal sign, these denote function and location and deal less with the possession of the labeled thing and more with the location, function and necessity of the labeled object or place.What do these signs have in common? All were photographed using and iPod. All live in the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. And all of them denote possession, pertaining to a group or discourse community. According to Tania Murray Li, “anthropologists have long acknowledged the social nature of property: that it is not a relationship between people and things, but a relationship between people, embedded in a cultural and moral framework, a particular vision of community” (Lee, 501-502). Signs, as Li is quick to point out in the description, are easy to misconstrue. They are, at first glance, a form of label, sure. That identification is simple, plain and yet as inclusive as necessary. They explain. Who the thing belongs to, what the things does, where the thing is. Signs are an analogue communication web, passing information from writer to audience in an efficient and simplistic manner. Signs fulfil a highly necessary function in the formation of literal networks, bringing groups together in places for functions, all denoted by symbols on a page.

It is not until those symbols lose their physical form that they endanger clear communication.