XIV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SEMIOTICS
Semiotics & Performance in Post-Digital Cultures
Volos, University of Thessaly, 20-22 November 2026
Organized by the Hellenic Semiotic Society, and the Departments of Culture, Creative Media, and Industries (CCMI) and of Language and Intercultural Studies (DLIS) of the University of Thessaly
Over the past decades, the intersections of semiotics and the interdisciplinary field of performance studies have offered key insights into social communication and interaction, cultural and media practices, artistic expression, and experimentation. Today, these issues are further complicated by the ubiquity of digital technologies – now largely invisible and seamlessly integrated into everyday life – and the emergence of post-digital perspectives, which challenge the presumed novelty of the digital while emphasizing continuities with analog, material, ‘imperfect,’ and embodied forms of mediation and signification. The conference aspires to explore the contemporary research venues opened by the ‘performative turn’ of semiotics toward the study of verbal, bodily, and multimodal social, political, cultural, and artistic practices in ways that prioritize agency, setting, temporality, embodiment, negotiation, and mediation over texts, structures, and codes. In this sense, the focus shifts to the study of ‘meaning in motion’, highlighting action, practice, and enactment rather than static representation, and addressing the complex dynamics and pragmatics through which meaning is continuously produced and negotiated. By addressing the epistemological challenges posed by the performative turn, the conference seeks to critically elucidate the concept of performance (and/or performance studies), to examine the possibilities and limitations of semiotic reasoning and practice, and to elaborate the performative perspective as a contribution to semiotic theory building.
We invite scholars from diverse disciplines, as well as artists and practitioners, to submit abstracts (250-300 words) for papers (20 minutes long) or sessions (4-5 papers) that, drawing upon any semiotic tradition, explore the semiotic modalities specific to the performativity of meaning-making in analog, digital, and hybrid communication practices and environments. Specifically, proposals may relate to any of the following main themes:
- Performing Arts: Theatricality, Cinema, Choreography, Embodiment, Live Recording
- “Performance Art”: Emerging Genealogies and Epistemologies
- Sound versus Music, Sonic Embodiment, , Listening as Performance, Aural Cultures
- Voice, Narrative and Performance, Literature and/as Performance, Performative Poetry
- Politics of Memory, Trauma, and Archives
- Language as Action, Translanguaging, Image Acts, and Performance as Enunciation
- Semiotic Aspects of Education, Mnemotechnics, Learning as Ritual
- Space and Place, Semiotic Landscapes and Assemblages
- Post-digital Aesthetics and Digital Dramaturgies: Materiality, Analog-digital hybrids, and the Digital/Post-digital condition
- Platform Vernaculars, Affective Registers, and Online/Offline Community Practices (Glitch Aesthetics, Memes as Paralinguistics, Hybridity)
- Gamification: Performative interfaces in Gaming, Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), and Immersivity
- Performing the (Post)human: Bodies, Cyborgs, Networks, AI
One may submit up to two abstracts as author/co-author, in the language used for the paper presentation (Greek or English). For further information, please visit: https://semio2026.uth.gr
International Association for Visual Semiotics 