Visual narratives in the urban semiotic landscape to build collective memory

a transdisciplinary approach

Abstract

The 21st century has been characterized by linking large social groups to forms of communication in which all the semiotic resources available in society are used by the interlocutors in the process of constructing meaning. From the reflections of Kress (2010); Ledin and Machin (2018) and Van Leeuwen y Djonov (2015), among others, the investigation of multimodal and multimedia discourses, from a critical perspective, continues to be a relevant issue to explain how contemporary communicative events occur and determine their implications for the construction of fairer and more inclusive societies. The conceptualization of the discourse integrates the approach of the processes of design, production, interpretation, and social circulation, through the different modes - sign systems -, the ways in which its different structural and functional levels are interrelated as social action, and the ways in which knowledge is socialized in the walls of the city, as a technological resource. It is proposed to reflect on the approach applied to the Multimodal and Multimedia Critical Discourse Studies (MMCDS) to verify the unavoidable task of assuming its analysis and interpretation from a transdisciplinary epistemic framework, which implies a broader project that involves memory and peace building. Discourse is assumed as part of the urban semiotic landscape of Bogotá, in which the integration of sign systems of verbal visual order, such as language, and graphic visual order, such as image and color, stands out. The wall in “Ruta de la Memoria” is understood as the technological support through which ways of knowing reality are distributed, in this case, on memory. The walls become an urban media resource, by supporting the materialization of multimodal content, acquiring a multimedia character. The public discourse that circulates along the "Route of Memory" creates an atmosphere for the citizen that contributes to structuring communicative interactions, which could be assimilated to the discourses of social networks, or to other forms of contemporary media communication. The importance of the production of the meanings that arise in the integration of the semiotic systems articulated to the visual order is understood, to recognize the relevance of the multimodal and multimedia discourse that appropriates the city in a sociopolitical situation, articulated to the fulfillment of the Peace Agreement (2016). It is proposed a transdisciplinary methodological position, which allows murals to be approached critically, unraveling the representations that are embodied in the discourses that circulate publicly and make communicative interaction an omnipresent phenomenon in socio-cultural life.