The semiotic of AI images

Abstract

In her 1942 book Philosophy in a New Key, A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, American philosopher Susanne K. Langer distinguishes between two symbolic forms: discursive and presentational. The former is linear, discrete, and successive, while the latter is simultaneous and relational. She describes language as a discursive form and images as presentational. Langer argues that not all meaning can be communicated by discursive symbols; in particular, emotions cannot be expressed in discrete form. Instead, they find their symbolic form in artworks. This aligns with her aesthetic theory, which she elaborates on in her book Feeling and Form (1953), where she states her main proposition that art gives form to our feelings. Her distinction between the representational capabilities of language and images is well-suited for analyzing AI-generated images. Based on Langer, we can see two symbolic forms–the discursive and the presentational–collide in the process of text-to-image generation. Here, the image, as a presentational form, is created from a discursive form, i.e. a description (prompt), which, by Langer’s definition, is incapable of communicating the same meaning as a presentational symbol. This article will explore the Semiotic of AI image generation based on her theory. The limitations of language as a discrete and linear form, and the resulting communicative constraints, are contrasted with images as presentational forms, such as artworks. This is not an evaluation of AI images, but rather an attempt to understand their structure and function within communication processes. The aim is to gain a new perspective on this medium and assess whether these images can help us “make our ideas clear“ (Charles Peirce 1878).