The dynamic object and improvisational creative acts

Abstract

In Peircean semiotics, a prominent place is given to the dynamic object. Whereas the immediate object is the object as it is represented “in the sign” the dynamic object is what determines the sign, what lies behind and gives agency to the semiotic exchange, and ultimately that upon which the final interpretant would eventually settle. In certain improvisatory creative acts, illustrated here by the example of the design of typographic fonts, the creative enterprise is one of inventing stylistics. As opposed to enterprises of discovery, such as is found in the physical sciences, in which a fixed reality is sought through arduous investigations by a “community of scholars,” in improvisational, or “open,” creative acts, there does not seem to be a hidden “real.” Inventive improvisations are often made on an individual and private basis, rather than an evidentiary, community-held basis. In such cases, a dynamic object, if it exists at all, is nearly indistinguishable from opinion, will, whim, or mere happenstance. Such design processes, especially in their early stages, are divergent in character rather than converging toward a final interpretant. That said, the semiosis that occurs in even the most playful and eccentric design processes, eventually begins a conformation process toward harmony and unity. Although this emerging constraining element fits in some ways the notion of a dynamic object, open creative acts cannot be fully explained by the simple Peircean dynamic object that is a pre-existing purported determiner of the sign. The Peircean dynamic object, which is the empirical dynamic object, must be supplemented by two additional varieties of dynamic object: the motivational and the stylistic/affective. Only the empirical dynamic object determines the sign; the motivational dynamic object develops simultaneously with the sign, while the stylistic dynamic object is, in many ways, determined by the signs.