University of Sofia “St. Kl. Ohridski”, Bulgaria
F in Fire Stands for Fear: Image, Language, and Metaphor in a Kristevan Perspective
Taking the exhibiton „F in Fire Stands for Fear” by Bulgarian artist Ventsislav Zankov as point of departure, the paper will provide an overview of the place of metaphor in the unfolding of Julia Kristeva’s terminological apparatus: from her early conceptualization of the nombrant via the semiotic chora up to her later day elaboration of the notion of transubstantiation. Central attention will be paid to metaphor as “hallucination of nothing” and metaphorizing as the process which keeps us from being frightened to death and, instead, allowing us to come to life again in signs. A hypothesis will be set forth about metaphor as subtending video game interactivity between the player and what Robert Matthias Erdbeer has called the “image action space” [Handlungsbildraum]