Sign / Symbol
A sign is a code of communication: functional, immediate, shared. A symbol is an image: resonant, personal, timeless

Sign → code, function, language
Symbol → image, relation, experience

Where the two meet, meanings shift. A letter may lose its function and appear as pure image; architecture can move beyond utility and become a carrier of sound or rhythm; an interface may be felt through the body rather than read as instruction. At this intersection, codes transform into experiences, and communication opens into new forms.

The festival takes the city as its field: an infrastructure of meaning built from both physical and digital signs and symbols. These structures govern perception, guide movement, and shape memory. Artistic works intervene in this network, unsettling fixed codes and creating new routes of experience.

Questions

How does a sign become a symbol?

What allows a graphic form to turn into an image we return to?

Can a sign shed its function yet remain as pure sensation?

How do symbols manifest in the body, in time, or in material?

Can error, noise, or failure generate symbols?

How do rituals transform signs into shared symbols?

What role does the viewer play: observer, participant, or co-creator?

How can light, sound, rhythm, and data carry symbolic resonance?

How do architectural elements shift from landmark to living symbol?

What happens in communication before language — in vibration, light, rhythm, tension?

What distinguishes fleeting symbols from those embedded in memory?

How can art treat signs as living processes rather than fixed codes?

Directions

Work with codes, signals, ciphers, and the breakdown of written structures.

Use generative processes where data shapes new meaning.

Transform light, sound, and movement into symbolic sensations.

Create environments altered by the viewer’s presence.

Engage with architecture as a living symbol.

Use biofeedback and bodily interfaces where symbols emerge from the body.

Explore numbers, letters, and text as rhythm.

Rework archetypal forms: circle, tower, dome, lighthouse.

Activate dynamic typography with body, breath, voice, or movement.

Reimagine the interface as a spatial, plastic medium

*interact with the festival symbol