ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes several interpretive parameters to establish the field of surface semiotics. Urban surfaces are shown to carry unique insights into the cultures of cities through a reading which accounts for the material and communicative dimensions of inscriptions and surfaces. Traffic signs, advertising posters, and unsanctioned markings are analysed as collective spatial agents alongside ambitions of urban order and morality which are enforced through clean surfaces.
Seven key arguments are developed in this chapter: the places of discourse are fundamental to the production of meaning, signification takes place in localised aggregates, surfaces are thick and alive, dirt is a crime, order is white, visibility generates value, text makes space, and the city makes us literate. Based on these, it is suggested that surfaces are visible results of ideas about cities, challenges to those ideas, and the policies put in place to manage these tensions. Plural surface discourse is a site of urban politics.
