Abstract

What is the place that the concept of turbulence can occupy within a structural theory of signification? What are the forms of creation to which the concept of turbulence refers? What are the implications of the peculiar forms of dynamism of turbulence for culturology? The essay, taking up a solicitation from Paolo Fabbri, answers these questions through the analysis of cases taken from the field of art. Turbulence, distinguishing itself from the fracture-explosion, reveals itself as an exploration of the internal and yet unexpected possibilities of a system of semantic constraints. Turbulence, with its logics and paradoxes, forces us to focus on the role and value of the subcontraries of the Greimasian square and on the semiotic ideas of play, void, reflexivity inherent in every semantic system.