Material Semiotics and the Rhizomatic Subject

Abstract

This chapter introduces key features of actor-network theory and approaches in its vicinity that together can be called material semi-otics. In material semiotics the subject as well as materiality are seen as relational effects. After discussing the methodological suspension of dichotomies and presenting the language of material semiotics as inspired by narrative theory and the semiotics of Greimas, the author introduces a 'materiality of materialization' and presents the subject of material semiot-ics as an effect of rhizomatic material assemblages. As such, the subject can be understood as a black box.