Polifonia, polisiopia audiovisiva

Firstly, the chapter presents a framework concerning the communication systems involved in audiovisual products, particularly in television advertising, and catalogues them with a reasonable ambition for completeness, arranging them according to sensory modality (sight, hearing) and according to the type of artistic or non-artistic practice that activates them. It therefore distinguishes, on the auditory level: language, extra-linguistic phonation, music, noises (and their respective subsets); and on the visual level: bodily semiotic systems (facial expressions, dance, etc.), para-bodily systems (clothing, etc.), and systems external to the body (scenography, etc.). It also adds the audio and video levels, understanding the technical means of audiovisual construction themselves as proper communicative systems. Secondly, the chapter considers the structural and medial density typical of television advertising. Within this density, the suspension of information in any of the semiotic systems can, with acceptable generalization, be equated with silence. Thus, just as polyphony consists in the intertwining of actions across multiple layers of form, so, by analogy, polysiopy consists in the intertwining of suspensions of action. The silence of one semiotic layer functions as a space of prominence for the action in other layers, or for the onset of action in that same layer that has been silent until then.