In the Mountain's Shadow. On the Drift of the Signifier in Contemporary Visual Hypertrophy

Abstract

This editorial reflects on the relationship between trace, sign and meaning within contemporary visual culture, starting from the author’s journey through the Berber villages and ksour of southern Tunisia. The desert landscape becomes a critical space through which to rethink drawing as an act of designation, capable of transforming traces into meaningful signs. Against the visual hypertrophy of today’s media environment, the text argues that the overproduction of images risks weakening the signifier, replacing observation with mere recognition and eroding the narrative structures through which meaning is built. The issue of TRIBELON is therefore introduced as a collective reflection on presence, absence, imagination and the symbolic power of drawing.