Multimodal Semiotics and Collaborative Design

Figure 8.28 Air-view of the PAL sim, and light-paths for walking between upper-level listening pods
These variations lead to an emphasis on the experiential function, as the textual organization of
cubes produce the ground plane and signify pathways to follow. Finally, the metaphorical
associations to potential (real-world) places lead the co-designers to derive an interpersonal
meaning potential, which was described by Xavier and Shaggy as a ‘pixel’ or ‘digital’ landscape:
Shaggy: Basically the idea … was … an array of cubes with different heights like a digital
landscape. (…) And when I had the sim filled with these cubes, I’ve done hills and valleys
Xavier: The design is very abstract. It’s like a landscape but it’s made out of boxes. So it’s like a
“pixel-landscape”, I think we can call it that. And that was the main idea.
Furthermore, these interpersonal relations, such as Shaggy’s metaphorization of ‘hills and valleys’,
lead Xavier to imagine it as a real-world landscape:
Xavier: AmyLee built the landscape and she said “Come look, what do you think about it.”
And I said “This is Scotland!”, we have a valley and a river in the bottom down at the valley,
the stage that is one side of the mountain, and all the audience is on the other side when you
look across the valley.
Xavier, AmyLee and Curiza also comment on the later development of the ‘pixel landscape’
concept, especially in relation to the orange pathway that was designed to guide the visitor
chronotopes toward various multimodal interaction spaces. Similar to the avenues and streets
designed in Metrotopia to guide movement, PAL’s open-space layout also affords visual clues to
particular directions embedded as textual elements. On the other hand, this orange pathway was
the subject of another discussion between the co-designers: while Xavier aimed at a pure
abstraction of the ‘pixel landscape’ concept, Emily’s intention was to guide the movements of
visitors. Here, the decision making processes and the power relations within groups are also
relevant in the analysis of a virtual place’s semiotic potentials form a sign-maker’s point of view.
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