Remote Sensing as a Semiotic Game

Abstract

Based on the metaphor of remote sensing as a semiotic game, this article aims to present a semiotic interpretation of the process of obtaining and interpreting products from remote sensing. For that, Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory was used as a theoretical foundation, especially his discussions on the structure of the sign, the phenomenological categories and the relationships evidenced by the second trichotomy, namely: icons, index and symbols. The central argument is that the use of the metaphor of the game for the practice of Remote Sensing allows a more detailed look at this process, since the approaches of this practice tend to greatly promote discussions of the physical scope, played by electromagnetic radiation, but leaves in a second plan the discussions about how the participating signs of semiosis that allows the construction of knowledge from these registers. As a result, it became evident how the notion of sign can connect the physical/psychic dimensions, the semiotic limitations of these registers in the representation of the dynamic object and the recurrence of imagery, indexical and metaphorical relationships in the process of transduction the features of these products.