Simulcra in the Visual Dictionary

TVD, or The Visual Dictionary, is a search-ready database that seems together the visual apex of words with a digital repository. Basically, it's users can upload a snapshot of words from signs, monuments or adverts, and these enter the site's catalog.


Since the project's inception in 2006, TVD users have uploaded 5,116 different words and 9,689 images. I browsed the stats section and was, at first, puzzled to find that "Madrid" is the most popular semiotic pairing with 43 contributions. It finishes before "Stop" (38), "Bar" (32), "Love" (28) and "The" (27). Madrid is probably frequently in the database because it's a prime tourist location and geolocational markers serve both as directional guides and to remind tourists, You are here.

What interests me is that there becomes something sacrosanct about the physical space and the fictive of travel, here with "Madrid," this concept is fused into a very physical space. It seems to say a fit about the formulation of anchor words in language, much like how "bar" and "love" have a variety of cultural and social roles and seem to pop up all over the place. In the case of these words, you can see how readily concepts can be compounded to into signs, or visual anchors, that convey a meaning at a cost-efficient character count.