How to detonate a semiotic bomb: the dynamics of Lotmanian explosion in the semiosphere

Abstract Lotmanian cultural dynamics involve change through textual interaction. Texts, offering vehicles for information, play a central role in this, with cultural change happening in two modes: gradual and explosive instances of texts that alter the semiosphere. This paper focuses on the process of explosion–an unpredictable mode of change in Lotmanian theory–through a metaphorical methodology, by introducing the concept of semiotic bomb. A semiotic bomb works here as a theoretical object that tries to harness the effect of explosion within the semiosphere. The concept of semiotic bomb serves as both a way to examine what is necessary for explosion to happen and as a theoretical exercise in attempting to predict the unpredictable in culture. We contend that cultural change must be understood in terms of sign configurations and information transmission through Charles Morris’s behavioral semiotics, and that this basis works as a complement of Juri Lotman’s cultural dynamics by grounding textual information on behavioral change and resignification. Taking a note from information and semiotic warfare, we look at what it takes for culture to foster change through the prism of Lotman’s theory, and how we could conceptualize intentional change through information manipulation and presentation. The paper offers a novel look into the logic of explosion within the semiotic theory of Juri Lotman and proposes conceptual avenues for exploring, analyzing and tentatively implementing the concept of explosion by the proposed idea of a semiotic bomb.