On May 21–23, 2026, the sixth international conference on semiosis in communication, “Medical humanities: Bridges between Embodiment of Signs and Embodied AI,” was held in Romania, at George Emil Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology of Târgu Mureș, in the heart of Transylvania.
The key organizer of the conference was Romanian semiotic researcher Nicolae-Sorin Drăgan. The conference was attended by renowned semiotic researchers from around the world. It should be noted that the wide geographic range of participants included experts from about 50 countries, from South America to Asia. Such a variety of scientific schools and research traditions has created a rich space for interdisciplinary semiotic dialogue.
Within the framework of the conference, Professor Tigran Simyan presented a report on the topic “Visualization of epic material in urban space: on the example of Armenia, Latvia, Estonia, and North Macedonia” within the framework of the project Daredevils of Sassoun in Art and Socio-political Discourse: Social Memory, Identity, Typology, and Multimodality[project number 24SSAH-6B014] by Committee on Higher Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia.
The report considered “zero signs” as visual embodiments of epic plots and characters in an urban environment. A special place was given to the image of the enemy as a zero (absent) or present sign. In particular, the question was raised about the presence or absence of the so-called “zero sign” when visualizing the enemy, that is, whether the enemy is represented directly in the sculptural composition or whether his presence is expressed indirectly through the pose, gestures of the hero, compositional solution, and other visual elements.
