Sebeok's Cat

Synopsis
The video relates a semiotic experiment with the biography of the Hungarian scientist and emigrant Thomas Sebeok (1920-2001). Based on his pioneering studies in zoosemiotics the video confronts a cat with its own vocalizations. Thomas Sebeok, a semiotician from Budapest emigrated to America leaving behind his native language and cultural background. This loss and the alienation that every emigrant has to experience possibly may have caused Sebeok’s interest in an equally isolated and parallel world as it is represented by animal communication and thus it may be considered as a metapher for his own situation bridging the gap between the lost and the regained.