Scholar in Semiotics and Communication Theory, multimedia designer, teacher... 

I feel always a little uneasy in presenting myself, but as a matter of fact I've done something in my life. If you read Italian, you can have a look at my official curriculum vitae, or also see the list of all my publications, but here I'm going to tell about myself more shortly. 

I got a degree in Philosophy many years ago, and a PhD in Semiotics some years later. 

I had some interests in the field of philosophy of language, and I also published something on this matter, but my main interest has been for a long time (and still is) in visual communication, particularly concerning comics and graphic design. If you are interested in understanding why I've been so concerned with comics, you can read my book of 1991, I linguaggi del fumetto (The languages of comics). 

I've written a PhD dissertation too about these topics, having as title Tempo, immagine, ritmo e racconto. Per una semiotica della temporalità nel testo a fumetti (Time, image, rhythm and narration. For a semiotics of temporality in comics texts). In this work I afforded the problems of time, but, more important, of rhythm. This specific topic has been so interesting for me, that I've continued to work on it also in different fields, realising a research for the Italian television about the analysis of rhythm in TV programs. This research has then been published in a book, with the title Questioni di ritmo. L'analisi tensiva dei testi televisivi (Questions of rhythm. The tensive analysis of television texts). I persisted in working on this topic, and I wrote another book, more theoretical and more general, having as a title Nel corso del testo. Una teoria della tensione e del ritmo (During the text. A theory of tension and rhythm).
I have written and published other books in the following years, about comics, visual communication and poetry (another topic I have always been interested in). You can browse the complete list up in the Summary.

After my degree I happened to work in the field of computers. So I learned to program computers with different languages, and I worked in this field in different situations. My interests in logics and in philosophy of language had made easy my approach to computers. But when I entered my PhD courses, in 1987, I thought I would never work anymore on computers but as a user. And I was wrong. 

The project of a Multimedia Guide to the History of European Civilization, from an idea of, and then directed by, Umberto Eco, started in 1991, while I was still writing my PhD dissertation. But it entered its core phase of prototype implementation just the day after I had closed my dissertation, and from then on it has been for a long time a presence in my life. I have been during some years president of Horizons Unlimited, the company that carried out the work, and worked in the field up to 2005. 

I've been teaching in university since 1995. In Rome, Communication Sciences, I taught semiotics for two years; in Bologna, I taught at Communication Sciences and Computer Science, and nowadays I teach at the SSSUB, directed by Umberto Eco. In Urbino, both at ISIA and (previously) at the University, I'm teacher of Multimedia Design and Semiotics of Design.
I've worked for RAI, the Italian national TV, where I've been a consultant for the design of the satellite network RAISAT1.
I'm director of Found "Enrico Gregotti", again at the SSSUB.

So summarised, in these few lines, my life seems rather simple. As usual, it's simply a matter of perspective: from inside, everything looks different! 
 
 

my picture
(photo by
Andrea Canducci)

a section of downloadable texts, with many published (but impossible to find anymore) and unpublished works, about semiotics, comics and everything (it's in Italian, but it contains also some downloadable texts in English and Spanish;
the presentation pages of my books listed in the Summary
the News at the beginning of this page
and, at the moment, nothing else.
 
 

To contact me, write to . 

To send with traditional, snail mail, use the following address:

Daniele Barbieri
c/o SSSUB
via Marsala 26
40126 Bologna
Italia