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| Mme. de Saint-Exupéry, 1937, by Man Ray, apparently sitting on the floor, or at a bizarrely tall table. Everything about her from the African hat to the enormous cup seems to be a symbol of something, but what? |
By "signifier" we mean, in this case, the string of letters, or the sounds you hear in your head when you read them, the physical stuff that does the work of communicating. The other side of the sign, that which is communicated, the "signified", is in this case missing altogether; the expression wipes out its own meaning, by the overwhelming character of its falsity.
That is, not only do we know the Galaxy is a phone, but we know they're not even trying to fool us; they don't in any way expect us to think it's not a phone. In fact if we bought one and it somehow turned out not to be a phone we would be justly enraged. "Mr. Samsung, I am sorry to say that my new phone has turned out to be a European Ford minivan, or a vast cluster of stars, I am sending it back."
