Semiotics is not everything,
But without Semiotics you can do nothing.

In the final analysis, all art forms are instructional systems, which have no meaning in themselves but point to the meaning. All icons have the potential to be transformed into indexes, and all innovations are aimed at the solidification of symbols, so that "interpretant" is free in the generation.

All meaning systems are substitutes (referentially) of meaning itself, just as historical texts are historical substitutes, and all these substitutes left on the signifier chain constitute "civilization". The meaning of "civilization" does not lie in its worship value but the call of life experience in the retrospective process. Similarly, the value of "meaning" does not lie in the "truth" that the work brings to readers (audience), but awakening their unspeakable and heterogeneous life experience, thus activating the subject.

Meaning does not exist in the sender, nor in the text, so is it in the receiver (reader, audience, or critic)? In this regard, theories such as reception aesthetics are biased towards readers, but I don't think so. Both the interpretation of readers and critics fail to obtain the meaning, but merely "reproduces" a substitute for the "meaning". The meaning is like a flying bird in the air. When you catch it, it is no longer a flying bird. However, the search for "meaning" is still extremely valuable, because the bird in the hand points to the sky again.