Chris Arning

Chris Arning is a blend of performer, academic and consultant.

He is a writer, performance poet, spoken word artist, and stand up.

Poetry wise he is a former winner of the Hammer & Tongue, Camden Town Slam competition, and has performed at Poetry Unplugged, Bang Said the Gun, Jawdance, Floetry, Imaginary Millions, Farrago Slam, Roughler Club, Monday Bites and The Bowery Poetry Club NYC as well as the District 91 Toastmasters Convention. He recently performed his first one-man show - Recovery Unplugged - State of Grace - a 40 mins show on addiction recovery and mental health on Zoom.

His stand-up comedy routines have wowed audiences at Comedy @ The Castle, Funny Feckers, Upstairs at the Queens' Head, Big Nose Comedy, Quintessential Comedy, Comedy Bloomers, Ophelia’s Cocktail Lounge and the Edinburgh Fringe.

He is working on multiple writing projects including a textbook, a novel and an album.

He's also a keen speaker and Immediate Past President of Berkeley Square Speakers. He had a collection of haiku published in Urthona the Triratna literary magazine in late 2020.

Chris Arning is Co-Founder of Semiofest and originator of the Semiotic Thinking Group on Linked In. He headed up a team of semioticians at Flamingo Research and founded Creative Semiotics back in 2010. As a consultant, he has worked on hundreds of commercial semiotics projects and has clocked up over 30,000 hours of semiotics practice. He has led large projects for BBC News, Boots, BMW Mini, Unilever, Microsoft, Kellogg’s, Radio Centre and the Government of Estonia.

He is an evangelist for semiotics and also has a strong interest in education. He devised and taught the MA course Brands and Meaning at the University of Warwick and most recently he developed a regular online course - How to Do Semiotics in Seven Weeks. Chris has been published in Huffington Post, Admap, The Drum and The New European.