Structure, Sign, & Play
3-CHANNEL VIDEO | MFA Thesis Project
Three is a magic number.
Classical rhetoric recognized this power, and created the hendiatris: an emphatic figure of speech, where three words that are used to express one idea. (Think veni, vidi, vici.)
This piece was originally installed in a triangular configuration, inspired by the Scutum Fidei, a diagram developed in the 12th century to explain the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity. The project had emerged from a fascination with this diagram—a very clear and logical attempt to explain an essentially inexplicable. I compiled an extensive list of common triads: Three Little Pigs, omg, stop lights. Arranging my collection in a loosely associative narrative arc, I mined YouTube for illustrative clips. (Each triplet had to either come from the same video or show different versions of the same thing—a strict methodology.) I recorded myself singing the list, layering my (decidedly untrained) voice into triadic combinations. The piece’s structure may be rigorous and repetitive, but the views and the voice add vulnerable and humorous elements.
Three is a magic number.
Classical rhetoric recognized this power, and created the hendiatris: an emphatic figure of speech, where three words that are used to express one idea. (Think veni, vidi, vici.)
This piece was originally installed in a triangular configuration, inspired by the Scutum Fidei, a diagram developed in the 12th century to explain the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity. The project had emerged from a fascination with this diagram—a very clear and logical attempt to explain an essentially inexplicable. I compiled an extensive list of common triads: Three Little Pigs, omg, stop lights. Arranging my collection in a loosely associative narrative arc, I mined YouTube for illustrative clips. (Each triplet had to either come from the same video or show different versions of the same thing—a strict methodology.) I recorded myself singing the list, layering my (decidedly untrained) voice into triadic combinations. The piece’s structure may be rigorous and repetitive, but the views and the voice add vulnerable and humorous elements.
The title, Structure, Sign, & Play is a loose reference to an eponymous lecture given by Jacques Derrida, which is regarded as the starting point of post-structuralism. I can’t boast a profound understanding of Derrida, but he did make the perfect hendiatris to name my piece. But the post-structuralist association was also apt. While this piece is, in some ways, an ode to structure, it’s also a parody of strict, overly-simple systems, such as theScutum Fidei. Structuralists felt that knowledge is grounded underlying societal or linguistic structures, and that discovering these structures would lead to understanding. In contrast, post-structuralists believed that any such structures would inevitably contain human bias. It was necessary therefore not to discover systems and hold them as truth, but to examine them critically.