la trahison des signes
This work is a site-specific installation responding to the exhibition theme truth*
The full 6:48 looping video component:
Still image closeups:
specifications
- date 2022
- media multimedia installation: video projection, surgical masks, fixative, fasteners
- size 36″ h 72″ w 2″ d 6:48 looping video
- exhibition history commissioned by National Liberty Museum for the exhibition truth* 4 Sep 2022 – 4 Jul 2023
description
The curatorial statement for truth* states:
National Liberty Museum
At the heart of our social and political divide lie questions of truth – how it is defined, by whom and for what purpose. truth* uses multiple lenses to bring current thoughts, questions and debates into focus. In an immersive and interactive space built by a community of thinkers and creators, we provide tools to navigate and engage in these critical conversations. With powerful visuals and activities that promote self-reflection and shared experiences, truth* invites us to consider how the quest for truth opens our minds to new ideas and perspectives, leading to a more connected and understanding world.
In response:
42 individual videos of mouths are projected into 42 surgical masks. In unison, they chant words or phrases that, in our divided times, can mean utterly opposite things depending on the context or the speaker. We must read their lips: they mouth the words but do not speak aloud.
The title is a spoof on the famous René Magritte painting La Trahison des Images. Though it bears no formal relationship to that image, it shares a semiotic sentiment. Where Magritte’s Trahison is a philosophical treatise on the impossibility of reconciling the signifier and the signified, my Trahison is far darker: it questions whether truth is even possible when that which is signified cannot reconcile itself to a semiotic consensus. Hence, the treachery of signs.