2004. Software Still - Word Creator

2004 Software Still - Home Page

Language is a philosophical system that differs from culture to culture. Each language has words, grammars and constructs that are unique to the way people who use it think, analyze and classify the world. Dictionary: A Semiotic Experiment is an attempt to create an artificial language within an established virtual culture.

“Dictionary” re-visualizes the construct of language. This experiment looks at pictographic, standard and computer languages as a platform for analysis. The rigid structure of computer languages is adopted to create a formulaic grammar that is easily learned and described. The alphabet is constructed from a hybrid ideology from verbal and pictographic languages, where the alphabet visualizes the labial, velar and dental points of articulation for each pronounced sound. “Dictionary” utilizes user-created images as definitions. Opening the experiment to include an international audience magnifies the arbitrary, vague and elusive nature of language and its use. If each individual is allowed to create a word and visual definition from her own experience, the arbitrary and unique thinking patterns from cultures worldwide are forced to co-exist in an artificially unified space, where language as a dysfunctional concept becomes a hyper reality.

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University

2005. Installation @ Syracuse University Detail

“Borders” is a fabric hallway that existed for a week in the Quad of Syracuse University. The hallway brought attention to ways of seeing, ways of framing, and ways of blinding within our space. The walls blocked our normal physical perspective and viewpoints and drew attention to other ways of physically seeing the world. In five large “windows” were removable patches that provided a semiotic system provoking reflection on our understanding of borders, fields of vision, and mediation on our campus, in our lives and in our society.