David Bard-Schwarz in his book Strangest Thing: An Introduction to Electronic Art through the Teaching of Jacques Lacan. London: Routledge. 2014, explores the links between works of new media and psychoanalysis (how we process what we see, hear, touch, imagine, and remember).
About Nothing Further Happens, Bard-Schwarz writes: "Throughout, the picture plane is divided approximately in half; the shots are of natural subject matter, but, for me, the effect is anything but a representation of nature, as if through a transparent, or neutral lens. The 16 mm film has a thick, material presence, and there are many moments of glitch. For example, there are several frames of glitch of which the left-hand side of the image above is an example (in the original, the sky is a bright violet and the ocean is bright yellow and red); then the technology settles in, snapping into place, as on the right...The bare shots evoke looking at looking, not as in frame narrative in which each frame shifts what came before or after (as in a traditional unreliable narrator in fiction). Rather, the materiality of the specular signifier is laid bare, and this particularly in the untouched moments of glitch. ...The slowing moving images of Méndez's work are heightened as signifiers through glitch–signifiers that fire back at their source...The music by Ben Frost parallels in sound Méndez’s visuals …These over- and underwhelmed pitches of an F Minor triad that parallel the visual glitch that stares at bare landscapes are signifiers that point to themselves.” (full excerpt below)
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Nothing Further Happens, 2011; 16mm film, screened as single-channel video projected at architectural scale, color, sound by Ben Frost; continuous loop, 9:38 minutes.
Captured in 16mm film throughout Iceland, Svalbard Archipelago, Atacama Desert in Chile, and in White Sands, United States.
Exhibition History:
55th Venice Biennale, Maldives Pavilion, Pirate Cinema. May 29 – June 09, 2013. Venice, Italy. Curated by Ehsan Fardjadniya and Miriam de Rosa (group).
Each Day at Noon: Rebeca Méndez April 2 – 30, 2012. Hammer Museum, Café Hammer, Los Angeles, California. Curated by Elizabeth Cline (solo).
So Close and Yet So Far February 7 – March 19, 2012. José Druidas Baida Gallery, Mount Saint Mary’s College, Los Angeles. Curated by Irina Costache (group).
Rebeca Méndez, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, Mexico, July 15–October 03, 2011, curated by Jorge Contreras, director of MACO (solo).
Excerpt from: Strangest Thing: An Introduction to Electronic Art through the Teaching of Jacques Lacan by David Bard-Schwarz London: Routledge. 2014.
Rebeca Méndez did a work entitle Nothing Further Happens; see Figure 4.10.
The image below is composite of stills from the video accompanied by music composed by Ben Frost. Throughout, the picture plane is divided approximately in half; the shots are of natural subject matter, but, for me, the effect is anything but a representation of nature, as if through a transparent, or neutral lens. The 16 mm film has a thick, material presence, and there are many moments of glitch. For example, there are several frames of glitch of which the left-hand side of the image above is an example (in the original, the sky is a bright violet and the ocean is bright yellow and red); then the technology settles in, snapping into place, as on the right.
The bare shots evoke looking at looking, not as in frame narrative in which each frame shifts what came before or after (as in a traditional unreliable narrator in fiction). Rather, the materiality of the specular signifier is laid bare, and this particularly in the untouched moments of glitch. This discussion of Méndez will begin with glitch as signifier and then move on to a consideration of the music.
For Lacan, one of the ways in which the signifier works is to take account of itself as sign:
"I'm at sea, the captain of a small ship. I see things moving about in the night, in a way that gives me cause to think that there may be a sign there. How shall I react? If I'm not yet a human being, I shall react with all sorts of displays, as they say–modeled, motor, and emotional. I satisfy the description of psychologists, I understand something, in fact I do everything I'm telling you that must know how not to do. If on the other hand I am a human being, I write in my log book– At such and such a time, at such and such a degree of latitude and longitude, we noticed this and that. This is what is fundamental. I shelter my responsibility. What distinguishes the signifier is here. I make a note of the sign as such." (Lacan 1997a: 188)
This citation from Lacan locates the signifier with language, but signifiers can point to themselves in images and sounds. Images that evacuate as much content as possible, sounds that evade conventional associations, tend to sound like signifiers, pulled away from signifieds to which they point.
Lacan, in fact, locates the signifier precisely in the auditory dimension of language:
"If there is something that can introduce us to the dimension of the written as such, it is the realization that the signified has nothing to do with ears, but only with reading–the reading of the signifiers we hear. The signified is not what you hear. What you hear is the signifier. The signified is the effect of the signifier." (Lacan 1998: 33)
So, too, with vision; what we see is of the signifier; what we make of what we see is of the signified.
The slowing moving images of Méndez's work are heightened as signifiers through glitch–signifiers that fire back at their source. The music by Ben Frost parallels in sound Méndez's visuals; see Figure 4.11.
Throughout the work, we hear the F minor sonority notated below. It sounds as if there are both computer-manipulated sounds in addition to live instruments, perhaps one or more double basses and/or other stringed instruments. It sounds as if the low F is being played by a bass, but the strings on the double bass are E, A, D, and G. Perhaps a live feed is being altered by software. Nevertheless, we hear this ubiquitous F minor sonority throughout–an acoustic correlate to the simplicity of visuals in the video. There are occasional D-flats (the solid notehead attached to the C-natural2). The acoustic equivalent of glitch sounds throughout–sounds of the F minor sonority played on a stringed instrument with either too much bow pressure and too little bow speed (making the notes sound choked) or too little bow pressure and too much bow speed (making the notes sound wispy).
These over- and underdetermined pitches of an F minor triad that parallel the visual glitch that stares at bare landscapes are signifiers that point to themselves. For Lacan:
"Even when inside an organism, whether living or not, things are transmitted that are founded upon the effectiveness of all or nothing, even when, by virtue of the fact that, for example, a threshold exists, there is something which doesn't exist below a certain level and then all of a sudden has a certain effect ... we still can't speak of communication if by communication we imply the originality of the order of the signifier. Indeed, it isn't as all or nothing that something is a signifier, it's to the extent that something constituting a whole, a sign, exists and signifies precisely nothing." (Lacan 1997a 188-189)
About Nothing Further Happens, Bard-Schwarz writes: "Throughout, the picture plane is divided approximately in half; the shots are of natural subject matter, but, for me, the effect is anything but a representation of nature, as if through a transparent, or neutral lens. The 16 mm film has a thick, material presence, and there are many moments of glitch. For example, there are several frames of glitch of which the left-hand side of the image above is an example (in the original, the sky is a bright violet and the ocean is bright yellow and red); then the technology settles in, snapping into place, as on the right...The bare shots evoke looking at looking, not as in frame narrative in which each frame shifts what came before or after (as in a traditional unreliable narrator in fiction). Rather, the materiality of the specular signifier is laid bare, and this particularly in the untouched moments of glitch. ...The slowing moving images of Méndez's work are heightened as signifiers through glitch–signifiers that fire back at their source...The music by Ben Frost parallels in sound Méndez’s visuals …These over- and underwhelmed pitches of an F Minor triad that parallel the visual glitch that stares at bare landscapes are signifiers that point to themselves.” (full excerpt below)
Nothing Further Happens, 2011; 16mm film, screened as single-channel video projected at architectural scale, color, sound by Ben Frost; continuous loop, 9:38 minutes.
Captured in 16mm film throughout Iceland, Svalbard Archipelago, Atacama Desert in Chile, and in White Sands, United States.
Exhibition History:
55th Venice Biennale, Maldives Pavilion, Pirate Cinema. May 29 – June 09, 2013. Venice, Italy. Curated by Ehsan Fardjadniya and Miriam de Rosa (group).
Each Day at Noon: Rebeca Méndez April 2 – 30, 2012. Hammer Museum, Café Hammer, Los Angeles, California. Curated by Elizabeth Cline (solo).
So Close and Yet So Far February 7 – March 19, 2012. José Druidas Baida Gallery, Mount Saint Mary’s College, Los Angeles. Curated by Irina Costache (group).
Rebeca Méndez, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, Mexico, July 15–October 03, 2011, curated by Jorge Contreras, director of MACO (solo).
Excerpt from: Strangest Thing: An Introduction to Electronic Art through the Teaching of Jacques Lacan by David Bard-Schwarz London: Routledge. 2014.
Rebeca Méndez did a work entitle Nothing Further Happens; see Figure 4.10.
The image below is composite of stills from the video accompanied by music composed by Ben Frost. Throughout, the picture plane is divided approximately in half; the shots are of natural subject matter, but, for me, the effect is anything but a representation of nature, as if through a transparent, or neutral lens. The 16 mm film has a thick, material presence, and there are many moments of glitch. For example, there are several frames of glitch of which the left-hand side of the image above is an example (in the original, the sky is a bright violet and the ocean is bright yellow and red); then the technology settles in, snapping into place, as on the right.
The bare shots evoke looking at looking, not as in frame narrative in which each frame shifts what came before or after (as in a traditional unreliable narrator in fiction). Rather, the materiality of the specular signifier is laid bare, and this particularly in the untouched moments of glitch. This discussion of Méndez will begin with glitch as signifier and then move on to a consideration of the music.
For Lacan, one of the ways in which the signifier works is to take account of itself as sign:
"I'm at sea, the captain of a small ship. I see things moving about in the night, in a way that gives me cause to think that there may be a sign there. How shall I react? If I'm not yet a human being, I shall react with all sorts of displays, as they say–modeled, motor, and emotional. I satisfy the description of psychologists, I understand something, in fact I do everything I'm telling you that must know how not to do. If on the other hand I am a human being, I write in my log book– At such and such a time, at such and such a degree of latitude and longitude, we noticed this and that. This is what is fundamental. I shelter my responsibility. What distinguishes the signifier is here. I make a note of the sign as such." (Lacan 1997a: 188)
This citation from Lacan locates the signifier with language, but signifiers can point to themselves in images and sounds. Images that evacuate as much content as possible, sounds that evade conventional associations, tend to sound like signifiers, pulled away from signifieds to which they point.
Lacan, in fact, locates the signifier precisely in the auditory dimension of language:
"If there is something that can introduce us to the dimension of the written as such, it is the realization that the signified has nothing to do with ears, but only with reading–the reading of the signifiers we hear. The signified is not what you hear. What you hear is the signifier. The signified is the effect of the signifier." (Lacan 1998: 33)
So, too, with vision; what we see is of the signifier; what we make of what we see is of the signified.
The slowing moving images of Méndez's work are heightened as signifiers through glitch–signifiers that fire back at their source. The music by Ben Frost parallels in sound Méndez's visuals; see Figure 4.11.
Throughout the work, we hear the F minor sonority notated below. It sounds as if there are both computer-manipulated sounds in addition to live instruments, perhaps one or more double basses and/or other stringed instruments. It sounds as if the low F is being played by a bass, but the strings on the double bass are E, A, D, and G. Perhaps a live feed is being altered by software. Nevertheless, we hear this ubiquitous F minor sonority throughout–an acoustic correlate to the simplicity of visuals in the video. There are occasional D-flats (the solid notehead attached to the C-natural2). The acoustic equivalent of glitch sounds throughout–sounds of the F minor sonority played on a stringed instrument with either too much bow pressure and too little bow speed (making the notes sound choked) or too little bow pressure and too much bow speed (making the notes sound wispy).
These over- and underdetermined pitches of an F minor triad that parallel the visual glitch that stares at bare landscapes are signifiers that point to themselves. For Lacan:
"Even when inside an organism, whether living or not, things are transmitted that are founded upon the effectiveness of all or nothing, even when, by virtue of the fact that, for example, a threshold exists, there is something which doesn't exist below a certain level and then all of a sudden has a certain effect ... we still can't speak of communication if by communication we imply the originality of the order of the signifier. Indeed, it isn't as all or nothing that something is a signifier, it's to the extent that something constituting a whole, a sign, exists and signifies precisely nothing." (Lacan 1997a 188-189)