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alphabets

*Interpretation does not so much aim at revealing meaning as at reducing signifiers to their non-meaning (lack of meaning) so as to find the determinants of the whole subject’s behavior.

*Mum’s the word.

I would play a game as a child: repeat any word over and over and listen as it gradually loses its meaning in the mouth. It would become strange with each repetition, changing into something clunky and foreign.

Our language, and our voices as conduits for this language, has something alien about it. Think of the infinite awkwardness on hearing a recording of your own voice! Or take those slips of tongue that make clear we don’t know the actual subject of our speech. And isn’t it strange that when our words do clarify, they seem to only do so in the mouth of another – when someone repeats something we’ve said back to us? Our language is always expressed at a distance: the words in our mouths and in our minds are in fact alien; they are not our own.

This is because we are born into a pre-fabricated world of discourse, into our parents’ and caretakers’ linguistic universe. We have... more
credits
releases June 9, 2023

Full Track Listings:

1. alphabet 1: p-u-s-h

two studies in alphabetic listening

2. I’m in this big, open field with my brother and dad, but we’re being followed by these three men with guns. We’re trying to get away from them, and we’ve been running but at some point we find that they’ve surrounded us – so instead of trying to escape we stop and each turn invisible. We’re hoping that by disappearing we can stay hidden and they won’t be able to find us and they’ll start searching somewhere else. The men are near us now – they can’t see us but they’re very close. I accidentally step on a twig which makes a snapping noise and so they know we’re nearby because of the sound. One of the men starts using the barrel of his rifle to search in the air for us. He’s approaching me with the gun now and if I try to move out of the way I know I’ll make a sound and we’ll be caught. I’m concentrating on the part of my body that the gun is going to touch - and I’m able to create a kind of space or hole in my stomach which slowly opens so that the gun can pass through me without touching my body. He moves the gun forward, into me, and then back out. They seem convinced that we’re not there anymore and move on.

3. My family has moved into this old palatial ruin on this island. There are lots of construction workers there to make the place livable & they’re waiting to get started with the work. But there is this high, buzzing sound, like from an insect, coming from a ceiling fan that is sunken into the roof. It’s in this inaccessible circular hole. The hole needs to be filled with concrete but my dad refuses to have it filled until the insect is removed. I am walking along a small plank of wood like a tight ropewalker above them – I can tell that the construction workers are making fun of us. My dad says we can’t have the building rebuilt with an insect buried at its center. My parents start arguing.