Come Play 2021, 3;45 min, color, sound, 4 channel HD video, English, Japanese, Mandarin & Italian, English titles
(for full screen click bottom right of video)
Come Play is a four channel video installation about femininity and two branches of linguistics; semantics and phonetics.
I’m interested in how words can have different meaning based on context and tonality. With my background in sex work and sexuality, ‘come’ and ‘play’ have taken on such a strong second meaning that I find myself anxious using either word with family members in fear of misinterpretation.
Phonetically speaking I love the sound of language, notably languages that I cannot translate but appreciate for their melody. I wanted to create a piece that focused both on the meaning and rhythmic repetition of words to invoke a meditative feel.
For this work, I asked four female friends to whisper the phrase ‘come play’ repeatedly as I filmed close-up on their lips. Upon request, each spoke a different language; English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Italian. At a halfway point throughout filming I prompted them to apply red lipstick to their lips and repeat the phrase again, the lipstick playing role as a trope of feminine sexuality.
The installation is meant to be presented in a small dark room with each of the channels projected onto a wall. The audio will play from speakers inside the room. The video will play continuously on a loop.