This is Being Black, This is Being White I, II, & III

(Video, Sculpture, Installation)

DESCRIPTION

  • Video: This video was originally captured on Super 8 cartridge film. The cartridges are included in their entirety.
  • Installation: One Black individual and one White individual (who were hired through a temporary employment agency), two monitors (one that played the Black portion of a video and one that played the White portion of a video) and four stools.
  • Sculpture: Concrete block and spray paint

STATEMENT

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) established a triadic theory of sign where the Representamen (the signifier), relates to both the Interpretant (the signified) and the Object (the referent). Peirce added that the Object can be an Immediate Object, the object as it is represented by the sign, or a Dynamic Object, the actual object independent of the sign. THIS IS BEING BLACK, THIS IS BEING WHITE questions the existence of a Black or White racial identity, or the “Dynamic Object” of the sign. (Does “Blackness” or “Whiteness” exist independently of the sign or only as Immediate Object?) The Representamen, a representation of a Black or White individual, leads to the creation of an Interpretant or Immediate Object, the concept or further sign of a Black or White identity type, but can not point to a racial identity or “Blackness/Whiteness”.

IMAGES

VIDEO