During Projection 1, I came to an important realisation: I’m not aiming to universalise or fix meaning — I’m exploring what happens when meaning breaks down. This is why, as I mentioned earlier, the symbolic system I had developed began to feel limiting within my practice. It reduced the richness and ambiguity of voice into fixed categories, which ultimately felt too rigid and reductive.
Instead, my focus during Projection 2 shifted towards the subtleties of subtitling and its standardisation. This interest grew out of a longer trajectory in my work, as the notion of standardisation has been a recurring theme in my enquiry since Unit 2.
This shift in focus led to the core enquiry of my final project: My project explores how subtitling, often considered a neutral tool for accessibility or translation, can instead become a space for interpretation, ambiguity, and emotional resonance. What happens when subtitles are not simply used to “explain” the audio, but to play with it, contradict it, or even fail?
All of this stems from extensive research, during which I collected various references that supported and informed the development of my enquiry.
Kim, C.S. (2015) Close Readings. Available at: https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/close-readings-jeffrey-mansfield-ariel-baker-gibbs-alison-odaniel-lauren-ridloff-117969.
Christine Sun Kim inspired me to look beyond my own interpretation of sound and to reflect on the multiple layers through which it can be perceived and translated. Her approach reveals that sound is not neutral — nor are the words used to represent it. I was particularly drawn to the ambiguity she embraces in her work, which resists fixed meanings and opens up space for more personal, subjective interpretations.
Benigni, Roberto and Wright, Steven, ‘Strange to Meet You’, in Coffee and Cigarettes, dir. by Jim Jarmusch, USA: Lakeshore Entertainment, 2003.
The conversational tone and bilingual texture in Strange to Meet You by Benigni and Wright is another key reference: their dialogue plays with rhythm, cultural misunderstanding, and performative language. This blend of absurdity and sincerity has influenced how I construct and voice my scripts, and it inspired me to approach my practice with an ironic tone that helped me convey my concept more naturally. My work is less about translating content and more about staging an encounter between sound and text, voice and interpretation.
Rosler, M., Semiotics of the Kitchen, video performance, 1975. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuZympOIGC0
Martha Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen was also very inspiring for my practice, particularly in the way she subverts systems of standardisation and communication. I loved how she broke the codified language of the kitchen and reclaimed it through irony, physicality, and frustration — turning everyday gestures and objects into tools of resistance and creating a performance that critiques the roles of women in domestic settings. Similarly, my project investigates how everyday speech can be reframed through text and visual form, disrupting the authority of clear, neutral communication.