The Language Barrier, 1996

Exploration the goal of which goal was to put another person (the person talking) in a destabilized position through words. I asked many different people, individually, to read the cue cards in front of them one after another, which were held by someone else. The words and the images which followed started in French (this project took place in France), with difficult words for Anglophones, then continued not only with a change in the language but also using difficult words to pronounce. The accent of the speaker would sometimes change the meaning of the word. Then images followed (an apple, O.J. Simpson..), numbers, logos (McDonald’s M), signs, etc. It was an assortment that destabilized, reassured, and then lost the person again.