influence, habit & agency
Ella Phillips
Comms.
In earlier works, emerging from a curiosity about how information is disseminated and institutional critiques, I have adopted the role of Rancière’s Ignorant School Master. This led to the development of fast paced 'information programmes’ where unruly Socratic subtitles question the power of the viewing space over the audience. Elizabeth Price’s transcriptions, styled as Greek chorus, act as a conduit between image, sound and and audience, creating a driving rhythm. This has helped me to reflect on the purpose of text in my videos. Price speaks through pre-used word arrangements and the text becomes another archival accompaniment to film footage; whereas I create my own linguistic haikus mixing re-appropriated and self-made images. This enables me to develop complex ideas through simple text that slips between institutional voice and absurdist critique.
Having delighted in many Modernist writers direct ‘zero degree of writing’ style (Roland Barthes), my scripts and texts use language as another material rather than a descriptor. The interplay of word, image, audio and screen has become an important feature of my practice.