Name/Sign - My Name Collection
marker on paper
dimension variable
2014
The relationship between a signifier and a signified is arbitrary -- but what if it is a name and a specified, tangible, person?
Unlike the arbitrary pair in semiotics, a name seems to carry various expectations of and sometimes even prejudgments toward a person, even though it is usually given before one's personality is developed.
Thus, to draw the irony in name that has both wish and chance, I took my name to be a multifaceted facade by asking both close friends and strangers to make some new names. Some coined names that bear certain meanings and virtues to be clothed with, or indicates characteristics they had seen in me. Others gave names that were taken from other people whom I resemble. Of course there were random names as well.
I received what they wrote in their own handwriting, along with the date and their own names as celebrities sign their autographs. Next, the writings were pixelated, and then copied by my hand, cell by cell, using the same Sharpie marker and paper. These drawings are solely arbitrary floating signifiers, or physical traces that are heavily infused with personal discoveries.
