What with all the bus beatings, iPad muggers and pigeon killers, it's reasonable to feel a bit overwhelmed in the city, in need of some outlet for all that anxiety. One NYer who felt that way decided to channel that frustration into a video project...a very strange video project, involving the ten sign semiotic system of philosopher/mathematician Charles Sanders Peirce. Watch it below:
We won't mince words: the video is weird. But as we watched it a second and third time, we were less focused on trying to figure out the overall concept (see below), and more taken by the striking, fleeting images: the disorienting flashes at the start, the violence on the floor by the L, the stillness of the Empire State Building, and the ranting of a shirtless man. There is an uncomfortable section where the videographer catcalls and "labels" passersby, and the whole thing ends with an interview with a woman with more than a bit of hair on her chin.
According to the uploader's description, the "experimental documentary," NYC I-X, adopts the city as object, New Yorkers as interpretant, and ten different scenes as the signs themselves. Each scene is labeled according to which sign was used:
I - rhematic iconic qualisign: A feeling of New York City
II - rhematic iconic sinsign: A 'model' of New Yorkers
III - rhematic indexical sinsign: Possibilites near the subway
IV - dicent indexical sinsign: onomatopoeia: New Yorkers ignore violence
V - rhematic iconic legisign: The Empire State Building
VI - rhematic indexical legisign: The layout of New York City
VII - dicent indexical legisign: "This is New York"
VIII - rhematic symbolic legisign: The New York Times in context
IX - dicent symbolic legisign: Naming pedestrians
X - argument symbolic legisign: A proposition from an interview
