I’m now back to considering the words I’m using to project. So I came by the words I’m using by photocopying a few pages of The New shorter oxford English dictionary at my local library, which has 3767 pages. I chose to look at the page numbers relating to the Fibonacci sequence of numbers and so this was pages: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597 and 2584. Limiting the scope of the parts of the dictionary I’m looking at means the task is manageable. Using the Fibonacci sequence means there are a lot of small numbers and therefore many pages of words beginning with ‘a’, this is unintentional but doesn’t matter as I am simply trying to highlight the words I don’t understand yet out of a limited number of pages, 17 in this selection.
In trying out this idea with black sheeting I had the photocopied sheets from the dictionary and highlighted words and chose words to pick out in pin pricks fairly at random, but was more inclined to include interesting words – from their shape, what I initially thought they meant and from their definition. I consider this to be a suitable way to choose words to use.
I’m thinking I should get all the definitions of the 255 words onto a document, but on considering it, it is the dullest thing I could now do with this exciting work.
The exciting bit is the words into light. Why? The projection of the words onto skin and surfaces is almost magical. Low-fi light play. In a time of digital and laser, what place does my simple light-play occupy?
