altitude

altitude (2024) situates text within the physical frame of a modular stage, using the architecture of performance as a site for language and myth. The stage, composed of 2 x 1 meter modules arranged in a 4 x 4 meter grid with an added corridor of panels, becomes both structure and support for a text-based drawing rendered on drafting paper. Informed by Claude Lévi-Strauss’ concept of bricolage, a theory on how myths are constructed through the recombination of existing elements, the work proposes a parallel between stage modules and linguistic units: interchangeable parts in a system of recomposition.

The hand-drawn text draws from a personal lexicon of memories and inherited stories. Phrases that conjure objects, places, anecdotes and events that sit “backstage” to the raised platform. Though the words gesture toward precision, laid out as if blueprints on drafting paper, they dissolve on closer inspection. Composed of fragmented vertical lines, the text resists readability, mirroring the fragmented, often unreliable nature of memory, creating a tension between exactness and disintegration.