by Lananh Chu, 2021, Video (black and white and color, sound), 13min 52sec

\ ˈpi-jən \ weaves together everyday images of New York City with a dialogue or parallel monologues between two voices. The film explores the everyday language and the relationships between the human, the nonhuman, and the land. The work is accompanied by a text from the artist, reproduced below.

Lananh Chu is a Vietnamese writer and maker. She/they is unwaveringly supporting the Palestinian liberation.

~~~

\ 'pi-jən \

[long take]

[Listening to Images]

“What is the relationship between quiet and the quotidian? Each term references something assumed to go unspoken or unsaid, unremarked, unrecognized, or overlooked” (Campt 4).

When observing the obvious becomes difficult, I learn to listen. Observing is the work of the eyes; listening depends on the ears but also suggests other ways to sense everyday images. The quotidian is not something that I can easily observe; I and the quotidian could not form the observer/observed relationship because I cannot detach myself from the quotidian. I live with and within the quotidian. The quotidian leaves marks on my body. Marks are not always visible; some should be felt.

I walked outside to seek images, then all images resonated with my concerns. Those who can draw a clear border between the inside and outside, I guess, must have many properties.

[subtext] Property: (1d) an attribute common to all members of a class; (2a) something owned or possessed, specifically: a piece of real estate (Merriam-Webster dictionary).

I have an invitation: “Listen to me.” /Pigeon/ has an invitation: “Listen to me.”

Listen to our utterances, our quietness, our quotidian, our pronunciation.

[jump cut]

[Dictionary]

What does a dictionary do?

It names and defines.

It provides grammatical rules.

It teaches us through examples.

[dissolve]

[Visuality]

“Classifying, separating, and aestheticizing together form what I shall call a complex of visuality” (Mirzoeff 476).

Everyday language belongs to visuality: the sayable and unsayable, thinkable and unthinkable. Ideology is deeply entrenched in everyday language. As I read about pigeons, I realized there is a uniform language used for pigeons, women, migrants, and people of color. The Other is treated the same.

Counter-visuality is more than observing; it is reconsidering what is proper and improper prescribed by law and the aesthetic.

[jump cut]

[Pigeon]

The other(ized) is always feminized. I was surprised that “pigeon” is slang to call women. Pigeons are characterized as non-native, non-white, female, dangerous (spreading diseases), and criminal (damaging public property). Pigeons stand at the intersection of various attributed identities. “Pigeon” is not simply a metaphor for humans; pigeons teach me the connection between humans and non-human beings.

[transition]

There is the fact that pigeons are sensitive to low-frequency sounds.

“Listening requires an attunement to sonic frequencies of affect and impact. It is an ensemble of seeing, feeling, being affected, contacted, and moved beyond the distance of sight and observer” (Campt 42).

[reversed motion]

I and the quotidian could not form the observer/observed relationship because I cannot unattach myself from the quotidian. I live with and within the quotidian. The quotidian leaves marks on my body. Marks are not always visible; some should be felt.

[Works cited]

Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Right to Look,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Spring 2011).

Tina Campt, Listening to images, Duke University Press, 2017.

Pigeon Poetics