A Universal Syntax
2024/2017, 35mm slide projections and micro-controller
A Universal Syntax, an installation for two slide projections showing the transcript of a fictional interview. An ethnographer narrates their discovery of a secret musical score composed by a monastic order which, when sung by the chorus, causes their monastery to disappear. The work’s silent images tease at unbridgeable gaps between viewing and listening, between projected future and vanished past, and between the unbridled noise of living and the melancholy capture of recording.
Though slides are generally outdated technology and most artists are no longer actively shooting with slide film, Graydon chose to shoot A Universal Syntax on Agfa Scala monochrome slide film, a rare black-and-white slide film that was discontinued in the early 2000s. The slides intermix images and text in the form of the transcript of a fictional interview with an ethnographer who narrates their discovery of a secret musical score composed by a monastic order which, when sung by the chorus, causes their monastery to disappear. Graydon’s choice to shoot on this particular brand of slide film (disappearing and no longer available) underscores the disappearance of the monastery and highlights this theme of obsolescence. The piece is scored only by the warm whir and click of the slide projectors as images appear and disappear in irregular succession.
Amanda Hamilton, review in Sixty Inches From Center