| Give me a sign is an audio work consisting of 850 spoken words. Each word has been recorded as a separate track; these are then played through a computer in a completely random order.
Give Me a Sign sets up a process through which each of the 850 words are randomly played in quick sequence, one after the other. When each word is played there is the chance that it will be compatible with the preceding word and the word which will follow. This is reliant on the words being played in a sequence similar to their placement within the structure of a sentence. But for the majority of the time the sequence will be chaotic, making no sense what-so-ever.
The words have been taken from Basic English, developed in 1936 by C. K. Ogden, in which the English language has been reduced to a core of 850 words. Basic English was developed with the utopian ideal of providing an easily learned second language to aid international co-operation. |
