YILE ZENG

The notion of the 'floating signifier' was coined by Lévi-Strauss in 1950, it is also known as an “empty signifier” or “open signifier”, whose nature is to "resist the constitution of any unitary meaning". That is to say that each signifier does not necessarily correspond to a referent. Normally, it absorbs meanings from surroundings rather than emitting them. The film interweaves visual and sound symbols as the signifier with the content of dialogue and text as the signified, attempting to anchor non-existent meanings in a constant sliding of signified. The left and right images represent parallel but non-intrusive spaces and introduce this chaotic, endless predicament into the only universe established by the sound symbols, where the absolute subject is constantly collapsed, abandoned, and thus goes to an imaginary, vast and silent faraway place. “Is J014 a floating signifier?” serves as the middle chapter of the J014 series, connecting different contexts and fluctuating between different manifestations with vague, inarticulate symbols.