The Onus Is On Me
Hiya Singh
A three-channel 16mm projection installation, The Onus Is On Me reimagines the film title as a tactile, embodied experience. Language, typography, and motion, all elements of traditional title design, are used within the frame to emphasize and explore the directionality and physicality of speech. To do so, the construction and motion of the type is personified. A custom variable typeface swings from left to right. A marquee animation represents the way words are read and absorbed. The dramatic reading employs monologue, a literary device rooted in the body.
The protagonist wants to be an actor but feels dissatisfied with how they are perceived. They attribute good perception to the onlooker’s psychological bias and projection—assuming that no one is projecting onto them. Escapism is their coping mechanism, represented by abstract silkscreened frames in the middle channel. The side channels represent reality, and the protagonist’s feelings are conveyed there through horizontal and pulsating typographic movements.
For a project exploring the body’s role in shaping linguistic connections, film is the natural choice. Production oscillates between digital and analog formats, making it labor-intensive, time-consuming, and unpredictable. Techniques like traveling mattes and screen printing on film create unexpected outcomes each time. There is something unexpected even in the projection of these films as they loop unevenly, revealing new combinations of phrases each time. This randomness serves as a metaphor for the dynamic nature of language as its meaning shifts with changing space and time.