Machines for the Suppression of Time - ACE108.4

Lowndes: "Language is situated on the axis…" Man passes clocks. Caption: "Name A." Birdcage and bird silhouette. Commentary: "To read is to struggle to name." Lowndes: "… of association and contiguity." Man with flying ducks on mirror. Caption: "Predicate A + B." Miscellaneous items by a mousehole; photograph of Captain Robert Scott; reflection of painting by Peter Scott; boy looking at picture book. The painting, the flying ducks, Lowndes in uniform, asleep in chair, three blocks of wood on wall over fireplace, ducks on mirror, etc. Commentary quotes Barthes: "This temporary wandering of the predicate can be described in terms of a game ...with two players, the Snare and the Truth". Caption: "Enigma A + B = C." Commentary continues: "…the more signs there are, the more the truth will be obscured…". The same image of blocks, ducks, mirror, fireplace. in different colours. VO: "For the distinguishing feature of the sign is that, in some way, it always eludes the individual or social will." Caption concerning "Paradigmatic Association". Lowndes: "Language is situated on the axis of association and contiguity". Caption concerning "Syntagmatic Association". Various statues in gardens with captions "Paradigmatic Association" and "Syntagmatic Association". Man passing statues while going towards gardens entrance. VO: "In the Syntagm, a term acquires its value only because it stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows it, or to both". Repetition of man and statues sequence. Commentary quotes Barthes, "Truth … is at the end of expectation … This design … implies a return to order as expectation is disorder. … narratives … attempt to name." Woman entering gardens. Caption: "Name A." Mirror/ducks/fireplace, etc. Caption: "Symbolic Code." Commentary asks if an unnameable object (here wooden blocks taking the place of other things) is "a power for good or evil". Caption: "Predicate A + B." Commentary talks of objects in the room: a bird "refers to art history" in a merging of ornithology and landscape painting popularised through connection to "the father hero", Robert Scott. Caption: "Semic Code Adjectival." Multiple images from the film; commentary saying that "narrative is a function of language, but representation … builds themes that create new enigmas which reading attempts to slide over…" prompting questions such as ‘What has happened to the English gentleman?’." Woman in garden, man in room. "Gallery attendant" seats himself by painting of warheads. Commentary says that this question can only be answered by reference "to history". Man passed woman dusting and seats himself in empty cinema. Caption: "Myth, Repetition, History." Cinema runs newsreel of Neville Chamberlain returning to Britain after visiting Adolf Hitler; repeated. VO quoting, "The function of repetition is to render the structure of the myth apparent. The purpose of myth is to provide a logical model, capable of overcoming a contradiction."