To Risk Meaning Nothing: The Operation of a Derridian Concept of Difference a Youth-Produced Digital Video

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Circulation of Affect, Emotion, Materiality, and Différance in Literacies

Abstract

I present a multimodal discourse analysis of a youth-produced film, drawing upon a Derridian theorization of the concept of difference. The focal film, “Lost,” features characters caught in a circular, repeating, or absurd structure that works with—rather than tries to resist—the deferring and differing aspects of difference. I analyze the film as a multimodal signifying chain, drawing upon Derrida’s concept of difference to analyze the multimodal movement of signification amongst signifiers. This analysis offers a means of examining how difference operates amongst the language, image, and action-based signifiers that play into the film’s refusal to offer a sensible, coherent, or meaningful message in favor of approaching video making as an exploratory, artistic practice.

Author

• Jason Paul Ranker, Portland State University