Signal


The script for Signal, a 7-minute, 16mm film, attempts to narrativize a collection of spam emails gathered over a 3-year period, and is staged in or near "sacred spaces". The landscape of Pyramid Lake, on the Paiute Indian reservation is populated by 10,000-year-old rock formations, many of which are off limits to the public. They loom in the background as characters banter in the sometimes awkward, sometimes solicitous, sometimes nonsensical dialog of spam. The Black Rock Desert Playa, while vacant most of the year, is home to close to 60,000 people annually during Burning Man. These locations were chosen because they act as both mirror and foil for the internet - at once wastelands and gathering sites for millions of people, while maintaining an ancient physicality that transcends any inhabiting group.

Essay by Karthik Pandian "Destiny, Unmanifested; Mariah Garnett's Signal"
http://www.ltdlosangeles.com/MG_Pandian_text.pdf