Semiotics of the Kitchen adopts the form of a parodic cooking demonstration in which, Rosler states, "An anti-Julia Child replaces the domesticated 'meaning' of tools with a lexicon of rage and frustration." In this often oddly funny performance-based work, a static camera is focused on a woman in a bare-bones kitchen. On a butcher-block table before her are a variety of utensils, each of which she picks up, names, and proceeds to demonstrate, but with gestures that depart from the normal uses of the tool. As the alphabet nears its end, she dispenses with the utensils and uses her body to form each letter, slashing the air at the end with the wild gesture of Zorro — followed by a simple shrug. In an ironic grammatology of sound and gesture, the woman and her implements enter and transgress the familiar system of everyday kitchen meanings — the securely understood signs of domestic industry and food production erupt into suggestions of violence. In this alphabet of kitchen implements, states Rosler, "when the woman speaks, she names her own oppression."

Semiotics of the Kitchen: An Audition, Martha Rosler

2011, 9:44 min, color, sound