Lady/Applicant: On The Lazarus

This book investigates the ‘performativity’ of the ‘author function’ through collaging the audio recordings of American poet Sylvia Plath. The ‘author function’ is a term by Michel Foucault to describe how readers attribute certain characteristics that they believe belong to the author and ascribe them to the writing. ‘Performativity’ is a term used by Judith Butler to describe a set of actions that ascribe and predetermine a set of attributes to a subject through gender age timeframe nationality and race. The ‘performativity’ of the ‘author function’ appropriates these characteristics and attributes them to the author. The determination of an authorial identity is investigated through digital collage. The practice component of the project consists of the collage of audio and video recordings and the programming of video with Max/MSP/Jitter. I collaged the audio component from two poems entitled ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘The Applicant’ that Plath read in 1962 to form a new poem entitled Lady/Applicant: The Lazarus. The video component consists of collaging recorded video clips of storefront and street signs in Camden London where she lived.