In the 1992 film A Few Good Men, Kevin Bacon’s character (Captain Jack Ross, an attorney) hands Jack Nicholson’s character (Army Colonel Nathan R. Jessup) a Code of Conduct manual. Colonel Jessup has been accused of ordering a “few” soldiers to perform a “Code Red,” an illegal act of corporal punishment. Jessup cannot find the term “Code Red” in the manual, proving that he couldn’t possibly have ordered a “Code Red.” Such a thing doesn’t even exist!
Captain Ross rests his case and returns to his seat. Tom Cruise (Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, the defense attorney) grabs the Code of Conduct manual from Ross as he approaches the bench. He gives the manual back to Jessup and asks him to find the words “Mess Hall.” Surely the “Mess Hall” exists, right? Yet “Mess Hall” is not in the book. It exists, and it does not exist.
Ever So Much More So obeys similar parameters. It functions simply by masking the emptiness of the space it occupies. In this way, the space of the wall is often emptier with my work on it than without. It is an empty gesture-powerless, meaningless, and useless-aimed at concealing the fact that it is exactly what it appears to be.
