Church of Xenoglossia
In a way, Xenoglossia is a fictional form of language that never practiced as communication tool. Through Gobbledigook I ask several questions: could the practice of xenoglossia be implemented as a new way to communicate? Is it a new kind of language? Would xenoglossia work as a crypto language? Coded language? A new kind of password? This question challenges us to think speculatively on the practice of xenoglossia through the visual language of SHIFT-JIS.
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ENGLISH
In this work, the brain and the mouth working together as the extension of instrument. The text that are used in this work is an appropriation from the amalgamation of SHIFT-JIS—or most known as the Japanese version of ASCII. In the early development of the Internet, SHIFT-JIS is a kind of visual language that people employed to communicate within the virtual world. Through its visuality, it has inspired the way we communicate. SHIFT-JIS is also the prototype of emoji–that we often use to communicate nowadays. In this work, an interpreter recites or reads the visual presented on the screen. The way the interpreter reads the text produces a chaotic kind of unstructured language, in which shares similarity with the practice of Xenoglossy. It is an absurd form of language, that also considered as an ethnopoethic—which means it could not be written semantically on the paper. That’s where the idea of transcribing becomes challenging. It is also coming from the area of uncertainty. No other language can describe its meaning.
In a way, Xenoglossia is a fictional form of language that never practiced as communication tool. Through Gobbledigook I ask several questions: could the practice of xenoglossia be implemented as a new way to communicate? Is it a new kind of language? Would xenoglossia work as a crypto language? Coded language? A new kind of password? This question challenges us to think speculatively on the practice of xenoglossia through the visual language of SHIFT-JIS.
Presented at The Instrument Builders Project: Circulating Echo at Kyoto Art Center, September 2018
Co-curated by Liquid Architecture, Kristi Monfries, Mami Katsuya of KAC, and Yoko Kawasaki.
Polyphonic Social 2019 at Abbotsford Convent and Tricks of the Mouth at Performance Space Carriageworks curated by Liquid Architecture
https://liquidarchitecture.org.au/artists/natasha-tontey
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