Inclined language: a visual, material practice

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses the experiential field of artistic pieces that incline language and words to work from their sound, material and rhythmic dimension. They are poetic and sound works freed from the verticality, rectitude and weight of the semantic. In our ordinary experience of language we forget the physical existence of words, their sounds, their rhythms. Without that physicality, words become transparent, completely resolved into what they mean. To incline them means to give them sound and rhythm. It means to make them material, bringing them to our attention and reconnect with their physical existence: the possibility of becoming an image. From the concept of inclination developed by Adriana Cavarero as a relational model against verticality – to rethink a subjectivity marked by vulnerability – it is argued that inclining language, allows us to question ourselves about the ways in which sound relates to images, as it will be seen through works by Itziar Okariz and Gertrude Stein. A leaning that also dialogues with the ways of deviation from the established language proposed by Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous. In turn, we re-experience our relationship with the materiality of language, the act of listening, as well as the visuality of sounds.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclination
• language
• voice
• listening
• image

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Passage from a lecture given by Adriana Cavarero at the KaXilda book store (San Sebastian-Donostia, Spain) on 13th May 2015. The lecture is unpublished, and was given as part of the Arrakalatuta (cracked) meeting and lecture series.

2 DRAE on-line, consulted on 16 March 2020. Spanish dictionary.

3 Curated by Beatriz Herraenz, the exhibition of a series of works, videos and texts by the artist Itziar Okariz took place between February and June 2018, at the Tabakalera International Contemporary Culture Centre (San Sebastian, Spain).

4 Itziar Okariz has some works relating to the ‘irrintzi’, scream in Basque, a shrill, loud and long-lasting scream in a single breath that was used in the Basque Country amongst shepherds in the mountains, to signal and communicate. It is a system of communication located at the limits of language and of remote origin, similar to the cry out that appears in other cultures such as Hebrew and Arabic. It is said that in the Middle Ages it was used to frighten enemies (source: Auñamendi Basque Encyclopedia). The video presented in I never said Umbrella documents a sound performance by the artist at the Guggenheim museum for the exhibition Chacun à son goût.

5 Gertrude Steińs voices at: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Stein.php, accessed 2 February 2020

6 The ‘chora’ is the key idea of Kristeva’s semiotic. It is the basic principle that allows individual expression whilst securing it within (consensual) sense. Kristeva articulates this dual role of the semiotic chora when she describes it as ‘a nonexpressive totality formed by the drives and their stases in a motility that is as full of movement as it is regulated’ (Kristeva 1984, 25). For Kristeva the chora is the pre-condition of language. It is a semiotic device which pre-cedes consensual expressions and permits them at the same time. Through the semiotic chora the subject is ‘always already involved in a semiotic process’ (Kristeva 1984, 25). Thus it is in relation to this chora, closing it temporarily, that the subjective expression attains consensual meaning. According to Kristeva it is in relation to this idea of the chora that the subject works the signifying practice of contemplation; depending on it as well as refusing it. However, as negativity in a Hegelian sense, the refusal is not a denial, but part of the forever dynamic character of the chora.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ixiar Rozas

Ixiar Rozas Elizalde is a writer, researcher and university lecturer. She researches the materiality of voice and language. She has published among others: Ejercicios de ocupación (2015, with Q. Pujol), Beltzuria (2014, 2017), 20.20 (2017, with M. Salgado), Unisonoa (printing process, 2020). PhD in Visual Arts (University of Basque Country, UPV/ EHU), she lectures in art education (Mondragon Unibertsitatea) and on the MA in Artistic Research and Creation (UPV/EHU).