Hello. hEllo! heLLo? hellO

2023
letters - light - speech - sound - meaning - material

Hello 你好 こんにちは Привет Hallo Ahoj 안녕 Bonjour Ciao مرحبًا Hola Γειά σου …..

Hello. hEllo! heLLo? hellO questions the over-significance of language as a representational functionality of knowing and material. Here, I suggest the usage of language, or discourses, as an active way of engaging with the material world through "complex agential intra-actions of multiple material-discursive practices."(Barad 2007, 140) My interest in language, meaning, and materiality has formulated this idea, and I tried to blur their boundary both sonically and visually. For the audio part, real-time granular synthesis of speech recordings, which are from the first phrase of Tao Te Ching in various translations, is used. Through granulation, the boundary between the semiotic characteristics of a spoken language and the sonic material gets blurred. A similar approach was applied to visuals too. A particle system consisting of the word “hello” of various languages is projected on a mylar film. When projected on the mylar film, it gets reflected and scattered to the surroundings as light, leading to the coexistence of language and physical material. Additionally, the lightweight mylar films gently sway when audiences pass by or in response to subtle air currents, causing the scattered light to shift. This movement adds a dynamic layer of liveliness and spatial dimension to the experience. These audio-visual expressions question the representationalism of languages by showing the entanglement of language/material, and the inter-relation between them.