Arabic

Interactive piece that enables the user to create drawings and sounds compositions. The audio background is created by the phonetics sounds of multiple languages such as English, Mandarin and Arabic in the form of musical notes. It is a piece that was produced with the idea of linking it to the Eyemouse produced by John Tchalenko, Research Fellow at Camberwell College of Arts. In his research he is looking at cognitive ways for learning to draw, while I am interested in communicative processes using text-sound and image. For this piece and taking into consideration Tchalenko's idea of learning to draw with your eyes. I used 'meaningless' phonetic sounds as the basic elements used in speech to learn to speak, conceiving in this way both parts of the brain: the linguistic and the visual.

(Source: Artist's description from her site)

Interactive piece made in Adobe Flash, it consists of three different layers: the user can travel from one surface to another by clicking on the buttons: A (for Arabic), C (for Chinese) and E (for English). When choosing the languages, I was interested in the differences of their visual element, reading patterns (right to left, left to right, top to bottom) and linear and non-linear qualities. Notions analysed in Visual and avant-garde poetics. Each surface is blank until the user rolls the mouse over it, revealing still and moving images, which appear and fade away, and triggering phonetic sounds from each respective language.The images are related to the visual representation and cultural background of each language. The sound layers are formed by the 'meaningless' phonetic sounds of the three different languages. They were created by speakers of these languages, who sang and pronounced combinations of phonetic sounds commonly used in each linguistic system.The notion of meaningless phonetic sounds interested me, since, according to Saussure, these sounds are not supposed to have any meaning. Their function is to differentiate two words, they have a differentiating/distinguishing value. I find this paradoxical, signifying aspect of phonemes fascinating. They are the key signifying units and yet they don't have any intrinsic value. With them I am questioning the semiotic and symbolic aspects found in this process of signification where they refer to language and yet are outside language in their isolated units. I try to shift them into a different semantic context to transform them into entities with the potential for full linguistic and emotive signification. It is as if I want them to be recognised for their important function in the signifying process; to raise them to the level of appreciation they deserve; transforming 'meaningless' phonetic sounds into full entities in the non-linear structure of the communicative process.(Source: Artist's description from her website)

This work is part of a series of interactive generative poems, inspired by Hansjorg Mayer’s alphabetenquadratbuch poem (alphabetsquarebook). It is an exploration of generative alphabets creating concrete forms with the input from the participants. The work doesn’t exist until the viewer interacts with it. By incorporating this aspect of essential interactivity into the work I emphasize the need for the engagement and participation of the reader/viewer in the production and existence of the work. When the viewer approaches the poems, he/she is faced with an empty screen and it is not until some sound is produced that the viewable space is filled in time with the help of sound and silence. All poems create a square formed by the letters of different alphabets, the three communication systems converge: image, writing and code activated by sound. The shifting from the visual and the linguistic is itself the poem; to create that in-between state of verbal-visual energy.