this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
9 points (100.0% liked)

Esoteric Languages

296 readers
1 users here now

Icon base by Lorc under CC BY 3.0

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

So, I've been toying with this idea of applying the anarchist concept of means ends unity to art (to be honest, mainly as a theoretical justification for doing what I wanted to do anyway). So, if you want to do art, and especially anarchist art, shouldn't your tools also be artistic and preferably anarchist?

I'll give an example. Poetry is art. Tools of poetry include things like language and font. Constructed languages can be seen as art projects, and they can implement and emphasize the values of anarchism. Fonts are also art projects and they can for example be inspired by anarchism and be freely distributed etc.

Other examples could include making specific image manipulation programs and algorithms and creating new image formats for visual arts, making esoteric programming languages for programs etc.

So, my idea is starting an avantgarde group/movement where we make art with artistic DIY tools and document the process in the art itself so that it doesn't hide its structure but shows how it was made.

Attached is the first poem I made specifically with this project in mind. But of course, not everything we produce as a group needs to resemble these little examples I came up with. The main thing is to try to break the expectations of art (if such a thing is possible anymore) and also to be an anarchist.

If any of this inspires you, hit me up. Perhaps we can start the group together.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

hey, you light in darkness

Light is a paint
Darkness is like a canvas
It's like organization in chaos
You spread the paint
In order to spread help, spread light
In order to spread strength, spread organization


\

Or, the same in Finnish:

Sinulle, valo pimeydessä

valo on maalia
pimeys kuin kanvas
kuin järjestystä kaaoksessa
levität maalia
levittääksesi apua, levitä valoa
levittääksesi voimaa, levitä järjestystä

(I really really like the vocative case. I wish Finnish had it!)

[–] surrealpartisan@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Suomi mainittu, torilla tavataan!

Anyways, this is a really good translation, although all those "spread" things could use more idiomatic single-word translations. I applaud!

Vocative is an interesting thing. When I first read about it, I dismissed it as useless. However, since then I have used it in my largest conlang project Shiofaioth (linked to in another comment) and also here, because it's just so nice.