Language and Code in Artworks

Alan D'Souza's readings are useful for understanding how artists use language, providing a glossary to consider the impact and function of language in contemporary arts.
The lecture will also address language-based components of artistic practice, such as critique and artist statements.

Quote by Jeanette Winterson: "For me, language is a freedom…", highlighting language's liberating power to express and share experiences.
Digital habits, like texting and infographics, impact our understanding and use of language, potentially reducing it to simplified exchanges.
Language is a sensitive and powerful tool for communication, with many different forms and cultural contexts.
Languages can be lost or gained, with learning a new language providing a new perspective and connection.

Al Moussa (communications section of law student, professor Durham) suggests art's lack of specificity makes it an unreliable communication system, questioning the directness of communication between artworks and viewers.
Mutual coproduction describes the exchange between artworks and viewers, emphasizing the role of interpretation.
Artworks prompt viewers to be changed, adjusted, and confirmed through their encounters, offering something to respond to and reflect upon.
Ambiguity being a strength of artwork, allowing for multiple facets where there's no right answer because it connects with different people in different ways.

Barbara Kruger uses text as a central device in her work, exploring how language can be manipulated for cultural purposes.
Her art addresses viewers directly, using language that functions as both communication and imagery.
Uses language as a medium that’s available and accessible to people, using very distinct, clear colors, impactful colors, high contrast.
Kruger's work makes the concept of mutual coproduction more obvious, highlighting the give-and-take of meaning between words and images.
Language capacity to influence and manipulate people, stemming from her background in advertising and journalism.

In a virtual world, words are becoming weightless, and it is harder to discern which ones are influencing us, therefore, Barbara Kruger is trying to prompt a kind of criticality in us as viewers.
Ron Rosenbaum: In the piece "Belief plus doubt equals sanity", doubt is the linchpin word.
$Belief + Doubt = Sanity$ , where adding doubt to belief subtracts blind certainty.
Kruger employs wordplay and impactful visuals (large sans serif typefaces in white, red, and black) to force people to confront their relationship with language.

Barbara Kruger uses her art to spark discourse. Discourse involves languages, institutions, structures, and practices that organize and circulate knowledge.
Discourse happens through conversations, written forms, and social media, encompassing how art is discussed and knowledge is circulated.
Discourse is a living thing thus needs to be active to be maintained. Feeling excluded from the art world shaped Kruger's approach to making her work accessible through language.
She aims to create art that is immediately recognizable and engaging and not just for the educated elite.

Artists synthesize their observations and experiences to create works that respond to, elaborate on, filter, or mirror situations, offering a new perspective on reality.

Omar Fast's "CNN Concatenated" uses clips from the evening news to create a meditation on the news and its impact.
The piece reflects on processing events like September 11 and their aftermath on social conversations and discourse.
The artist articulates a voice that responds to or speaks through the news footage, exploring themes of responsibility, trust, and change.
The personal and public contrasts through the use of a public medium to express personal thoughts, using language classes to think more about how we use language to express.