Yesterday I was once again artist conferencee, one of my absolute favourite manifestations of this ever expanding research-based artistic practice. In preparation for this role I found myself last week describing how I was over the past two years overcome by an emotional tidal wave on inheriting my grandmother’s handbag, from which my current entirely immersive project, Barcelona in a Bag, originated. I no longer recognise myself or my output – although of course I do. It is simply that I have gone deeper and become specific about my subject matter. With artists there is usually the “I” at the heart of things no matter if they protest otherwise. Ironically this inwards thrust, has also increased the outward reach of my work and forms a curiously symbiotic and symmetrical network of connections – like roots and branches spreading from the trunk of me.
An hour spent talking “in conversation” about my work during the Artistic Interventions in the Virtual Space conference (Birmingham University Hispanic Department) has proved most stimulating. As an artist you have to love the attention academic eyes and minds can bring to what you do, not only the intelligence of their questions and the doors they can open on new lines of thought but also their expertise in your subject/s, your theme/s.
The challenge was to speak in Castilian for the hour – oh how aware I was that I am above all a Spanglish speaker and my technical vocabulary lags behind when forced to choose “only” Castilian. UNi-English is uncomfortable but a breeze by comparison to uni-Castilian. Uni-English is like the difference between slippers and heels. Uni-Castilian is barefoot on gravel. For me the “mother” tongue consists of kicking back into the zone where the distinction between Castilian and English blur and they are allowed seamlessly to merge and emerge recreated – as individual as I and my circumstances and very much of the moment – yet wholly comprehensible to a fluent speaker of both. The fun and games begin in this zone – this is where invention can be found. A zone in which parlour or parlez games (excuse my French!) make a delight of the everyday. As I write this I am smiling with warm association – for some time I have been saying that Spanglish is the language of my exile and know this theme too must develop and strengthen and become a thing. Language, identity and rights are extraordinarily current of course in Spain, and also ran through the conference.
So why did I feel like the kid at the party yesterday? It was because I walked into another zone in which another language, which had been repressed and marginalised was out to play! I was in point of fact treated to a day of Catalan, of which I am neither a speaker nor a listener (usually). The entire conference, papers, speakers, questions and performers (aside from my slot and the final paper of the day in English spoken by a Spaniard) was conducted in Catalan.
A child of a certain age I reasoned grasps about 40% of adult language and communication – this is obviously a sliding scale mostly although for some of us language processing is different and remains a challenge. Autism and extreme visual processing skills for example can keep the percentage of received auditory language in the lower figures. As the morning progressed I settled in to the knowledge that Catalan, while sounding quite Castilian is not reliably comprehensible to a Spanglish speaker. No matter, I said to myself early in. There was really not much difference in my predicament to the usual state of affairs. A visual, non-linear thinker among academics I often find 40% is the upper limit of what I can follow of the average verbal presentation – slides boost the figure but too many words will simply crash in on me and get in the way. Zoning out is common, letting the words wash over me as pure sound is awfully soothing at times, and coming in and out of the room at will is a skill I have honed over my many years of formal studies. I find I don’t need all the extra information – my brain is perhaps quite selective and knows when to swoop on a juicy idea. My post-it notes soon filled up with fragments of excitement as the occasional film clip or visual cue filtered through nicely.
The Catalan voices were a joy and a delight. What gorgeous sounds these speakers made, seeming to bend words I thought I knew and suddenly pronouncing whole phrases I absolutely recognised only to sink again into unknown mellifluousness. Flooded with this music, divining meaning as I could, I bumped into another self I recognised, a smaller me in a corner of some other room concealed beneath the table listening in safety and quite unobserved. How small children (I guess not only me) love such spaces and the game of listening, watching and absorbing the mysteries of adult talk.
Later in the day at a marvellous performance by Ester Xargay and Carles Hac Mor, brimming with wit and mirth and redolent of the party game, I felt the child again. The verbal language interposed came and went leaving traces of meaning and I was left with the actions alone. At the close of the afternoon I spoke with Ester and told her how much I enjoyed the performance and how it made me feel like the kid at the party. Exactly that! she exclaimed, exactly that!
