The Void Of Speech
-Multilingualism and bricolage at the Waterlooplein flea market- Research MA Artistic Research
Universiteit van Amsterdam 2014 / 2016
Table of contents Introduction 1ST Chapter
Bricolage as artistic research methodology • Defining bricolage
o Collection o Appropriation o Decontextualization o Borderline Aesthetics o Critical Position of Theft • Bricolage and artistic research
o Production in grey: Knowing and Doing o Good practice
o Radical Situatedness 2nd Chapter
Collecting and doing with the untranslatable • Fieldwork recordings
o The two formats of the collected material
§ Audio format. Speaking the untranslatable
§ Written format. The difficulties of the untranslatable word § Extended observations on the written and audio formats o Doing words with words. Finding the bricolageword
§ Inside the bricolageword 3RD Chapter
Art and words of multilingualism and translation • Multilingualism and otherness
o The thunderwords and the bricolageword § Shut door
§ Norse mythology
§ Interpretation of the bricolageword o Translation and artistic research
§ Translation as form
§ Art and the relevance of its translation Conclusion
let’s name all words in the folds of being for the next moment there’ll be different light
Introduction
Research question: How can bricolage translate the multilingualism of the Waterlooplein flea market into an artwork?
The present thesis project is about the possibilities of collecting and using words from many languages as a source material for the production of artworks. The words presented in this thesis are considered to be untranslatable into English by the
merchants who took part in the fieldwork interviews of the project. The main interests driving the project are those focused on the linguistic diversity of a specific place, and the speculations upon how can such diversity be engaged in artistic and theoretical processes.
The place chosen for this study was the Waterlooplein flea market, in the center of Amsterdam City. Why the Waterlooplein? Amsterdam is known for its
multiculturalism, so it could be said that any part of the city would be useful to carry out a study about language diversity. What makes this market a fitting place for this artistic research?
The Waterlooplein flea market is located in a neighborhood that dates back to medieval times. The piece of land where it is situated was called Vlooyenburg or Vloonburg, and it was not until 1883 that it was officially named Waterlooplein. Known as an area that grew out of poverty, in those times it was part of the Jewish Quarter, serving as the place for merchants to work their trades. With the violent persecutions of the Jewish people during the Second World War, the market
disappeared in 1941, and it was not until 1950 that the area started to experience some efforts by the city to improve its conditions. Merchants benefited from selling used goods, military stocks and old furniture. The Cultural Revolution, the Hippie
movement and waves of American tourism made the 60s and 70s a golden era for the Waterlooplein. After that, the area experienced the construction of a subway station and the City Hall, amongst other drastic urban changes. The current state of the market dates back to 1988, and today it consists of around 300 seats or stalls, giving
place to merchants from more than 20 countries that try to make a profit six days a week.1
History shows that the Waterlooplein was never a site where only locals would be; on the contrary, it is an open area where anyone can do business, regardless of their nationality or ethnicity. The intensity of multilingualism is higher than in other parts of the city, it is concentrated within a specific place and the distribution of the nationalities is truly diverse – it cannot be said that it is a predominantly Dutch, or even European environment. Taking these traits into consideration, how can we extract material of multilingualism from such an environment? The methodology used to achieve this was bricolage, a concept both discussed and defined in the first
chapter, which was developed under the specific frame of an artistic research.
The second chapter focuses on the explanations on how the material for the research was obtained through the interviews that were carried out at the Waterlooplein, and the way the outcome of these actions was used to produce two artworks; a grouping of words that I will be calling bricolageword, and a video artwork entitled “Brick
Waters”. The merchants of the research site were asked the following question: Is there a word or expression in your native language/mother tongue that cannot be translated into English? The structure of the question was meant to focus on their specific linguistic knowledge. The answers were followed by brief conversations in which they explained the reasons for the untranslatability of the words.
The third chapter is dedicated to the comparison of the bricolageword in relation to James Joyce’s thunderwords, and how they can be used as a metaphor of the complexities of otherness in multilingualism. The chapter also works through some concepts on translation, pairing them with the artistic process of this research. The idea is to provide an understanding of bricolage as an artistic research methodology that worked for both productions of the artworks and as a tool for the translation of the multilingualism at the Waterlooplein.
1 All historical data taken from http://www.waterloopleinmarkt.nl/historie/
1ST CHAPTER On bricolage as artistic research methodology
This first chapter consists on the construction of a framework as to how bricolage can be used as a methodology for this artistic research, and question what is the
relationship of this field to bricolage itself. I begin by discussing the concept of bricolage as defined by Lévi-Strauss in his 1962 book The Savage Mind, and
complement its definition with the ideas of Jan Verwoert, Veronique Altglas, Tomás Ybarra-Fraustro and Hélène Cixous. With the exception of Lévi-Strauss and Altglas, the other authors do not use or discuss bricolage in the referenced texts, but rather deal with certain concepts or ideas that can be linked to specific characteristics of this methodology, either at a practical or theoretical level; the way this links occur is developed throughout the chapter. Following this, I establish the way bricolage works with artistic research, and how this yet undefined field can be grappled with through the ideas of Sarat Maharaj and Mika Hannula. Through both of these authors, I will discuss the questions of what is practice in artistic research and what is the situation regarding the knowledge that is produced from this field; these are important questions to which I am unable to give precise or encompassing answers to. The reason for this is because artistic research is a large developing area of academic and artistic practice where an every-adapting diversity of concepts and practices, apart from bricolage, are experimented. The fluidity of its nature makes it complex to point out accurate answers. Nevertheless, these questions provide this research with the required self-reflective qualities that move throughout the entire project and that are specifically addressed in this chapter.
Defining bricolage
Bricolage, as an applied methodology for the practice of this research consists of: the constant collection of found materials, a practice of appropriation that demands a self-awareness of its contemporary context, a decontextualizing power, a borderline attitude towards social aesthetics and a critical position that allows free flying
movement and robbery. All of these characteristics will be discussed in depth in order to give a clearer idea on how art practice and theoretical research can come together
in this thesis. To achieve this, the methodology can be understood as the flexion of exactitudes rather than the fixation of truths; an awareness that takes into account the possibility of opening up obvious and ambiguous connections within practice and theory.
Collection
Claude Lévi-Strauss has proposed one of the most predominant definitions of bricolage in his book The Savage Mind. Lévi-Strauss’ bricolage consists on the constant and open collection of materials that are found at hand and that will have some use in the future. The use or function of what is collected is not necessarily known a priori of the findings and the criteria by which the collecting happens is limited by the interests of the bricoleur/bricoleuse (the researcher & artist), who develops a universe with its own closed rules (16-17). The interests for this research are limited to multilingualism and translation; its closed rules constitute the key aspects that will be developed here and in the following chapters. Materials are gathered with the intuitive idea that they will, somehow and somewhere, be used for something. A specific trait of bricolage is that this methodology stands for both the process as well as the end result – the final assemblage of the gathered materials is also known as bricolage.
The momentary ignorance regarding the exact purpose of the gathered material and the criteria that is specifically designed and developed, rather than assigned from a general consensus on a formula, may appear as a lack of rigour in bricolage. The opinion about what style of rigour bricolage must have comes from different
perspectives, and is often up for debate. This definition may be a scientific opinion, an aesthetic suggestion or the bricoleur/bricoleuse own self-awareness. Deciding on how to act accordingly and rigorously depends on the specific characteristics of the
research; the discussion and criticism of the method stems from a need of self-awareness regarding the closed rules. Connected to this need is a sense of absolute freedom, a self-appointed position where ‘anything goes’. These desires have to be questioned and analysed in order to grasp justifications for such freedom.
The first step to begin using bricolage is to engage in a mind-state in which one steadily searches for specific, and sometimes non-specific, materials. The decisions as to why some materials are collected and others are not is informed by the empirical quality of the research and the tacit knowledge inherited in the approach. The justification as to why one would pick up x or y elements can be explained as a ‘gut-reasoning’ approach to the activity. Understanding this logic within the process of this particular research involves the balance between the mind and the stomach, the
intellect and the sensation as drivers of decisions. In the space between the art and the research, there is a valid ignorance and a deserved (sometimes desired) cognisance as to why certain choices are made. Due to the lack of rigour of ‘gut-reasoning’ as an official source of knowledge production, the argument will be internalised, like digestion, into a more theory-based approach.
Appropriation
The action of collecting can also be thought of as appropriating, as it will be now explained through Jan Verwoert’s text Living with Ghosts: From Appropriation to Invocation in Contemporary Art. The author expresses the specific way in which this happens for artists as follows:
Artists appropriate when they adopt imagery, concepts and ways of making art other artists have used at other times to adapt these artistic means to their own interests, or when they take objects, images or practices from popular (or foreign) cultures and restage them within the context of their work to either enrich or erode conventional definitions of what an artwork can be. (1)
It is the second kind of appropriation presented by Verwoert that allows me to reflect on the self-awareness needed in artistic appropriation and practice, in relation to a contemporary context. The artists, and sometimes the researchers, can perform acts of appropriation that are fueled by the dual intention of enriching or eroding, adding or subtracting meanings of what is an artwork. The appropriated material may not just inform a duality, but rather a multiplicity of intentions that re-define or question what practice can be. The issue of practice and appropriation in our current era of excess and availability of information will keep on bringing all sorts of challenges. On this aspect, Verwoert writes
The challenge of the moment is therefore to re-think the meaning of appropriation in relation to a reality constituted by a multiplicity of spatialized temporalities. (2)
The tacit and intellectual knowledge, and the meanings or reasons behind
appropriation, have to be re-thought of alongside the vastness of diverse colliding realities – the multiplicity of spatialized temporalities. By doing so, what would it mean for bricolage to have an awareness of this multiplicity of spatialized
temporalities? This challenge, as presented by Verwoert, delegates a responsibility to the freedom of movement in bricolage. In current times, this would mean several things. It means to acknowledge that the constant impact of information technology and information overload affects most artistic and research practices nowadays; there are also digital spatialized temporalities. It also means that the artistic researcher as bricoleur/bricoleuse has to engage in multiple positions of practice at the same time; the practice of searching and collecting, or appropriating, both in art and research or theory - together yet apart.
Decontextualization
It is important to remember that bricolage, as a wandering practice with flexible choices and rules - its ‘anything-goes’ trait – should be scrutinized regarding the dominant aspects it can have, in the spirit of keeping a rigorous, self-aware practice. That is also part of the challenge, for the artistic researcher under the role of the bricoleur/bricoleuse, to be conscious of the multiplicity of perspectives and opinions that come with the collected material; the multiplicity of spatialized points of view. Bricolage can become detrimentally vertical and dominant. Concepts that curve towards absolute freedom, or absolute power, need to be questioned rather than fully embraced, because such bending into domination may deny the possibility of plural, opposing positions and visions for knowing, understanding and producing. This is done in the hope to perform a practice of artistic research that uses a less-hierarchical bricolage. The force of decontextualizing – appropriating or collecting - can be perceived as a concept and an activity of power and violent selection, inherited, obeyed or learned from hierarchical structures.
The first act towards a more self-aware bricolage resides in understanding and accepting the engrained order and violence within its potential for acting and knowing. I previously discussed the current situation of appropriation in the arts following Jan Verwoert’s ideas. On the side of this, it is also important to consider other extensions of the act of appropriation that may not be specifically connected to an art context, but that never the less can provide interesting reflections. I will now approach another perspective about bricolage, next to the artistic analysis previously discussed, one that addresses a different side of this practice. In her text From Yoga to Kabbalah: Religious Exoticism and the Logics of Bricolage, Veronique Altglas deals with a bricolage that relates more to the contemporary, mainly western appropriation of religious practices and theories from various cultures and belief systems. Even though she focuses on religion rather than contemporary art or research, as will be discussed further on in this chapter, her insights are valuable if one is to acknowledge and embrace that the actions in art are not isolated, but can actually have similarities to what might be happening in other practices. The issue of ‘otherness’ and
appropriation is not dealt with by Verwoert, which makes Altglas’ contribution quite important if one wishes to increase the understandings of the found materials.
Aside from the practical act of finding that is part of my methodology, it is important to acknowledge other understandings of bricolage, in order to construct a more theoretically based methodology. It is in the spirit of this diversity that Altglas’ approach to bricolage becomes highly informative. Regarding her view on bricolage, the author writes
“...in its contemporary form, bricolage presupposes ambivalence toward otherness and a sense of entitlement, both allowing reinterpretations that are truly freer than in the syncretisms of colonized cultures.” (329)
It is the uncertain or ignorant presuppositions that a bricoleur/bricoleuse might make about otherness that needs to be taken into consideration; an understanding of the apparently unproblematic entitlements that come with the gathering of what is at hand. This sense of entitlement can be the source of a lack of recognition about what other knowledges, languages or world views might contribute to a larger discussion, in which all the components could be treated as equally as possible. It is important to
reflect on the different sides of this methodology, especially in a time of information overload, where most kinds of knowledge are relatively accessible, thus making appropriation easier and faster than before. It could be said that in this scenario of accessible information, both colonized and colonizing cultures could gain a more balanced freedom regarding their reinterpretations. But, does the speed of the
appropriations entail an understanding and reciprocity to what the other is saying and doing? It is as if bricolage should also involve an understanding of the symbolic, contextual heaviness of the materials, and the multiplicity of contexts where its results might be presented. Could the ambivalence come from an unawareness of the
multiplicity of spatialized temporalities and of not understanding today’s challenges of appropriation? This points to the fact that bricoleurs are not only bound to a
specific practice where they may be capable of fencing a set of rules of their own, but also that they cannot separate themselves from the societies in which they search and find. The following quote extends on this issue.
“Bricolage in advanced industrial societies does not involve any religious tradition, but draws on specific cultural encounters. The asymmetrical nature of these
encounters...reminds us that bricolage is far from being simply a “personal” matter; it also explains its ambivalent nature, as well as the sense of entitlement that it
presupposes in fetishizing, constructing, appropriating, and consuming otherness.” (330)
If the bricolage of religious material does not share a tradition with the religious practices themselves, this is not the case of bricolage in the arts. As demonstrated by Verwoert’s reflections of appropriation in art, bricolage has always had some sort of presence in artistic traditions. In spite of this, both religious and artistic bricolages engage in appropriations that are based on specific cultural encounters. The
specificity of the encounters is mediated or subscribed into social dynamics that take part in all kinds of hierarchies; bricolage is not an isolated activity that only works and responds at a personal or individual level; its results and the threads that lead back and forth from the appropriated material relate to a myriad of perspectives. Reflecting on the asymmetrical nature of the encounters, does the amount of material or
information one can appropriate depend on the position one has in the hierarchies of social, artistic and academic discourses? Or is this situation undergoing a current transformation due to the expanding information economy? And in this current scenario, what is the nature of the artist’s encounters with the materials? It is utopian to elude the reality that there is always reconstruction, consumption, domination and
control over the other’s materials and information, and that the previous questions are just a stand point or perspective from which one may attempt to perceive the excess of information, and the repercussions this is excess is creating, to the roles of artists within social hierarchies.
Bricoleurs cannot refuse to absolutely stop searching and encountering, for this is the need that keeps the art and research in motion, but there has to be an understanding that some encounters are not isolated from authoritarian traditions of finding, discovering and colonizing. The issue might then reside on how to think of an approach that would provoke more symmetrical encounters.
In the search for a methodology to practice artistic research, bricolage seems like a good, logical option, where one can just pick and arrange with the artistic freedom that such research demands. But, as with most concepts that just keep coming back through theory and practice, and whose popularity or adaptability makes them worthy of such analysis, bricolage should be handled with care. The mythology of the unique rules of the bricoleur in his or her closed universe need to be questioned, because for the wandering researcher, such inquiries are only the promise of more walking and finding. It is not as if bricolage thrives for, or specifically aims at a total
decontextualization in the name of the interests of the practice, but such a force and capacity is definitively within it. The concern is that bricolage could be an
intrinsically overruling system that violently appropriates everything on its vicinities; this is one of the main issues concerning bricolage as a methodology. The authority of this practice could just be claimed or embraced without questioning it, but this would diminish the self-awareness of the research, turning the reach or outcome of the project solely into an art object.
Borderline Aesthetics
Anything goes in bricolage; so far I have revisited it as the constant collection of found materials, a self-aware contemporary practice of appropriation and as a decontextualizing power. To continue putting together other perspectives that define my method, I will include the ideas of Tomás Ybarra-Fraustro, in order to give a clearer understanding of the problems and alternatives of bricolage as a methodology
for artistic research. In his text Rasquachismo: A chicano sensibility, Ybarra-Fraustro puts forward the concept of rasquachismo, a strategy that can be understood as yet another similar approach to be added and compared to conceptions of bricolage. The author develops this concept as an activity of the Mexican-American (sometime referred to as ‘chicanos/as’) citizens living in the borderlands between Mexico and the U.S.A. It is a strategy to develop identity through the putting together of the objects and languages found in both sides of the border. The fact that rasquachismo is developed in a geopolitical border makes it helpful to understand that bricolage sometimes needs to juggle and adapt between different positions, whether it is
between countries, arts & sciences, discourses, languages, lands, etc. Ybarra-Fraustro writes
“Rasquachismo is neither an idea nor a style, but more of a pervasive attitude or taste...It is a stance rooted in resourcefulness and adaptability, yet ever mindful of aesthetics...Resilience and resourcefulness spring from making do with what is at hand (hacer render las cosas). This utilization of available resources makes for syncretism, juxtaposition and integration. Rasquachismo is a sensibility attuned to mixtures and confluence. Communion is preferred over purity.” (171)
The attitude needed for rasquachismo is similar to the mind-state of steady search in bricolage. The resourcefulness and adaptability put forward by Ybarra-Fraustro are the attitudes that can recognize conditions of precarity or abundance of material, or resources, in the social context where the bricoleur/bricoleuse might move, and how these may contain aesthetic qualities. Rasquachismo as bricolage can allow an understanding of the borders between the multiple spatialized temporalities, and how to move in between them, collecting and doing with what is at hand.
Thinking back on Altgla’s religious analysis of bricolage, Ybarra-Fraustro’s idea of communion over purity can provide a common ground to engage in a type of ‘border-negotiation’, to conceive a communion amongst the collected resources coming from the multiple borders to be explored. Rasquachismo as bricolage clarifies that the mixture of theory and art-practice will not resemble a pure result from a pure field of knowledge. It all belongs to a communal situation of the sources and resources, a syncretism of the materials, where integration becomes an attunement for entitlement and reinterpretation.
It is important to understand the degrees of intensity of appropriation in bricolage and not only the role of justification or legacies of authority that can provide rhetorical tools to appropriate. Bricolage collides and communes (takes communion) in its collections, appropriations, violence and aesthetics, by not preserving things as they are. The material can be appropriated in a rasquachismo-taste or attitude, sensing the seductive possibility of creating something with aesthetics out of what has been found.
Critical Position of Theft
I will now specifically address the previously mentioned authority of the practice where, even if this authority is a trait that does not have to be questioned, it is
important for the self-reflective approach of the research to do so. A critical comment can be constructed through the words of Hélène Cixous’s text The Laugh of the Medusa. In a similar manner to Altglas and Ybarra-Fraustro, it will become obvious that Cixous’ text is not referring to contemporary art appropriation, but rather to a feminist approach to writing and language re-appropriation. Still, we could interpret her understanding of authority, and the strategies to either contest it or elude it, fitting to complement the characteristics of my bricolage. The author writes
It’s not to be feared that language conceals an invincible adversary, because it’s the language of men and their grammar. We mustn’t leave them in a single place that’s any more theirs alone than we are. (887)
The idea of the invisible adversary holds important critical value for this research; the unspoken or hidden problems of male hierarchy and/or dominance that may prevail through the language that is used, collected or performed. To enhance a multiple approach to the practice of the bricoleur/bricoleuse, and not to avoid the conflicts of opposing views, the singular male place of language has to be diversified, as to allow any other languages and practices to use or transit through the cracks of that built singularity; a singularity made of words, actions and places.
The specific inquiry for this section is to consider if bricolage could be a word highly linked to the logics of this authority, and if so, how can one modify and loosen the
method in order to make it less tight or adverse? Regarding a viable option to this, Cixous writes
Let’s leave it to the worriers, to masculine anxiety and its obsessions with how to dominate the way things work – knowing “how it works” in order to “make it work.” For us the point is not to take possession in order to internalize or manipulate, but rather to dash through and to “fly.” (887)
It has to be clarified that, following the need for self-awareness, it is important for this research to know how things will work or, more precisely; how the collected material can become an artwork of research. There is no anxiety to impose a fixed objective to the process and make it work – not knowing how to make it work, and possibly allowing or inviting change to what will be done with the gathered material, is an important part of the process. Can the supposed male anxiety be countered by embracing failure and flexibility? Perhaps it is by doing so that one could be able to understand the locations and enunciations of hierarchy and dominance that happen through language, not necessarily to imitate or embrace them.
The acts of manipulation and internalization have been mentioned before in this chapter. Are these processes always connected to an anxious obsession to dominate – to control how things work? In contrast to this, could we think of an eased fascination as to how things may or may not work? Following Cixous, there can be alternatives to these inquiries. The appropriation can be an act of internalization and manipulation, but such scenario does not have to be final or absolute. The theoretical discussion of the collected material and its use for an artwork demonstrate that things can work (or not work) in many different platforms. It can be part of an array of equally relevant activities to which one can just add other actions. Even if these actions contradict each other, for similarity or agreement amongst the parts that create the whole (the
bricolage), it is not necessary for it to be relevant in today’s times of abundance of information.
And so, it is through Cixous’ words that I can add, or multiply, what this methodology does. That is, to steal and to fly. To clarify how I understand the concepts of stealing and flying in bricolage, first I will address how Cixous explains the word play of the original French word, voler, and its translation to English, in the following way
Flying is a woman’s gesture – flying in language and making it fly…It’s no accident that voler has a double meaning, that it plays on each of them and thus throws off the agents of sense. It’s no accident: women take after birds and robbers just as robbers take after women and birds (887)
What to do with the collected material? To voler is both to steal and to fly, a multiple purpose in one singular instance. How does bricolage take part in robberies and flights – partaking in a multiplicity of purposes? Bricolage can be an attitude that allows to not just walk and find, but also to travel above, below, within and beyond territories and materials. The multiple meanings of this bricolage are not meant to dismiss sense, but to consider it as part of a whole – this research is highly empirical, it is not only constituted of sense and rational decisions, although they also take part in it.
The inclusion of the word ‘steal’ is a good reminder of the fact that gatherings, collections and appropriations do not happen in the “closed” fields of artistic or academic practices – universes with their own closed rules. Different degrees of theft occur throughout the constant overlapping of intentions and information being produced, acted on and moved around spatialized temporalities. Is it also a matter of acceptance or disagreement? One, or many of the parties involved (the
bricoleur/bricoleuse, the interviewed merchants, the academic or artistic authorities) may not even consider that something was actually stolen. The answer to this question probably depends on what is done to the appropriated, decontextualized, stylized or stolen materials.
Bricolage and artistic research
The construction and analysis of the diverse aspects of the methodology is valuable because it unveils the fact that there is no unique, simple explanation as to why one decides to practice in a certain manner. Due to these variations, bricolage as artistic research seems to be about conjuring a specific form of producing knowledge, rather than a repetition of a standardized formula. In his text Know-how and No-how: stopgap notes on “method” in visual arts as knowledge production, Sarat Maharaj refers to this situation as a need to knock together a micro-lab for the occasion using whatever is at hand (8). Working with what is within reach is not the only shared
characteristic of bricolage and art as research for knowledge production. This section will specify on several other traits, establishing a more solid relation as to how bricolage is a fitting methodology for artistic research.
Production in grey: Knowing and Doing
Sarat Maharaj puts forward one of the main issues that visual art, in the manner of artistic research, faces today. In some specific contexts, where art may be happening and, perhaps even developing, a concern with market value tends to define and restrict practice; there are obligations and responsibilities to justify the relevance of whatever is being produced. However prevalent economic interests may seem to be, the
relevance of production is also driven by forces such as the betterment of one’s own doing and knowing. Artistic research, as any other knowledge field in this scenario, engages with the question of what kind of knowledge it produces. Maharaj expresses the rationale inside this issue as follows:
The question is especially pertinent in today’s expanding knowledge economy that we should not only see as a “technological development” but as an emerging overall condition of living that I prefer to speak of as the “grey-matter” environs. (9)
The importance of this question is not just about the development or progress that certain research can provide to a field, but it is also a matter of justifying the existence in contrast or alongside other fields of knowledge production. It is in this area where one could question what kind of knowledge is produced by art, more specifically, by bricolage. In this expanding knowledge economy, with the constant growths and copy-pastes of information and the attention struggles over audiences, its important to be aware of the form of the ideas one is producing, as well as the different placement they could have.
Not only in the line of technological development should one think of visual arts or artistic research. It is not just a constant inquiry of how forward or positive the
evolution of knowledge can be. What Maharaj calls ‘grey-matter environs’ could be a place where ideas and objects do not have to be directly connected to advancements or declines in functionality; in my case, the resulting bricolage from the collected
material is not only seen as something that may or may not be fully functional to art and/or research. Approaching the act of knowing through art in this ambiguity allows the production of artistic research to be in-between theoretical encasings and artistic drippings. The placements and the characteristics of the knowledge that art can bring out is not fully related to an attitude of progress or decline; it is possible to tilt or move our results across either failure or success, seizing the possibilities.
What kind of knowledge is then produced in an artistic research? Or, to discuss it in Maharaj’s terms, what is the urge or requirement to even use the term ‘production’? The author writes the following according to the question of producing knowledge
The question crops up again as we see “method fever” intensifying the drive towards institutionalization of art research and practice: with this goes a heightened
academicization not in the sense of enhanced analytical rigour but of regulation and routine. The usage is to help distinguish it sharply from the domain of “knowledge transfer”. The latter chugs on primarily with acts of transmission. It is about shifting already-made bodies of thought and data, about handling and filtering existing information. The emphasis is on both reproducing data and passing it on, a DNA Xerox process - the logic of replication. (8)
Understanding and differentiating between production and transmission is important to this project for several reasons. Regulation and routine might not be detrimental to the artistic aspects of a work, but when dealing with a methodology such as bricolage, an analytical rigour, rather than an expectation or demand for routine results, suits better when approaching the irregularities and variations of the collected material and its further manipulations.
It is important to keep in mind that if the information in the collected material were to be filtered specifically for transmission, the possibility of multiple interpretations would be discarded for the sake of simplification. The filter would have no space in the grid to problematize issues of diversity, therefore discarding important parts of the whole. The institutionalization of art research and practice should be an action that enhances analysis while producing art and text at the same time. The artistic qualities and quantities of this research are about knowing the fragility and health of a built statement, a rhetoric that is as scientific and bureaucratic as it is artistic.
Good practice
Following Mika Hannula, in his text Catch Me If You Can: Chances and Challenges of Artistic Research, I will expand on the issue of knowledge production and
knowing, and how to intend a practice that considers such reflections. He writes
How do we understand knowledge and how do we deal with knowledge? I do not have an answer, no solution or all-embracing model and, what is more to the point, I can’t have them if I want to stay true to the particularism that is needed in the search for good practice. (17)
The problem seems to be that there is no need to cluster how knowing occurs, or how it is produced or manipulated through artistic research. It is more a question of how the practice can be a good practice. This goodness should be understood not in ethical or aesthetical terms, but as the acknowledgement of the limitations of keeping up with the constant surpluses and crossovers of data and experience, yet continuing a practice that sometimes seems more of a symptom rather than a cure for the times. The
necessity or obligation, even the responsibility, to bring tension to the art and the research could constitute a suggestion for good practice. In all of this, there is indeed a direction or focus towards processes.
To this Hannula adds
What a procedural principle has is a direction and something for which the Germans have a magnificent word: Die Ahnung. A word that stands for a hint of an expectation, for intuitive thinking about what to move towards. What I do have is the knowledge and experience gained through practice that there is a very clear aim towards which I want to move. This is a goal that keeps slipping away in a trick of the light, but a goal that keeps my interest and attention transfixed. It keeps me asking questions, in terms of my own activities, and also of the activities with which I am related: What is practice in a particular given field? How in this site and time-specific practice can we define what is good, what is quality, what is its internal logic, and yes, vitally, what defines failure, both productive failure and the negative variety? (17)
It is then through doing – practicing – that one is able to understand what are those things that move around in the world, and how to move towards them. In the spirit of the German Ahnung, bricolage feeds from the expectations of what can be done, but also from an intuition of where and how to move; and it is even possible that
sometimes it is better not to move, or not to do. The constant collection of material and the a posteriori act of assembling, decontextualizing or manipulating, together
with writing about it and through it, constitute, for this project, that a good practice moves beyond methods and definitions.
The motion or swing of the practice and the possible answers that it may provide constitute the open-ended interests in art, which sometimes juxtaposes to the single-focused interest of other disciplines and practices. This brings us closer to what Hannula is dealing with – what is practice for x or y field? How do they do it in comparison to how we do it? How is it done or undone? In my case, the question I am are trying to answer is: how is the practice of bricolage an artistic research? And, as it will be discussed in the third chapter, how is bricolage a tool for translation?
Radical Situatedness
I will now address the overarching issues of possibilities and freedom. Regarding the different courses of action in artistic research methodologies, Hannula references Paul Feyerabend and his book Against Method. Hannula writes
He himself [Feyerabend] very clearly pointed out that, even if anything might be possible, not everything that is possible is meaningful. This is definitely not relativism. If anything, it is the opposite. It is a radical situatedness that, on the contrary, demands site-specific definitions and concepts. (5)
One needs a meaningful approach to the idea that everything is possible in the radical situatedness of artistic research. The radical situatedness could be due to the
avoidance, unwillingness or in-process position of defining what artistic research is. The voices of Hannula and Maharaj allow me to have a sense of grounding for where is this research coming from and going towards. Thinking back on the previous discussion, could this puzzling together of art and research bring an aftermath of intellectual knowledge? Or will it bring different kinds of knowledges, not only intellectual ones? The answers to these questions reside in the experiences generated by the artworks that follow this thesis – the “trick of the light”. But for the moment, let us also consider that knowing, and how various generations are assimilating the activity, is being contested and reshaped due to the drastic input of information technology – this will not be specifically addressed by this research, but is a reality worth keeping in mind.
Following Hannula, artistic research indeed demands momentary concepts that help its practice. The concept, turned methodology, is bricolage, for it seems to share this “anything might be possible” attitude. Whether the knowledge produced, and how it will be received, is intellectual, tacit, empirical or economical, is unknown. Artistic research provides a position that allows oneself to be enticed by diverse possibilities. The meanderings and results may not have a fully developed monetary value,
relevance or important immediacy to a larger hegemonic or regulated context. What is the value of the assembled bricolage inside and outside the gray matter environs and who decides on it? What parts or members of the knowledge economy decide the hierarchy where artistic research production should be placed? The opinions on this matter range from bleak, discrediting and suspicious to positive and faithful; on the sidelines of these dialogues is artistic research’s ‘radical situatedness’. Together with the constant deconstruction and redefinition of its identities, the awareness of the ‘grayness’ of the working conditions provide a starting point as to how meaningful the knowledge production is.
Again through Feyerabend, Hannula also discusses this malleable approach to the method, and the subject/object one is researching, in the following way
Feyerabend’s intentional playfulness should be seen as a very productive, fruitful opening. It gives us a chance not to be too stiff and uptight about ourselves, and yes, not to be too self-centered or to take ourselves for granted. It opens up the possibility of research as a performative act and the very act of doing things with words. (6)
In this way, in order to harvest and delight oneself in something meaningful, one has to embed the process of writing and research into a single contortioned activity – do things with words. It is not just the fluctuating knowledge economy and the
overpowering of hierarchies that may shed relevance into the production of artistic research, but also the doing of it through writing and making art or, in our more specific case, through bricolaging. The meanings will come and go along the constant questioning of its condition, as art and research stabilize and destabilize each other.
The radical situatedness has an impact on how one approach the relevant interests, which in the case of this research are multilingualism and translation, practices that are as common to the everyday, as they are highly specialized activities. Beyond this, there is the constantly looming problematic of information overloads and excesses,
the ‘bigger-picture’ where language embodies or performs other living shapes. It is in this “greater grey matter environs” where other mechanisms might allow or recognize efforts, excesses, scarcities and accessibilities of action and production. For now I will only focus on the grey matter environ where artistic research and bricolage can be merged, and how the knowledge they are producing is presented and understood.
To summarize, it can be said that bricolage and artistic research dwell through grey matter environments, deciding what ‘grey matter’ can actually be, observing and manipulating it from different angles, and having an open-ended approach as to what types of knowledge might come out of the performative research. They both share a need to create individual rules, which can sometimes be self-reflective. And finally, the two of them are radically situated in-between a multiplicity of spatialized temporalities, re-contextualizing and re-situating themselves along side the material for the practice and the theories that inform and shape the process.
2nd CHAPTER Collecting and doing with the untranslatable
For this second chapter, I will begin by explaining how bricolage worked as a tool to construct a word from the multilingualism at the Waterlooplein flea market, which I have previously introduced as bricolageword, a constructions that consist of 173-letters. It is made from individual words and expressions in different languages that were collected in the fieldwork. At this point, it is important to remember one of the specific traits of bricolage: the final assemblage, and not only the methodology that produced it, is also known as a bricolage. The bricolageword takes part in two differing formats, an audio inside a video artwork and a written format (that is presented in this thesis). Further in the chapter I explain the structure of the word – a product of the research that hopes to present or evoke the multilingualism at the Waterlooplein.
Fieldwork recordings
‘There is no such thing as a word in nature’ Jacques Derrida
During the period of one week, individual interviews were carried out with the international gathering of merchants at the Waterlooplein flea market. This fieldwork research allowed me to find material with which to develop both the theoretical and artistic parts of this thesis. By ‘material’ I mean the audio and video of these
interviews, which was collected, appropriated, partly contextualized and partly decontextualized, aestheticized, stolen and allowed free flight. When the collection of the material began, I had established my criteria as within multilingualism and
translation, but the use or function that the material would have was unknown. It was only as the research went under way that the construction of the bricolageword and the production of a video artwork began to take form. The idea was to approach the untranslatable characteristics of the diversity of languages spoken in that area; words or expressions that could not be fully translated into English. There are several reasons as to why I chose translations (or their impossibility) into English, even though it is not the most frequently spoken language at the market. There is a fair
distribution between Dutch, Spanish and Arabic as well, however English is the most frequently used when it comes to bridging communication gaps between those from different backgrounds. The other reason is due to the fact that I do not speak Dutch, which is also used for translations, but not as much as English. There was only one interview in which I used Spanish, because it was easier for the interviewee to have the conversation in this language, given that it was his mother tongue and mine as well. This, and many other observations regarding the fieldwork are further explained in the chapter.
The first step of the research consisted on asking some of the merchants if they wanted to participate in the interviews. Due to the busy conditions of the place, short and informal meetings were scheduled during the day. Because of the diverse
backgrounds from the people at this area, it was easier to do the interviews if I was not taking any names or filming any faces; it was agreed that the contributions would remain anonymous. I used a digital camera to record the conversations and, because of the anonymity agreement, I recorded with the camera facing downwards. My original idea was to simply edit the videos afterwards, keeping solely the audio track. On further revision of the material, the footage from the floor resulted in an
interesting visual situation that referred to the outside conditions of the research, and was later used alongside the audio to produce the video artwork “Brick Waters”.
The interviews revolved around the following question: is there a word or expression in your native language or mother tongue that cannot be translated into English? It was vital that the interviewees had English as their second or third language, so they could comment on the impossibility of translation. The reason why I asked for either a single word or an expression has to do with the complexities of finding those
elements that are impossible to translate. I wanted to engage with a broader spectrum of language possibilities and allow for a richer conversation to take place. It would have been more complicated for the interviewee if I had just restricted the options to a single word, but having a flexible option allowed them to expand on their
descriptions, thus resulting in a more diverse material for the bricolage.
The provided answers were included in the research in two formats. The first format is the written one, presented in the current thesis, and the second one is the recorded
audio from the interviews, arranged within the video artwork. Both of them have the following characteristics: a clarification of which is the native language of the interviewee, the enunciation of the word or expression in this language, followed by an explanation of their meaning and why they cannot be accurately translated into English. This explanation became the only source that I used in order to understand what the words meant. To search for a specific definition of the words in other sources such as dictionaries, online forums, translation resources and other speakers, meant to aim for a consensus, by means of numbers and comparisons, as to what the “correct” definition of the words could be. As I explain further in this chapter through the bricolage logic, when I collected these words I did not know what their function or use was going to be and, as the research developed, comparisons or searches for exact meanings became less relevant. Keeping the words contextualized within their source provided a flexibility to manipulate them, using the conversation quality of the interviews as the main material for the production of artworks, rather than as a source from which to establish comparisons.
The two formats of the collected material
This section explains the individual characteristics of each of the two formats, the audio in the video and the written descriptions found in this thesis. The audio can be considered the original way in which the words were explained, while the written part is a paraphrasing of this audio. Even though it could be said that they convey the exact same information, there are some differences between the two formats. There is a concern in both of them to transmit the complexity or impossibility of the
translation of a word or expression into English, but it is the platform in which they are presented, and how I handled them as both research and art material that gives them their respective qualities.
Audio format. Speaking the untranslatable
The audio in the video artwork begins with conversation extracts from the interviews and background sounds and noises of the market, in which the subject matter of the video is suggested by the nature of the conversations. The camera is constantly displaying the paving of the market floor as I either walk around the place or
interview the merchants. All of the visual footage is taken from the Waterlooplein, beginning the contextualization of the research by means that are image and sound based. As it can be seen in the still images from Figure 1, the video provides parts of the environment where the research happens, yet it veils or maintains the anonymity of the characters involved. The descriptions of the merchants that were recorded are included so that the audience knows what each of the words mean. Their voices are partly decontextualized from their owners by only showing the lower part of their bodies, yet the preserve personal traits such as accent and style of description. The bricolageword appears, floats and disappears with the conversations. The
disappearing act of the bricolageword is synchronized to the merchants pronunciation of the untranslatable words or expressions; a visual situation that emulates the
complexities or impossibilities of the translations.
Written format. The difficulties of the untranslatable word
One of the main complications that arose was that of the written form of the untranslatable words, those that come from languages that do not use the Roman alphabet. As I mentioned before, the explanation from the interviewees became the only definition that I had for the words, which meant, at that moment, that there was no need for me to research the grammatical form any further. As the artistic practice developed and I realized I needed to give a written form to the chosen words, I had to use online linguistic resources. These resources are later individually referenced for each untranslatable word in their respective footnotes.
Although the decision to use linguistic resources contradicts the essence of my practice (that of the specific interest in the spoken word at Waterlooplein), I decided that not doing so would be detrimental to the art practice as a whole; it would have meant that my appropriations would have absolutely dismissed the complex linguistic diversity at Waterlooplein for the sake of self-standardization.
In order to find out how the words were written, I proceeded in two different ways, using online sources in both cases; I either wrote them as I heard them, as a phonetic transcription, or I wrote some key words that the interviewees mentioned alongside the language of origin. With languages such as German or Dutch, the search engine corrected my writing, which was not the case with languages like Arabic or Fulani. When this happened, I resorted to the second option of using key words from the explanations given by the merchants, which enabled a finding of some untranslatable words. There were some untranslatable words whose written form I could not find online, and so I wrote them down by means of phonetic script, in the way in which I would have pronounced them, therefore these specific words do not have a footnote reference to a linguistic resource. I chose the format of audio and video only in order to work at ease in this busy environment. This also reflects more strongly with the colliding oral tradition that takes place at the Waterlooplein market; to ask for a written version would have been a step outside of this oral exchange.
The process I have just mentioned brings to light some of the contradictions embedded in this practice. The first one concerns my decision to only use the
definitions I was given, and not rely on external sources. However, as mentioned before in Levi-Strauss’ idea of the closed rules of bricolage, certain situations can demand for these rules to be bent or opened, as it was the case for the artworks of this research. Another contradiction involves the changing of alphabets; by writing some of the words in the Roman alphabet, I am adapting and negating their otherness. In order to make them more accessible to a Roman alphabet reading audience, I have to supress their original grammatical qualities. There is also a more practical side to this decision, because by putting them in this alphabet, they are easier to digitalize and copy-paste into other programs. The situation resonates with Veronique Altglas’ ideas on otherness, and the balance between contextualization and decontextualization.
Another contradiction that arose from combining these individual words was that of having to decontextualize them due to the process of building the bricolageword, whilst also attempting to maintain the integrity of their origins. By hammering the collected individual words into one single word, they became decontextualized from their languages of origin. The bricolageword is, in a sense, languageless; it does not belong to any specific language. It could be said that it take part in a linguistic experiment which makes it part of artistic research language, a realm that gives them another dimension or context apart from the market and their languages of origin.
Extended observations on the written and audio formats
This section includes how the methodology of bricolage in relation to Jan Verwoert, Ybarra Fraustro and Hélène Cixous influenced the way both formats were
approached. Following Verwoert’s ideas previously mentioned in the first chapter regarding appropriation, the work process with the material involved the enriching and eroding of its meanings through art, both at the same time. The bricolageword and the video artwork enrich the understandings of words and their meanings by hammering them together into a presentation that is not a dictionary definition or an academic explanation. They are also eroding what they mean by blurring or excluding official definitions that the words have in their respective languages.
Ybarra Fraustro’s ideas on rasquachismo, the concept that was previously paired to bricolage in the first chapter, played the following role. I became involved with the
fieldwork material through a need to be resourceful with everything in it. This was in order to construct a syncretism or communion that involved art and theory, every-day linguistic knowledge and aesthetics. Every aspect of the collected material, from the audio to the market-floor details became an important resource to produce an artwork and a theoretical reflection. The abundance of content from these resources came to light at the moment of the assembling: making the bricolageword and the video artwork. If, as Ybarra Fraustro says ‘communion is preferred over purity’ (171), then, as a means of communing but not purifying, the artwork must be a many-layered work that displays the diversity of the sources and resources that contributed to it; a syncretism of the materials.
Finally, thinking back on Hélène Cixous, were the aspects of stealing and free flying. Stealing and free flying became a matter of self-reflection throughout the entire research process. As this artistic research demanded, there is a final artwork and a final bricolageword, which means that even though I was questioning my motives and methods, this did not stop me from acting and producing. Yet the following questions remained a part of the thinking/making process: Was I stealing those words by
recording them from somebody else’s knowledge? By recording the voice, was I stealing the voice as well? If I have indeed stolen them, what is my responsibility as an artistic researcher? Perhaps this is where free flight comes along, with its own amount of questions as well; am I allowing free flight to the words by using them as art material or am I chaining them to a new fixed structure (the bricolageword)?
The resulting artwork attempts to point to the myriad of perspectives from which it came from. The mode of a simple question and a brief conversation was intended as a symmetrical encounter between the interviewees and myself (the bricoleur/artistic researcher). In this scenario it is difficult to see the line between questioning and emulating fixed structures of power. Perhaps total symmetry cannot be achieved in the mix of society, art and academia, but rather an attempt at symmetry.
Doing words with words: Finding the bricolageword
The following section presents the bricolageword that was distilled from the interviews. Once the audio had been selected and edited, I proceeded to paraphrase
the provided explanations of the untranslatable words in written format by making them slightly different from the original audio. Attempting to re-write these
conversations made me engage with the material in a manner that was different from video editing, allowing me to appropriate and adapt the content into a narrative form, rather than strictly adding what had been said. This adaptation was done in order to make the audio material more precise, digestible and compatible with the written format of the thesis, with an awareness regarding its traits of origin. The paraphrasing of the interviews became a style of writing that aimed to preserve the conversation qualities of the situation, as well as the linguistic diversity of the material. These definitions are written in a tone that alludes to the diversity of linguistic constructions, epistemologies and pronunciations of non-native English speakers. They sustain such a style in order to preserve the quality of the conversations, but they also respond to a need to condense the spoken answers. After getting a proper understanding of what each of the words meant, I proceeded to arrange them inside what would be called the bricolageword. Rather than arranging the words at random, I selected the order of the words with the conscious intention of writing a text based on my own interpretation. On the following page, one can find the bricolageword in a practical digital format. The format of this first presentation is in a #5 font size, which can be zoomed in and easily read if one is using either a PDF document format or a Microsoft Word
document format.2 This specific presentation relates to its condition as an art material
that has been mainly worked on through digital tools; more than a word to be read, it is a word to be moved, copy-pasted, and even rearranged, in the hopes to further its condition as a bricolage – to be used as an artwork, art material or, as it can be further grappled with in the third chapter, as an interpretation of untranslatables in the form of a narrative. This interpretation of the bricolageword is part of an extended exercise of word experimentation.
2 To see the word in a format that is not constituted by a single digital line, but in accordance to the
font-size of the overall text, please go to the section ‘Interpretation of the bricolageword’, on page 46 of this thesis.
Inside the bricolageword
The bricolageword is a 173-letter word made out of 35 separate words in 7 different languages. What follows are the individual paraphrased descriptions that where given by the merchants of each of the untranslatable words, in written format, along with the specification of their language of origin, which was also stated by the merchants. These descriptions are the explanations on why the chosen word or expression could not be translated into English. The footnotes do not only reference the digital
resources that were used for certain words, but they also address specific situations regarding the interview and the untranslatable words.
Kéél / Kéélute3 agoholo han – Wolof4
Wolof is very interesting, is from West Africa, Senegal. In Wolof they say kéél and kéélute agoholo han. Kéél is ‘trust’, and if you do not trust, they have other words too. But if I trust you, I leave my money, I leave everything and I can go. That is trust, that is kéél. Kéélute is a bit different, because it also means somebody that can take care of anything, and that can do anything without doubting. But kéél also means the bone of the hip, and if it breaks then you have a problem. Take that one.
Shema Ysrael Adonai eloheinu ehad5 – Hebrew
This is the sentence – Shema Ysrael Adonai eloheinu, ehad. It is a prayer, a very Jewish prayer and as a prayer it is translated to other languages, not just English. But you cannot absolutely translate it. It is about God. We also say it in many other special occasions, like on Saturdays, the Sabbath. We say it before going to bed, before we close our eyes – but you can also say it with your eyes closed. It is very powerful. I can translate each of the words: Shema, which means ‘to listen’, then of course Ysrael means ‘Israel’; Adonai is ‘god’, the name of god – or one of the names of god, and ehad, that means ‘one’. And so we say Shema Ysrael Adonai eloheinu,
3 http://wolofword.com/whats-the-wolof-word-for-trust-its-keelute/
4 I was able to find the spelling of the word kéélute online. I decided on the written form of the word
kéél by interpreting it as a section of kéélute. Due to the absence of findings regarding the remaining
words, they were transcribed phonetically.
ehad. It is the putting together what gives it the energy, and that you cannot translate, this is the only thing you cannot translate – this energy. There are many other prayers in the Hebrew language like this. You can try to translate them, each word separately, but you will never translate the energy and emotion of those moments.
Ṭabbāḵ6 / Shoam tot voj / Tam jat jarat - Arabic7
In Arabic we say these words that sometimes have to do with cooking. Ṭabbāḵ in Arabic means ‘cooking’, original cooking, but it is also when you are mixing
whatever things you have together. And it can be used in a dialect; if I come around to you and say shoam tot voj, I am asking, ‘what are you cooking?’ But this also means what are you doing about planning? What are you mixing up? What is in your mind? And with this, sometimes you can say tam jat jarat, and this means that what you are cooking has blown up, or that it is gone or got burned, so your plan is burned.
Nube a pecorelle, pioggia a catinelle8 - Italian
In Italy there is a particular expression that is difficult to translate in English,
something popular that I was just discussing with my neighbor last week. In Italy we say nube a pecorelle, pioggia catinelle – this is an Italian way to say that when
previously there are a lot of clouds in the sky it means that there will be a lot of rain in the future. The translation of what we actually say is something particular because we say cielo a pecorelle, so ‘sky like sheep’ – cielo is ‘sky’ and pecorelle are a lot of little sheep. In the south of Italy, where there are a lot of sheep, we say that the sky is like sheep and this means a lot of rain. But we don’t exactly say ‘a lot of rain’, we say pioggia a catinelle – pioggia is ‘rain’ and catinelle are those baskets that you use to clean inside and, at one time, women used them to clean the clothes. And so, a big basket full of water means a lot of rain! – cielo a pecorelle, pioggia a catinelle.9
6 http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-arabic/cook
7 Except from the word ṭabbāḵ, the rest of the words were transcribed phonetically.
8 http://dettieproverbi.it/proverbi/italia/cielo-a-pecorelle-pioggia-a-catinelle/
9 During the conversation, the interviewee begins the untranslatable expression with the word nube, or
‘cloud’. Later on in the description, the word nube is exchanged for cielo, or ‘sky’. This gave further insight into the impossibility of translation, exposing the influence and importance of pictorial representation within ones own language. This relational pictorial representation enables a stronger
Schadenfreude10 – German
In German, Schadenfreude is the word. When there are two kids, and both of them are having an ice cream, but one of the kid’s ice cream falls on the floor, making him very sad, yet the other kid starts laughing at him – that is Schadenfreude. Freude means ‘joy’ and Schaden means ‘damage’; so they put those two words together and use it to call the act of laughing and being happy about someone else’s misery. This is a word they do not have in English, but you could translate it to Spanish as cabrón. 11
Dios para shunke – Quechua12
I was trying to remember something in Quechua – ‘may god repay you’, Dios para shunke. I figured I wanted to remember something good.
Marrane pa tu siki13 – Quechua
Marrane pa tu siki is very bad; it means ‘my cock for your ass’. In the mountain range, when they want to insult you, they would say this expression like they would say ‘fuck you’ over here. It is not used very often, only up in the mountains or in the hills.
Fongere - Fulani
Fongere is when people are eating, and you start eating too, but nobody is talking, and you have a couple of spoons because you are hungry and your mind is focused on the food. But after that, if you say something, people will start laughing – they are going to laugh a lot, some of them might even not eat their food anymore because
grasp on what the overall expression tries to communicate; when there are clouds in the sky that look like sheep, this means that in the future there will be a lot of rain.
10 http://en.pons.com/translate?l=deen&q=Schadenfreude
11 The person interviewed, being a multilingual speaker fluent in Spanish, mentioned that the Spanish
word cabrón would make a good translation for the word schadenfreude. As a native Spanish speaker, I am aware that the word cabrón stands for a person that is evil in their doings.
12 The words in Quechua come from the only interview that was carried out in Spanish. Most of the
words are untranslatable into English, except for the word dios, which is Spanish for ‘god’. With the exception of the word siki, the rest of the Quechua words were written phonetically. I did the
translation of the overall conversation from Spanish into English.
