Languages and Linguistics of Love: Examining a conceptual contemporary artistic practice of multilayered language installations
🗓️ Wednesday, 24 June — 5:10pm
- 6:30pm
(80 mins)
Presenters
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Abstract
This PhD research at RMIT University AU combines reflective and generative practice, using a creative practice research methodology (Candy) to reflect on my artistic practice. In this research, minoritised languages and linguistics of love, refer to language based theory and artworks which utilise direct and indirect references to ‘love of the contemporary Western experience’ (Carson), in particular familial, romantic and self love.
The medium of language is used to create multilayered language installations (MLI) which contain combinations of informational text, spatial wall text, multi-channel sound, and a language based performance. These installations conceptually and structurally embody the intersection between oralities – language based performance, the voice (tone, rhythm, repetition) and literacies – written text, linguistics, public and private language. The installations aim to foster self and societal reflection within the introspective space of the viewer. When the syntax “I love you” is said repeatedly in different tones, intonation and emotion, it is heard in an individualistic way based on the viewers’ mother tongue, culture and family experience (Dewaele). When the syntax is read with different descriptions of types of love the viewer is brought into other conceptual worlds.
The minoritised languages and linguistics of love serve as resistance to living ‘in a state of despair, disillusionment and fear’ (Emin). In the current political discourse – climate collapse, fascism and hatred, wide-spread war, sexual violence and suffering – vocabularies and discourses of counteraction are desperately needed. Love as a practice builds resilience to survive, it’s integral to life and to feel safe.
I will present MLI, ‘Safe’ (2025) as a lecture performance with methods including real-time recording art making practice – based on ‘creative analytical processes ethnography’ (Richardson), the design of a MLI and the performance of the artist as researcher.
The medium of language is used to create multilayered language installations (MLI) which contain combinations of informational text, spatial wall text, multi-channel sound, and a language based performance. These installations conceptually and structurally embody the intersection between oralities – language based performance, the voice (tone, rhythm, repetition) and literacies – written text, linguistics, public and private language. The installations aim to foster self and societal reflection within the introspective space of the viewer. When the syntax “I love you” is said repeatedly in different tones, intonation and emotion, it is heard in an individualistic way based on the viewers’ mother tongue, culture and family experience (Dewaele). When the syntax is read with different descriptions of types of love the viewer is brought into other conceptual worlds.
The minoritised languages and linguistics of love serve as resistance to living ‘in a state of despair, disillusionment and fear’ (Emin). In the current political discourse – climate collapse, fascism and hatred, wide-spread war, sexual violence and suffering – vocabularies and discourses of counteraction are desperately needed. Love as a practice builds resilience to survive, it’s integral to life and to feel safe.
I will present MLI, ‘Safe’ (2025) as a lecture performance with methods including real-time recording art making practice – based on ‘creative analytical processes ethnography’ (Richardson), the design of a MLI and the performance of the artist as researcher.
Biography
Shona Stark is an artist, multi-disciplinary designer, educator and PhD candidate at RMIT University Australia. Originally from Melbourne, she lives and works in Melbourne and Berlin. She earned a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication) from Monash University, in 2008, and a Diploma of Fine Art and Meisterschüler*in from Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin and studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris. Stark was listed in the Top 100 Most Influential Melburnians and received the Mart Stam Prize, Berlin.
