The language forest

 

 Essay by JULIEN BISMUTH 

julien bismuth is a french artist and writer based in new york city. his work explores cross-cultural communication and has been shown at the guggenheim museum in new york; the palais de tokyo and the national gallery of the jeu de peume in paris.

 

DRIFTS I was invited to write about the internal cosmos of the brain for this issue, specifically its relationship to language. I’m neither a neurologist nor a linguist, but like many visual artists today, my work often leads me to drift into other fields. In recent years, I’ve found myself working closely with a group of linguists and anthropologists in Brazil who study its indigenous cultures and languages.

My interest in this field was sparked by a debate on the nature of human language and its relation to cognition, revolving around the singular tongue of the Pirahã…