Making language: Impetus, workshop and visual languages

This article is based on the workshop, Making Language, although originally prompted by RCA research students and their grappling with translation. For example, despite a long simplification and westernization of Chinese language signifying moves away from pictorial origins based on nature, there still appears to be a great looseness about translation from Chinese to English. As with the world of images, there would appear to be more open choices. Conversely, translation of UK academic codes can be a daunting task in terms of what lies behind the surface meaning of words - the indirect and the ironic. The workshop saw an imaginative engagement with translating thought into image and then word, with partners guessing meaning and discussing what it felt like to communicate in this more visual manner - an empathetic practice then, too. The article describes a small foray only into what is a much larger area.