« ARToolkit | Main | (hu)Man the imperfect librarian »
October 27, 2005
Language as a Labyrinth
I thoroughly enjoyed reading both pieces by Jose Luis Borges and John Hejduk. The mind-boggling imagery and logic of both labyrinths they create is, to my mind, even more of a fantastic accomplishment when one considers that it was done entirely with the written word. The ability to convey such grand sweeping visual ideas in a medium that uses nothing but language, either written or spoken, is a skill that everyone can benefit from. The temptation in the "new media" age we currently inhabit is to overlook the importance of words as another valuable tool that we can use to express our ideas.
The Borges piece was also interesting in that it not only used language for the expression of his idea of the Libray of Babel, but it also employed words in a series of books as the basis for the logic of the labyrinth. To even just fathom for a few moments the seemingly infinite set of possible ways letters could be arranged, while still recongnizing that this does actually represent a finite system, is astounding.
Ultimately, I found both works succeeded in not only creating a world with a logic and system that is easily visualized during the course of reading through the pieces, but they also reminded me of why I still constantly crave and seek out the unique enjoyment of reading and writing.
Posted by Fernando Cervantes at October 27, 2005 03:04 PM