Esoteric Languages

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Looking for anarchist esolangers to join a new avantgarde group (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by surrealpartisan@lemmy.world to c/esolangs@programming.dev

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So, I've been toying with this idea of applying the anarchist concept of means ends unity to art (to be honest, mainly as a theoretical justification for doing what I wanted to do anyway). So, if you want to do art, and especially anarchist art, shouldn't your tools also be artistic and preferably anarchist?

I'll give an example. Poetry is art. Tools of poetry include things like language and font. Constructed languages can be seen as art projects, and they can implement and emphasize the values of anarchism. Fonts are also art projects and they can for example be inspired by anarchism and be freely distributed etc.

Other examples could include making specific image manipulation programs and algorithms and creating new image formats for visual arts, making esoteric programming languages for programs etc.

So, my idea is starting an avantgarde group/movement where we make art with artistic DIY tools and document the process in the art itself so that it doesn't hide its structure but shows how it was made.

Attached is the first poem I made specifically with this project in mind. But of course, not everything we produce as a group needs to resemble these little examples I came up with. The main thing is to try to break the expectations of art (if such a thing is possible anymore) and also to be an anarchist.

If any of this inspires you, hit me up. Perhaps we can start the group together.

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[–] okwhateverdude@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Okay, call me curious. I took a stab at translating the poem according to the dictionary

Light The Darkness

Light is the paint
Darkness is like a canvas
It's the same for order and chaos
You spread the paint
In order to help, you must spread light
In order to be strong, you must spread order

What's wild, is that I copypasta'd this image into a local slop machine and it managed a (worse) translation.

(ai slop)
Light of darkness
--
Light to paint
Darkness on canvas
Similar to organization for chaos
You spread the paint
To conquer, to be kind
To construct, to organize

EDIT:

Re-reading this, I realized I didn't make it super clear that I was interested. I guess I hoped the effort expended to try a translation would signal intent? Anyhow, I'm keen.

[–] surrealpartisan@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I applaud your effort in translating that. Your translation does not perfectly match my original intentions, but it is close, and I guess there is supposed to be a subjective aspect to these things.

Anyway, I'll send you a link to our Discord.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

hey, you light in darkness

Light is a paint
Darkness is like a canvas
It's like organization in chaos
You spread the paint
In order to spread help, spread light
In order to spread strength, spread organization

\

Or, the same in Finnish:

Sinulle, valo pimeydessä

valo on maalia
pimeys kuin kanvas
kuin järjestystä kaaoksessa
levität maalia
levittääksesi apua, levitä valoa
levittääksesi voimaa, levitä järjestystä

(I really really like the vocative case. I wish Finnish had it!)

[–] surrealpartisan@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Suomi mainittu, torilla tavataan!

Anyways, this is a really good translation, although all those "spread" things could use more idiomatic single-word translations. I applaud!

Vocative is an interesting thing. When I first read about it, I dismissed it as useless. However, since then I have used it in my largest conlang project Shiofaioth (linked to in another comment) and also here, because it's just so nice.

[–] SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Constructed languages can be seen as art projects, and they can implement and emphasize the values of anarchism.

Can you elaborate on this? Give an example?

[–] surrealpartisan@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Here is an example I have worked on: https://github.com/SurrealPartisan/shiofaioth

[–] SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"It's purpose is to be as unsuitable for authoritarian propaganda as possible, so that it is difficult to hide power structures behind word choices."

Can you explain a bit how it does that? I couldn't see how that works from a quick read through that document.

[–] surrealpartisan@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Thank you for your interest! There are couple of ways in which I try to accomplish that goal. First is the verbal pre- and postpositions, which force you to be open about your sources and the degree of voluntariness of what you describe (of course nothing prevents straight up lying, but at least whatever you claim is explicit and ready for inspection). There's another thing that I now realize I haven't even documented yet, even though it has been one of my main ideas. That is the lack of single word ways to say one "must" or "should" or "may" do something, with the expection being taht you explicitly say who orders or allows the action. Of course there are always ways to go around this, but the aim is that if you try to hide authority behind words, it would be clunky and noticeable.