Performativity of written language

Written language mostly is associated with written words on a surface. But before written words, there is always gesture. There is action and reaction. Movement and mark. Written language is often perceived to be bodiless but in fact it is inseparable from the human body. The mind and intention are primary, the action and gesture are secondary, and the mark is tertiary – they are each reliant on one another and cannot be considered independently. To enable developing and changing written language, we have to investigate the primary and secondary activities with the aim of proposing a more performative tertiary outcome. Considering language as a happening, we are able to reevaluate our physical relation to it. Experiencing language as a happening means rethinking it as a material and its format; language is the material, a happening its choreographic dimension. A happening cannot exist without a material presence. A material cannot be present without being perceived. The body in motion projects the narrative. The body is the storyteller, the happening. Language and body shape meaning in a mutual communication. A communication between material and motion, language and limbs, type and skin, organic and constructed, inside and outside, autonomous and other-directed.