Title: "Dear [neutral] language, (...)" Date: 2021-11-15 Category: wordmord Tags: language, coding Slug: dear-neutral-language lang: en event_start: 2021-12-04 18:00 event_duration: 4h30 featured_image: /images/wordmord-dear-language.png summary: In this worksession the artistic collective research WordMord has invited Allisson Parrish to conduct a workshop exploring the relation of coding to poetry and Manetta Berends and Cristina Cochior to investigate the way coding can destabilise traumatic language. In this worksession *[WordMord](http://wordmord-ur.la/)* has invited **[Allisson Parrish](https://www.decontextualize.com/)** to conduct a workshop exploring the relation of coding to poetry and **[Manetta Berends](https://manettaberends.nl/)** and **[Cristina Cochior](https://randomiser.info/)** to investigate the way coding can destabilise traumatic language. With poet and programmer Allison Parrish we will dive into one of her poems and the coding process that lies behind it (...) In collaboration with Manetta and Cristina we will present and discuss questions and processes/scripts we have experimented with. We will show tools and methods towards a poetically subversive meta/para/re-writing of derogatory narratives and consequently of trauma and violence. Through coding and algorithmic processes we investigate violent words and their arbitrary use in legal and journalistic/media contexts; such as the choice of the use of the word 'death' instead of the word 'murder'. We want to question the neutrality that legal and journalistic language aspire for. These linguistic decisions may reproduce a language that attacks, that is unjust and traumatizes again and again vulnerable bodies. Focusing on specific trial cases of femicide and queericide in Greece we seek to destabilize the normative narratives by counting, investigating, observing, replacing, repeating and multiplying words. *WordMord* means that words can kill. *Wordmord* is a collective artistic research which started as part of the seminar *Feminist Practices in the Public Space at the Era of Globalised Technologies*, organized by the **Centre of New Media and Feminist Practices in the Public Space** at the Department of Architecture, University of Volos (GR) in 2019. The project´s starting point are two instances of public violence, misogyny, and homophobia that occurred in Greece in 2018: the brutal murder of the queer activist Zak/Zackie Oh in Athens and the femicide of Eleni Topaludi in Rhodes. The research poses questions on the relationship between language, technology, trauma and violence. How is violence represented through (online) narratives? How can we assemble, archive and thusly deconstruct hetero-normative, derogatory, sexist, homophobic and trans-phobic narratives that manipulate? *WordMord* believes that the violence of language is not eradicated by merely erasing words, but rather by transversing their violent imposition through specific practices that trouble and disrupt grammatical consistency, semantic norms, 'correct' pronunciation, 'proper' bodily posture. The rupture of linguistic limits suggests the possibility of experiencing language in its materiality. Wordmord seeks to connect art with queer feminist activism and emancipated life. Through collaborations with artists, performers, linguists, lawyers, programmers, activists and groups working with feminist algorithmic and computational practices, it shapes an online rhizomatic space as an active feminist archive. *WordMord*´s initial research group consists of: **Vassiliea Stylianidou aka Franck-Lee Alli-Tis**, **Ageliki Diakrousi**, **Christina Karagianni**, **Oýto Άrognos aka Stylianos Benetos**, **Mounologies: Eleni Diamantouli and Anna Delimpasi**. **Allison Parrish** is a poet and programmer and an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU ITP/IMA. She does research on and make art about language and how it's used and arranged, especially in the context of computation and the Internet. **Manetta Berends** is a designer working with/on/through publications, collective infrastructures and reading/writing systems. She graduated from the BA graphic design from ArtEZ Arnhem (2012) and the MA Media Design from the Piet Zwart Institute (2016). She is a member of Varia. **Cristina Cochior** is a researcher and designer working in the Netherlands. With an interest in automation, situated software and peer to peer knowledge production, her practice largely consists of investigations into the intimate bureaucracy of knowledge organisation systems and more recently, collective and non-extractive digital infrastructures. --- **Date**: 4th of December 2021
**Time**: 16:00-20:30 CET
**Location**: Online [link soon]
**Note**: This session will be held in English with possibility of tranlating in Greek if needed. **To register, please send an email to [hello@wordmordur.la](mailto:hello@wordmordur.la).** **Schedule**:
16:00-17:00 Presentation with Manetta and Cristina
17:00-17:45 Discussion
17:45-18:00 Break
18:00-20:00 Workshop with Allison Parrish
20:00-20:30 Discussion
--- This event is made possible with the kind support of the [Creatieve Industrie NL](https://stimuleringsfonds.nl/).