Communication: The Importance of Shared Attitudes

According to philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, in order for a system of communication to work, the members of that system must agree on their attitudes towards the things around them. Regular use and application of those concepts thus form part of language and its successful implementation. I found this profoundly interesting because it made me think of the way speakers of a language "share a brain." It reminded me of the changes I see and feel myself going through when I transition from English to Spanish (for instance, when I suddenly have to change my speaking from English to Spanish, I hear my voice get higher, I feel lighter, more open and extroverted). In this sense, the idea of shared attitudes is something that I would love to further explore; it shows the extent to which language can affect our behavior and our perceptions of ourselves.

But can this hinder us just as much as it helps us? Does the idea of an individual life-form, a simultaneously isolated and liberated being, have anything to teach us about the complexity of language? I think that those agreements speakers of one language have act as the basis for the unifier that is language. Though it is undeniable that language forms part of a culture, are people willing to believe that part of this truth lies in the fact that everyone - mostly - unquestioningly agrees on logical truths based simply on the structure of the language they communicate in? Does this take away our autonomy to a degree?

In my studio time this week, I produced this abstract piece with the initial sole intention of experimenting with acrylic ink. The process of creating this and the final piece kept reminding me of the elaborate birth of a new world or being. The disorder of both the process and the final product reminded me of the spontaneity with which many things are created. This also made me think of the creation of languages: although they hold for us a sense of order and logic, they were once nothing more than experiments in communication, created just as circumstantially as something in the natural world. What would an image like this mean to someone who has specific words or phrases for the flow of the paint across the canvas, or for the way the paint acts differently along each corner (some sections blend together, some indicate movement, some appear to exist as interruptions within the piece)?