Presenting

A Letter To My Grandmother

Polyrythmic

Painting Exercise

Essay 33 isolates the German phonemes of Martin Heidegger's Rectoral Address (1933) and digitally rearranges them so that they become a halting, English version of D.W. Winnicott's lecture on Transitional Objects (1953)
By deconstructing German to the level of the phoneme, I am able to temporarily unhinge a politically charged national language from its culturally specific meaning. One literally hears the precise German phonemes trapped inside English words. In a sense, kernels of meaning try to resist the linguistic “wrapper” that encases them, illustrating powerfully both the vulnerability and violence of cultural syntax.

Winnicott phrases that Heidegger phonemically hip hops:

"With the other hand the baby takes an external object, as a part of a sheet or blanket, into the mouth along with the fingers; or

"Somehow or other the bit of cloth is held and sucked, or not actually sucked; the objects used naturally include napkins and (later) handkerchiefs, and this depends on what is readily and reliably available; or

"The baby starts from early months to pluck wool and to collect it and to use it for the caressing part of the activity; less commonly, the wool is swallowed, even causing trouble; or

"Mouthing occurs, accompanied by sounds of 'mum-mum,' babbling, anal noises, the first musical notes, and so on. "

Sources:
-D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (New York, Basic Books: 1971)


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