At the beginning of the 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure drew diagrams to explain the concepts of linguistics to his disciples. He drew as he spoke, and the traces of these words took shape in his famous Course in General Linguistics, which founded modern linguistics. Today, Guykayser creates assemblages from them. He freely draws his own story while inviting us to enter this unusual conversation. The conversation then flows, like a river, both constrained and free…
The story begins with two human beings looking at each other. They are within a framework composed of Saussure’s mosaic of world languages. These are also the first drawings of cerebral zones overflowing from individuals. They are sure to speak to each other; the power of languages is there for that.
Moreover, even when two heads float, they find themselves back to back. Strange, but the sketch, like language, allows it. It becomes obvious: they are immersed in the same world, they will navigate in the same direction.
That’s it, contact is established! This sketch is Saussure’s diagram of speech. What connects the two people is this ability to share what we hear and what we say, to mobilize our bodies and our thoughts to create the river of conversation.
If the heads seem to be resting, the back of the skulls is bathed in the river. This is thought, these are the concepts that arise in our brain and share the same fluid. There is no conversation without this bath of thought.
They speak to each other. The sketch recalls the organs necessary for the act of phonation. If thought is present, it must transform into a sound object to reach the other. Air will be expelled by the lungs, travel through the trachea and past the larynx, then the sound wave will take shape by rubbing against the vocal cords, the tongue, the teeth… It may rush into the nasal cavities but will surely glide over the lips. It will then make the great leap and fill the void.
Then they enter the scene. They finally exist. Who? The horse, for example, or the tree, or even the school of fish that Guykayser adds… These serve as examples of the whole, a whole that language allows us to describe from its elements. The river of language will give them this existence. In Saussure’s diagram, it is the tree that reveals the forest of signs. What we do with this tree, we do with all the words of our language. In Guykayser’s assemblage, the tree and the head are surrounded by the wave. This is where everything plays out, the possibility of association as well as the freedom of interpretation. Moreover, in the next drawing, the horse and the head become one; language is both a part taken and a participant in the world.
We are close to the denouement; the main actor is here: the sign, the linguistic sign. Presented in a triptych as mysterious as it is clear. In this one, the double arrows framing each circle are important. The drawing is not simply a drawing. Images are linked to concepts and form words; these double arrows allow us to move from one to the other. Meaning is created, conversation comes alive.
Is everything possible? Perhaps. Guykayser’s last drawing has taken over. Few elements from Saussure’s diagrams are found there, but the essence is present. If the fish from elsewhere swim, which seems important to Guykayser, they do so because one never bathes twice in the same river.
