MAY 3, 2024 GRACE EBERT
“Post-It Note Drawing #89.” All images © Aron Wiesenfeld
Aron Wiesenfeld has created dozens of drawings in black ink, translating the mystery and ennui of his paintings onto the iconic yellow square.
When a friend asked for a small drawing on a Post-It note to add to his growing collection of artworks on the iconic yellow square, Aron Wiesenfeld obliged. The North Carolina-based artist rendered one of his introspective scenes and enjoyed the process enough to create an entire series on the 3 x 3-inch canvas.
Wiesenfeld has since created dozens of drawings in black ink, translating the mystery and ennui of his paintings onto the scaled-down surface. In one work, an open dresser drawer reveals a toddler tucked inside, while another piece depicts a child listlessly watching a record turn. The artist rarely plans a drawing before putting ink to paper and challenges himself to capture the same depth, moods, and stories of his larger works with much more minimal tools. He shares:
It forces you to be very economical since you only have 10 to 20 lines to make a cloud or a field of grass. I have so much respect for cartoonists who do that well, like R. Crumb or Edward Gorey…Because the drawings are so small, every movement of the hand is magnified when seen on a screen, and the lines seem more fluid or spontaneous than a larger drawing might be.
In October, Wiesenfeld will show some of his larger oil paintings at James Freeman Gallery in London.[…]
“Post-It Note Drawing #86”
Top left: “Post-It Note Drawing #26.” Top right: “Post-It Note Drawing #52.” Bottom left: “Post-It Note Drawing #41.” Bottom right: “Post-It Note Drawing #77”
More: Childhood Boredom and Wonder Abound in Aron Wiesenfeld’s Inky Post-It Drawings — Colossal
Disappointed by the alien languages you see in movies? I have good news! There is a new branch of linguistics—Xenolinguistics—dedicated to imagining what an alien language might actually look like!
In this video, I want to explore the weirdness of the forms an alien language could take, using what we know about human language, animal communication, biology, and cognition.
Read more! A new handbook on xenolinguistics was just published.
Xenolinguistics: Towards a science of extraterrestrial language.
Preview available here! https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003352174
0:00 – Xenolinguistics
2:04 – How weird is Klingon?
3:38 – Universal grammar
5:33 – The languages of Tlön
7:02 – Language and number
8:20 – Gestural language
10:29 – Chemical signaling
12:09 – Color changing and bioluminescence
15:17 – Electro-communication
17:23 – Magnetoreception
18:46 – How to make an alien language
19:59 – The languages of Star Wars
Sources
Borges (1940). Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.
Catania (2019). The astonishing behavior of electric eels.
Clarke (1973). Rendezvous with Rama.
Crook Baddeley & Osorio (2002). Identifying the structure in cuttlefish visual signals.
Evans & Levinson (2009). The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science.
Golston (2018). φ-features in animal cognition.
Ligon & McGraw (2018). A chorus of color: hierarchical and graded information content of rapid color change signals in chameleons.
Hanlon & Messenger (1988). Adaptive coloration in young cuttlefish (sepia officinalis l.): The morphology and development of body patterns and their relation to behaviour.
Holmer (2013). Greetings Earthlings! On possible features of exolanguage.
Hopkins (1999). Design features for electric communication.
Hunter (1775). An account of the Gymnotus Electricus.
Jackson & Ratnieks (2006). Communication in ants.
Jeanson et al. (2003). Pheromone trail decay rates on different substrates in the Pharaoh’s ant, Monomorium pharaonis.
Jones & Conner (2019). The jamming avoidance response in echolocating bats.
Mouritsen & Ritz (2005). Magnetoreception and its use in bird navigation.
Musso et al. (2003). Broca’s Area and the language instinct.
Osvath (2013). Astrocognition: A cognitive zoology approach to potential universal principles of intelligence.
Palmer et al. (2006). Response of female cuttlefish Sepia officinalis (Cephalopoda) to
mirrors and conspecifics: evidence for signaling in female cuttlefish.
Ross (2023). Modification as a universal property of intelligent communication.
Ross (2023). A linguistic perspective on the Drake equation.
Westby & Conselice (2020). The astrobiological Copernican weak and strong limits for intelligent life.
Williams et al. (2019). Dynamic pigmentary and structural coloration within cephalopod chromatophore organs.
Wiltschko & Wiltschko (2005). Magnetic orientation and magnetoreception in birds and other animals.
Clips:
Star Wars (1977)
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Avatar (2009)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Treasure Planet (2002)
Return of the Jedi (1983)
[…]
Edward Gibson is a psycholinguistics professor at MIT and heads the MIT Language Lab. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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TRANSCRIPT:
https://lexfridman.com/edward-gibson-…
EPISODE LINKS:
Edward’s X: https://x.com/LanguageMIT
TedLab: https://tedlab.mit.edu/
Edward’s Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?…
TedLab’s YouTube:
/ @tedlab-mit
PODCAST INFO:
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Full episodes playlist:
• Lex Fridman Podcast
Clips playlist:
• Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
OUTLINE:
0:00 – Introduction
1:13 – Human language
5:19 – Generalizations in language
11:06 – Dependency grammar
21:05 – Morphology
29:40 – Evolution of languages
33:00 – Noam Chomsky
1:17:06 – Thinking and language
1:30:36 – LLMs
1:43:35 – Center embedding
2:10:02 – Learning a new language
2:13:54 – Nature vs nurture
2:20:30 – Culture and language
2:34:58 – Universal language
2:39:21 – Language translation
2:42:36 – Animal communication
[…]
