Un Nouveau Festival

Now in its fourth edition, Centre Pompidou's Nouveau Festival in Paris has become a must for those eager to appreciate the diverse nature of the contemporary visual culture. From 20 February to 11 March 2013, it welcomes more than 100 guests with proposals at the intersection of many disciplines. From graphic design to typography, films and live performances, imaginary and invented languages, music and debates, with this fourth edition the Centre Pompidou explores the theme of language, in the sense of the many voices and writings that make a profound impact on our visual culture. Like a Tower of Babel right in the heart of Paris, the Nouveau Festival asks, for instance, why God spoke Danish and how Kobaïen, a universal and extraterrestrial language from the planet Kobaïa, came to Christian Vander, the drummer and founder of rock band Magma which sings all its songs in this language.

Three spaces have been allocated to three different threads, with the Galerie Sud given over to imaginary and invented languages, Espace 315 featuring an installation and the Forum hosting talks, debates, films and performances — and live book-making.

The Galerie Sud flanks the vast work by the eclectic Guy de Cointet with a section given over to imaginary and invented languages where, in a cacophony of sound, languages such as the Zaoum of the Russian Futurists are heard alongside Volapük, a language inspired by God and invented by German priest Johann Martin Schleyer in the 19th century; Vonlenska, the emotional and phonetic language sung by the band Sigur Rós; Peyo's Smurf language; and the work of Frédéric Werst, who produced an anthology of works drawn up by a people called the Wards over the two centuries when their civilisation was at its peak. These include religious and philosophical texts, historical and mythical tales, books of poetry and grammar and geography texts. Annexed to the 400-page book is a Wardwesân grammar and a dictionary of no less than 3,500 words. The language was invented from A to Z by Frédéric Werst, in turn influenced by the work of writers such as J.R.R. Tolkien, who introduced magical and ancestral tongues created ex nihilo into his works.

In the Galerie, visitors will also come across St Hildegard, author of one of the first known artificial languages, the Lingua ignota, the medium Hélène Smith and the Chinese artist and performer Xu Bing and his logotypes. In this quasi workshop, everyone can try out Esperanto, Isotype (International System of TYpographic Picture Education) and Leetspeak. The geeks can experience an intergalactic journey and learn the meaning of a sentence in Klingon (the language created for the TV series Star Trek by linguist Marc Okrand): "tlhingan Hol Dajatlh'a'?" If that is too difficult, there is always the Captain Blood videogame created by Exxos (which later became Cryo) in 1988. In it, the player becomes a programmer warped and cloned inside his own game. In order to move up the different levels, players must communicate with aliens by forming sentences based on icons. Easier said than done.

In Espace 315, carte blanche was given to Fanny de Chaillé and Nadia Lauro for their Clairiere. In olden times, a clairiere, or clearing, was thought to be an eye in the forest through which omens could be read in the sky. By obstructing the view, the forest was an obstacle to knowledge and human science. The clearing was, therefore, considered the original space of thought structure. This archetypal location lies behind the device created in the Espace 315, a Minimalist clearing constructed with white paper, which is both protective and open, a visual environment that is ideal for "hearing". Immersed in this "cave-glottis", visitors experience sound, the material nature of the spoken language and its physicality. Here language is seen in oral terms and not as a sign, an intent and a score.

In the Forum, the third and final section of the Festival, Christophe Boutin and Mélanie Scarciglia, co-founders of onestar press and Three Star Books, together with Patrick Javault, have invented the Book Machine, an event devoted to the creation process of the artist's book. At the heart of the device, and in the depths of the Centre Pompidou, American artist Mika Tajima has devised a set in which a large desk accommodates ten graphic designers from three international art schools. With their assistance, visitors (who have previously registered online) can create their own artist's book and a temporary printing agency works on the page-making. The end result is a 100-page book with a colour cover. The final day of the festival will feature a prize-giving for all those, artists and non-, whose projects stand out for their originality. As in a collective performance, the jury members, all art-world professionals, will not only have to vote but also create the prizes, unique because only awarded once. Martina De Fabrizio

Through 11 March 2013
Un Nouveau Festival
Centre Pompidou
Galerie Sud, Espace 315, Forum
19 Rue Beaubourg, Paris
Free entrance