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argixian · 7 years ago

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11 Questions

I was tagged by @eubiass (it just took me 20 minutes to find where)

the rules are:

✰ post the rules

✰ answer the questions given to you by the tagger

✰ write eleven questions of your own

✰ tag eleven people

11 Questions:

1. What’s your favourite country and why?

I can either copy and paste my list of awesome countries I want to go to (and it's LONG), or simply answer with my own country - which is France - 'cause I really like my country. It's not perfect - far from it - but I still think it's the best one in the world.

2. What were your biggest fandoms (that you were or are still in)?

Anything related to Arthurian Legend, League of Legend and I guess Yu-Gi-Oh will always have that special childhood part in my heart.

3. What’s your favourite fic (you’re welcome to link it)?

Errrrrm... I'm gonna say... Discovering the legend. It was Rosedragonwitch's take on HP characters reading the HP books, and the characterization was so good I often forgot its wasn't the actual characters but just a fanfiction. Also, it included some actual analysis of the book, like characters picking up that a lot of metaphors in Chambers of Secret included eyes or spiders or snakes. It made me re-reads the books to look for those hidden clues.

4. What’s your favourite work of fiction?

Oh shit... erm... Cyrano de Bergerac, probably ? Honestly, could be The Count of Monte Christo, the Bedlam Stacks, The Lies or Locke Lamora or Frankenstein, depending on how I feel or what I've reread recently. And that’s putting aside all the arthurian boosk I adore.

5. What would you do with a million dollars?

Probably buy myself, my friends and my family a few things, donate a bit, and then use the rest to fund archeological missions and dig sites and museums.

6. What’s something that you miss from your childhood?

It has just occured to me that while I acknowledge things were different when I was a child, I don't actually miss it. There's not really something I judge "better" then what I have now. Maybe I miss a bit the time we didn't know my brother was sick yet ?

7. Do you like to create things? If so, what sort?

Yes I do ! Writting, painting, drawing, sewing, building, mosaics, just... doing stuff with my hand and creating universes. Also, experimental archeology (it's a method for finding out if a theory is correct, by trying to apply it in reality. Like checking if the way of doing X was by doing Y by actually trying to do X by doing Y.)

8. What languages to you speak?

French, English, have some decent bases in German and Latin, did 3 years of Japanese but I'm a bit rusty, a bit of Nahuatl, and if you let me have my dictionnary, I can rudimently decipher phenician and arabic.

9. Do you believe in aliens?

Intelligent aliens ? not really no. Alien as in "lifeform from another planet" ? sure, why not ?

10. What would you study if you had infinite time/money for it?

I'd study what I'm studying right now with limited time and no money : Archeology.

11. What three languages do you want to learn?

I can only pick three ??? I'd like to finish learning Nahuatl ; then I guess Armenian, because I have some armenian ancestry ; and finally ... bengali ? russian ? sinhala ? yoruba ? amharic ? xhosa ? icelandic ? zulu ? maori ? sioux ? inuktikut ? finish arabic ? too many to choose from, I can't !

Did I do it correctly ?

(anyway I don’t even have 11 people to tag ; I only have the person who tagged me, two friends who go on tumblr twice a month maybe, and my girlfriend who’s a tumblr-stalker/reader rather than a tumblr-poster. So can I be excused ?)

(Thanks for tagging me btw, I do like an oportunity to talk about archeology !)

#chain #self #tagged

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rewordfully · 8 years ago

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Oo, can I ask two? I'm always indecisive on these things. Okay 7 and 23!

Have you ever made up your own language?I don’t think I’ve ever gone beyond the phonemic inventory and alphabet, but it was super fun regardless. And the reason is that I do these whenever I’m bored in class (which is pretty often), so by the time the class is done I get only as far as phonology and can’t be bothered to pick up later.

Which language uses the prettiest alphabet?Inuktikut.

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atlanticcanada · 8 years ago

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English, French and Inuktitut: Labrador choir joins Shallaway for special Canada 150 performance

Youth choirs from St. John's and Labrador are heading to the nation's capital to sing a tune in Inuktikut for Canada's 150 birthday celebrations.

from CBC | Newfoundland and Labrador News http://ift.tt/2sX2LX2

#newfoundland and labrador #news #politics #canada #CBCNL

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musicmapglobal · 7 years ago

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Interview: Untangling Zoë Mc Pherson's String Figures

Most people’s understanding of the string figure tradition starts and ends with the cat’s cradle, but Zoë Mc Pherson is not most people. The Brussels-based artist’s new project explores the history of string figures through an array of sonic and visual textures, and the result is a relentlessly future-facing vision that should see her mentioned alongside the likes of Actress, Holly Herndon and Gazelle Twin.

The germ of the String Figures concept came from Mc Pherson’s anthropological research into Inuit culture, with both original and archive throat-singing recordings resurfacing throughout the record. However, this was just a jumping off point; unpicking the many strands of String Figures is a deviously enjoyable challenge. The album threads itself through pulsating electronic and acoustic terrain, taking in everything from squalling saxophone drones to trotting Turkish field recordings via a series of dynamic rhythmic flourishes.

It’s a multi-media and multi-participant creation spanning anonymous samples, distant stories and Alessandra Leone’s continuing work developing an impressive visual aspect to the project. As Zoë Mc Pherson theorises, “Folk music is considered anonymous common property in a culture and that’s what a lot of computer music and other kinds of music data may end up becoming”. In this sense, it’s not hard to see why she sees String Figures as part of “an indigenous of the future” – rarely has ancient and modern culture been tethered together so tightly.

It’s a fascinating record to untangle, and Zoë Mc Pherson was kind enough to assist us via the following email exchange…

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MusicMap: Your debut album was originally inspired by your research into Inuit culture. What led you to that field of study and how did it influence your music?

Zoë Mc Pherson: This obsession period about Inuit culture came when finding a book in my grandmothers’ boxes. I just dove into it, utilising the worldwideweb mostly. It is fascinating to read how it has evolved so fast, their “diet”, the seclusion they had to live through, forced into boarding schools, the way they were told not to pursue hunting, not to speak Inuktikut (ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ), etc.

Pretty f violent. I mean check out Tanya Tagaq’s twitter if you wanna know lots about what’s going on still today. I had honour to open up for her last year and interview her. The world needs ppl like her.

The hunting part I find fascinating. The animalism within it. The respect. Not like huge meat factories treating animals like shit and then eating it. Thanking the spirit of the animal to let them feed your family. This deep respect.

Yet nowadays, the big drinking problems, unemployment, food is extremely expensive. I have never been but spent ages online digging whatever I could find on this culture a few years back. It’s through this that I discovered the practice of String Figures, extremely beautiful and complex shapes. The stories around making string figures. And I found out, this practice happened all over the world, since ages. This human connection is there, even without being able to communicate.

Shapes ressemble each other sometimes, or are very particular, they represent animals and moments that belong to its context. From Polar bears to snakes, depending on where you live. I love this transmission aspect, from a grandmother to a little daughter, through the strings. Maybe this is actually the hidden theme of this debut.

At what point did you decide it would be an audio-visual album (and when can we expect to see the next episodes)?

I’ve always been into transmedia stuff. Performances cross media, audiovisual etc.

I met Alessandra Leone at a female:pressure meeting in Berlin two years back, when I was looking for a director to collab on my next album. She got hooked on strings too and we really clicked together on the whole project. It is very intense and amazing to work together because we’re both perfectionists, have similar aesthetic ideas, and don’t really stop working. She’s a powerful woman and artist.

Each track is a chapter – as we called it – as it is a video as well and is an audioviusal album all in one! We imagined this audiovisual album together with Alessandra, and commissioned pretty amazing visual artists, choreographers, costumes designers, DoP etc. We’re currently still working on forthcoming chapters! And of course live, we play an audiovisual show.

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Next episodes will be out within the next days & months, we got some beautiful movements, improv, choreography, 3D and shots waiting for you. It’s super exciting and fulfilling.

String Figures features a range of field recordings from all over the world. Is there any particular ‘string’ that links them all? And which one brings back the most vivid memories?

I got this question many times 🙂 It’s funny. There’s no particular moment that would be so interesting to write down.

But for sure, it is a very “inner” activity, you’re in your own world (headphones), although listening to the outside world. It’s like disconnecting but connecting at the same time.

I find parts of the record unsettling, parts of it meditative and parts of it liberating, yet somehow it all feels cohesive. How did you achieve that and what do you hope listeners take away from the experience?

Haha well that’s great, happy to hear. I didn’t do anything on purpose, so not sure what to answer.

I’m already impressed by what people tell me from their listening experience. I honestly didn’t know it could touch other people and it makes me very very deeply happy that it is now a shared experience!

Mmh let me think further. I hope ppl get on a certain trip inside/outside, connect some points, let go, shake with some beats, stop and shake the other direction when another beat comes in maybe.

What was your first experience of playing music, and what music were you exposed to growing up?

Again.. haha!!! Played the fiddle, then played drums, looking forward to playing that again btw.

My mother is a singer songwriter and guitarist, she played a lot of Rhythm & Blues and Soul records. Let’s say Curtis Mayfield’s voice would be what brings me straight back to this comfy zone. I listened to a lot of Irish folk too, as Gillie collected songs and tunes back then in the ’60s in Ireland.

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How does performing your new material compare to your experiences playing jazz?

Performing is awesome, we play as a duo with amazing percussionist Falk Schrauwen. We’ve worked hard to make an interesting live [show], mixing organic and electronic sounds. Take into account the live aspect of electronic music, as well as being able to be free, and improvise as much as possible.

I do still have a link with Jazz though, here through saxophone player Sam Comerford who I invited on my first EP and this LP to perform on it.

What led you to Brussels, and how would you describe the music scene there right now? Any names we should be looking out for?

Oh well, ‘Bruxelles ma belle’ as we say. It’s diverse, it’s underground. Ppl are very nerdy and aware of very good music.

Names: Why the Eye are my big brothers, they play crazy DIY instruments and turn the crowd into a trance rave zone. Ppl go mad. A lot of good stuff I have to say. Jazz scene is incredible, with De Beren Gieren as my favourite trio. And they are finally getting their deserved recognition, after about 10 years playing as a trio.

Can you send us a photo of the view from your window?

It’s raining, so no. I’d have to wait until there’s blue sky or snow to make you think life is always wonderful on Instagram. Unless you like greys.

If you want to know more about Zoë Mc Pherson’s String Figures, head to the official website here.

Photo of Zoë Mc Pherson by Camille Cooken Interview by Kier Wiater Carnihan

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dawnajaynes32 · 8 years ago

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A World of Typography: Creating Fonts for Multiple Languages

Industrious and ambitious type designers are creating fonts for not only their own cultures, but those in nearby countries—or ones thousands of miles away.

Today we have access to thousands and thousands of fonts, especially when it comes to Latin scripts. Writing systems across the Americas and Europe, including English, French and Spanish, among others, make up a majority of the typefaces in existence. But the world needs more non-Latin scripts.

Some cultures have only a few digital typefaces to choose from—or none whatsoever. Because non-Latin scripts are in demand, type designers have taken on the challenge of creating fonts not only for their native writing system, but also foreign ones. Whether it’s done for your own culture or another one, type design takes more than just attention to the visual details and knowing how to make the software do what you need. It takes research—a lot of research. And above all else, it takes an insatiable curiosity on the part of the designer.

GLOBAL TYPOGRAPHY

Mark Jamra and Neil Patel have been working together since January 2015, focusing on non-Latin scripts for what Patel calls “hot” or “emerging” markets: the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and also Chinese, Japanese and Korean (often abbreviated CJK).

[Related: Tazugane: A Japanese Font Designed for Multilingual Harmony | Designing for Translation: 5 Tips to Get Your Projects Global-Ready]

Jamra and Patel met during the final production of Phoreus Cherokee, a project that marked the beginning of a new design journey. As Jamra recalls, “At TypeCon 2011, I saw a presentation by three guys from the Language Technology offi ce of the Cherokee Nation in which they told their story of lobbying Apple to install a Cherokee font and keyboard on the iPhone and the iPad. They ended their presentation by asking type designers to design Cherokee fonts, because so few existed. I realized that this would be a particularly meaningful project, and so I immediately responded to their request.”

Phoreus Cherokee by JamraPatel

With Phoreus Cherokee, Jamra and Patel realized that they worked well as a team and formed JamraPatel, specializing in non-Latin scripts. The projects are “technologically complicated” according to Patel, “because of massive character sets or complex shaping.” For their work and the expansive size of the fonts they create, Patel finds that OpenType “has made it easier to develop and implement typefaces for these scripts.”

OpenType, unlike other font formats, can include over 60,000 glyphs. In addition to Phoreus Cherokee, JamraPatel has designed other typefaces, including the N’ko script used throughout West Africa for the Manding language. N’ko has 20–40 million speakers, Patel says. The studio designed N’ko for use in a range of devices, including smartphones.

iPhone keyboard with N’ko by JamraPatel.

With every design project, Patel says that he and Jamra must “cross a threshold.” Hours of research take place as they build up a network of trusted resources and subject matter experts. The entire process requires preparation, care and working with authorities. As Patel says, “It is not until after we feel like we have a sensibility for the culture and have studied enough manuscripts that we can start to actually design the glyphs.”

They take on the research together and, according to Patel, “scour more resources this way.” Their different perspectives enable them to get different insights, and they work with linguists more and more frequently. According to Jamra, “not only are they experts in the languages behind the writing system we’re working on, but our conversations with them provide us with a sense of the relationship of languages to each other and the political, ethnic and social landscapes that languages create and exist in.”

Pen exercises by Neil Patel done at the early stages of designing N’ko.

BEYOND FORM

Jamra believes that if you want to get into designing non-Latin, then you need to do that at least on the graduate level. He cites the University of Reading’s Master of Arts in Typeface Design (MATD) program in the United Kingdom as “the most active” in doing this kind of work. At Reading, applicants who want to learn about scripts other than their own take on the challenge of designing type for global needs.

Associate professor Gerry Leonidas (foreground) and type design student Dot Georgoulas critique a design at the University of Reading.

University of Reading students Mariko Takagi (foreground) and Teja Smrekar write in Arabic.

Associate professor of typography Gerry Leonidas, who teaches at Reading, suggests that not everyone is cut out to become the kind of type designer who takes on research-intensive work. “Serious multi-script typeface design is an entirely different world from the display market graphic designers usually associate with typeface design. Not everybody can do this well. It’s a demanding, time-consuming process that requires guidance to navigate primary and secondary resources (when they exist) and to provide guidance through targeted questioning. There is no easy way, no shortcuts.”

Reading’s program is unique and has an exceptional reputation. Its graduates go on to work for large companies. Reading alum Antonio Cavedoni worked on Apple’s San Francisco typeface, used across Apple’s operating systems. Other Reading graduates start their own foundries, something Veronika Burian and José Scaglione did, teaming up to form TypeTogether.

“Typeface design is an enabling discipline: It only has value through the communication it makes possible.”

– Gary Leonidas

Leonidas says Reading attracts people who are intellectually curious. They take on the research and analysis necessary to design, but it’s more than the typefaces. “What we need to do is raise awareness of the wider typographic environment and conditions for visual communication in other cultures: the way typography and design interact with the history of a community, and the meaning of texts that look and behave in specific ways. Then the need for typefaces emerges from an understanding of the communication requirements of real people, not a gap in somebody’s type specimen. Typeface design is an enabling discipline: It only has value through the communication it makes possible.”

Adelle Sans Devanagari by TypeTogether.

TypeTogeher’s Bree was chosen as main typeface for body and titles in Deco, an ethical and ecologically aware French interior magazine.

Like others working in this area, TypeTogether, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, designs typefaces for a range of communication applications including Latin scripts as well as non-Latin. In addition to creating fonts for multiple writing systems for cultures all over the world, the team is also multicultural. Scaglione lives in Argentina and Burian in Spain, with other team members in Europe, the U.S. and China.

TypeTogether maintains communication among the group and works with clients from all over the world. Burian believes that “a good non-native type designer who has researched the writing system, exposed themselves to it and used the advice of excellent typographic consultants in the given script, is perfectly capable of designing a successful typeface for a script they don’t write/read.”

AwanZaman typeface in Arabic and Latin by Juliet Shen & Mamoun Sakkal, distributed by TypeTogether.

The Annual Report for The Savola Group, a major Saudi company, produced in Arabic and English editions using AwanZaman.

NEW TYPOGRAPHIC TERRITORIES

Like TypeTogether, Typotheque also designs multi-script typefaces. Based in the Netherlands, Typotheque designs not only Latin, but also Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Inuktikut and Tamil, among others.

Typotheque’s Peter Biľak is quick to point out that living in Europe, if you travel a few hours in any direction, you’ll need to speak a diff erent language. It’s a culturally diverse environment, especially when it comes to typography, unlike the U.S., where English is dominant. In 2002 Typotheque started working on Cyrillic, concurrent with advances brought about by the OpenType format.

The Cyrillic work gave Biľak confidence to work on Greek next, and in 2005 he took on Arabic, “which opened completely new territories,” Biľak says. He estimates that research was 90% of the work, with the actual production “fairly fast.” Since most of the font tools Biľak was using at the time were made primarily for designing the Latin-based fonts that read from left to right, Typotheque innovated. “When we got into Arabic, we developed our own tools, scripts and workfl ows that allowed right-to-left font production.”

In 2009 Biľak co-founded Indian Type Foundry (ITF) with Satya Rajpurohit. Biľak ran the company for four years, resigning in 2013. Biľak started TPTQ Arabic in 2015 with Kristyan Sarkis, a Lebanese-born designer in The Netherlands. A Typotheque sister company, TPTQ Arabic specializes in “high-quality Arabic typefaces and systems for bilingual typography.”

“Type design is more than a commercial enterprise—it is a cultural service.”

– Peter Biľak

As part of his ongoing research over the last five to six years, Biľak has taken on Hebrew. He sees the value in working on non-Latin scripts because of the possibility to make “a longer-lasting impact in communities, and to design something that hasn’t been done before.”

Typotheque’s Parmigiano in Hebrew

Making an impact and designing something new can happen with Latin or non-Latin typefaces, but the non-Latin domain can provide the most opportunity since so few fonts exist there. Biľak estimates that 200,000 commercial fonts are available for Latin but if you need to work with Latin and Hebrew and Arabic, there are “just a handful.” Biľak and his associates put in a lot of time to create the fonts. Like other type designers, he recognizes the importance of the work done. “Type design is more than a commercial enterprise—it is a cultural service.” Biľak’s other endeavor, Fontstand, could also be seen as a cultural service, a promoter of internationalization. Fonstand includes Korean, Russian and Arabic type foundries among its many off erings. You can rent or purchase fonts from all over the world, and Biľak plans to introduce Israeli, Japanese and others, expanding its global community.

RHYTHM AND RESEARCH

Plenty of designers have created typefaces or are creating fonts for writing systems other than their own. But the question remains: Do natives have an advantage?

This is a question at the core of typographies.fr’s Colvert project, according to Jonathan Fabreguettes. “Colvert is comprised of four families: Colvert Arabic, Colvert Cyrillic, Colvert Greek and Colvert Latin. And I decided that each family would be made by a native speaker of the concerned writing system.”

The Colvert project from typographies.fr includes four families: Colvert Arabic, Colvert Cyrillic, Colvert Greek and Colvert Latin.

The multilingual family was designed by Natalia Chuvatin (Cyrillic), Fabreguettes (Latin), Sarkis (Arabic), and Irene Vlachou (Greek). Colvert, an award-winning typeface, brought together a group of designers for a common cause, and the result deserves merit. It’s a coherent and robust typographic family for publishing and print uses with extended support for more than 100 languages.

Designing a typeface for your own language and writing system may come more naturally, but there is a hidden benefi t when designing non-native scripts. At the Type & Media program at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Biľak teaches type designers who work with Latin, as well as Arabic and Greek. When tackling non-native writing systems they begin to see things differently, and the eye-opening experience helps them bring new things to their native script designs.

Seeing is instrumental to the design process, whether or not you know the writing system, whether or not you can read it. Consider Eudald Pradell, an 18th-century punchcutter in Spain, whom Biľak cites as proof “that reading and seeing are two separate activities.” Pradell was illiterate, but produced what Biľak calls “one of the most admired typefaces ever cut in Spain.” Type design, whether for your native writing system or another, is about learning “the rhythm, flow and relationship of shapes,” Biľak says.

No matter how you see the shapes or what shapes you’re making, you have to be curious, always learning, seeing and making, always conducting research—lots and lots of research.

Online Course | Typography 101: Letterform Design

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