#mostyncylch

I’ve been going to the Victorian Extravaganza since i was little. I remember noble the smell of steam powered heavy machinery settling my stomach after ingesting too much lurid pink sugar cloud.. ahh.. it was a feast for the senses.

The theme of surrealism strikes first when thinking of the annual festival.. with one foot proudly in the towns Victorian glory, and the other in todays loud, electronic “alll righht.. one more time.. here we go!!” amateur nudie painted theme park rides. Year after year my parents discuss going.. and the phrase ‘glorified theme park’ is dusted off and brought out. Sounds great to me!

If CYLCH is to have a presence this year, how on earth are we to stand out when, for instance, the parade features smoke bellowing brass monster machines, loud dancing drumming tropes, proud cadet groups, Miss Alice 2015 and, bizarrely but predictably, Darth Vader and any number of imperialist troops bringing up the rear.

Options for CYLCH @ The Extravaganza

1. Parade

2. Stall

3. Perform

4. Mystery option number 4

We’re thinking:

1. Giant carnival heads for the parade, any head you like, in victorian dress.

2. Stall with carnival games, pop the balloon and win a prize.. but.. no one really wants the tombola prizes they offer.. so why dont we create our own surreal ones?

My 'object' for gallery one isn't exactly an object, it's languages, (hence the title). Languages are something I find incredibly interesting and important, everything from dialects and the evolution and devolution of language to the ever developing definition of words. It's something I spend a long time thinking, reading and talking about and something which, I believe, is often overlooked. We take language for granted, we rarely think about what it was, what it will be, or even what it is, despite the fact we use and consume it daily. And rather than prattle about the difference between 'you' and 'thou' in Shakespearian english, I'll explain my idea. 

At first it was hard to think of a way to represent language, I didn't really want to just represent a single language and I didn't want to confine it to only one aspect either. After brainstorming at a Cylch meeting, I started to see ways to combine the aspects of language that I wished to represent. One of these was to possibly display an english exam paper written in text-speak or a Shakespearean play, yet again written in text-speak. Thereby combining 'classic' english with a more modern version (evolution of language yo).

Another idea was to fill a dictionary with words that have been removed from past dictionaries or, you guessed it, text-speak and slang, and whilst I didn't want to just focus on one language in specific, I did find an interesting timeline showing how the english language became what it is today. 

I really liked this idea of a timeline, either one focusing on a particular language and showing it's evolution or one focusing on the evolution of language as a whole. Trying to show the evolution of language as a whole would mean showing the progress from spoken word to cave paintings, from hieroglyphics to Chaucer's english, and then to english today, with lots of steps in between. I'd also like to include either slang or text-speak or possibly even a guess at how language will develop in the future, so as to come full circle.