This body of work stems from artist Rad Hourani’s personal experiences with everyday language and the sense of social exclusion he felt while growing up, especially when confronted with textbooks and other educational materials. Noticing a lack of sensorial stimulation in the use of language in neurotypical pedagogy as well as in public spaces, his deconstruction of textuality and the alphabet sheds light on a discriminatory educational heritage affecting millions of people. Hourani seeks to dismantle the social hierarchies and inequalities that result from these practices by creating adaptable learning tools for those who are differently wired.

Although touch is the first language we learn to decode, conventional means of communication are often disconnected from our senses, unstimulating, and repetitive. By adopting a diverse approach to semiotics and activating our sensory systems, the interpretation of signs becomes more interesting, engaging, and accessible. In addition to unlocking new ways of thinking and communicating, an embodied perspective on language can also speak to people across cultures and generations.

We live in networks of relationships in which the sensory modalities we use to communicate shape our experiences. The transmission of a clear message takes place at multiple embedded levels, such as by uttering words and sounds, and through the perception of neurological changes in the body. These aspects are absent from the abbreviated written forms that we regularly use today. Additionally, contemporary virtual means of communication contribute to isolating and dividing people, creating new social and economic issues. The appearance of chats, emails, text messages, and emoticons in the digital sphere, which were originally perceived as commodities but have since become established, accepted linguistic forms, carries the risk of further miscommunications.

Spanning a wide range of art media, this sculptural series employs an abstract approach to the alphabet wherein wood, paint, clay, stone, vinyl, metal, plaster, and paper collide into new forms at the intersection of communication and creativity. The relationship between content and container is reconfigured to reflect how we experience feelings and sensations through color, texture, pattern, shape, and contrast. Working with clay for the first time, Hourani creates figurative, anthropomorphic letters that echo ancient writing materials, a reflection upon a time before the invention of visual language. The sculptures are intentionally overpainted, cracked, turned upside-down, or otherwise imperfect, highlighting the rules and norms of writing and the inevitability of miscommunication. Combining both hand- and machine-made works, the series explores the evolution of language through time and the meanings it carries: old versus new, raw versus polished, organic versus synthetic, ecological versus unsustainable.

Art is a way to communicate with each other as well as an ultimate expression of human emotion and knowledge, which plays a crucial role in addressing inequality. Reflecting on past, present, and future alphabets, from early use of clay tablets and pictograms to spelling reforms and the recent evolution of inclusive writing, Rad Hourani explores how language may, even today, be optimized and renewed to the benefit of the neurodiverse (and, indeed, of everyone). Embodied communication supports the advancement of social struggles, as people around the world are affected by various learning disorders and find themselves isolated in digital spaces that employ constructed and, more recently, AI-derived languages. Whether embracing body language, linguistic standards, emojis, or other forms, our means of connection remain vital today—and, most significantly, unwritten.

© 2023 RAD HOURANI

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