Open the cipher (OTC) is a series designed to hold conversations in a community around an essential idea whose time has come.
OTC: Berlin | Evolving Our Definition Of Language will gather
young visionary scholars for a public exchange of ideas on linguistics, knowledge production, words, and voices, exploring the space between what is and what could be.
The current dialogues in academia and linguistics as it pertains to language are framed in Euro-linguistic terminology and epistomologies.
We intend to broaden conventional and public ideas of language by examining the following
a) Is the right to define language a democratized one or a monopoly?
b) How does the field of linguistics view ancient forms of communication such as sand writing and modern forms as graffiti?
c) what is the relationship between the medium, the message, and the people?
We are inviting five presenters who each are creating unique interventions in their fields to speak on their work as it pertains to language creation and dissemination of ideas.