Talk Together

What languages do we actually use to communicate with one another? Spoken words? Sign language? Visual codes? National languages that carry very diverse cultural codes or digital language, where acronyms, emojis, and GIFs become new sentences? All of this unfolds within a digital discourse governed by rapidly evolving, often unwritten rules.

With the advent of artificial intelligence, a new, untamed language has begun to infiltrate communication: the language of “infinite remix”, as Boris Eldagsen calls it in an interview with Jana Horáková. In his concept of “promptography”, AI becomes not only a tool but also a co-creator and, at the same time, a mirror of our memory, imagination, and values. From my conversation with experimental poet and artist Sasha Stiles, one statement still resonates with me: “Technology has always rewritten what it means to be human.” She discusses how digital technologies are transforming our understanding of human identity, memory, and creativity. Through language, work with algorithms, and resulting hybrid forms, Stiles explores new ways to comprehend human experience itself.

“The experience of the oppressed teaches us that language is not neutral.” How does language shape identity, and how can it serve as a tool of both oppression and liberation? The author of these thoughts, and an essay in this issue, wrote under the pseudonym bell hooks, which she deliberately styled in lowercase letters. This was a conscious political gesture, as she wanted to shift attention from herself to what she was saying, not who was saying it. In her essay, she reflects on her own experience of needing to abandon the language of her community in favour of standard English and points to the power structures that determine whose language is “correct”. Speaking together doesn't mean speaking one language, but recognising diversity as a value. That’s why I am fascinated by the work of Eszter Magyar, whose distinctive artistic practice of “brutalist makeup” critically mirrors social norms. In her visual language, sharp, bodily, uncomfortable, she finds a language of resistance through which she speaks about beauty, control, and conformity.

Communication doesn't have to rely solely on words; visual expression is also a form of communication. That's why we are publishing two visual essays by Claudia Larcher and Tabor Robak. In doing so, we step beyond the traditional format of the magazine’s layout and test the ability to read images.

A prominent theme in contemporary discourse is inequality and the effort to name the many ways by which it is enacted. The historical material from the late Romani artist Andrej Pešta offers insight into photographic work that captures his own life and that of the Romani community in Brno during the 1970s and 1980s. A community that deeply understands what it means to be unheard, and whose language is so often overlooked. In her project, Laia Abril reveals how the language of law and media can trivialise violence, obscure the truth, and protect perpetrators. She shows how injustice is sustained through the interchangeability of terms like sexual abuse and rape or by implying consent where explicit rejection is absent. Tamara Moyzes and Shlomi Yaffe, in their exhibition Lactism, go even further: they create a new language—religious, ritualistic, collective. They worship an imaginary goddess, Lactaria, who nourishes a community of co-nursers. In their utopia, national borders, cultural stereotypes, and patriarchal structures cease to exist. Here, language becomes a tool for subverting established systems.

Language is, above all, also a tool of power. Zbyněk Baladrán, in his series The Jevons Paradox, demonstrates how the language of industry, economics, and standardisation—for example, through RAL colour swatches—quietly but persistently imprints itself onto visual culture and our everyday reality, helping to structure and control the world.

What comes to mind when you look at the sky? Do you see beautiful clouds that may evoke a sense of vastness or bring relief and freedom? Or do you feel the painful fear of drones and bombs that could arrive at any moment? The Phantom project by Ukrainian photographer Mykhaylo Palinchak uses visual communication that replaces words to express the deep, indescribable pain caused by violence and war. It shows that the language of loss, whether individual or collective, can be non-verbal, emotional or symbolic, yet still carry powerful meaning about identity, memory, and trauma. Palinchak brings a language that those who live in peace do not and cannot understand.

But let’s at least try to talk about it.

Markéta Kinterová
Editor-in-Chief