Caterina.net: Öyvind Fahlström

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{ Wednesday, May 14, 2003 }

Öyvind Fahlström

I first read about Öyvind Fahlström, an artist born in Brazil of Norwegian parentage, in the first issue of Cabinet Magazine His notes for a language called "Whammo" illustrated the cover.

"Monster languages" is the expression Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström (1928-1976) used to refer to his experiments in creating new languages: "birdo" based on American bird sounds; "fåglo" based on Swedish bird sounds; and "whammo" based on onomatopoeic expressions in comic books.

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon what appears to be his official web site, where the opera that he wrote for radio using "birdo" can be found, Birds in Sweden. I was surprised to learn that not only did he invent languages, but also made installations, paintings, drawings, prints, poetry, films, plays and happenings.

I was quite taken with the continuous drawing Opera, the word-collage in The Planetarium and the comic-book tempera of Sitting..., but I didn't realize until I saw this drawing that I'd seen his work so many times before, hanging in Danish modern living rooms. He died young, of cancer.

LINK | 12:22 AM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

Thanks for posting this - this is the first I've heard of Fahlström. Isn't 'birdo' also Esperanto for 'bird'?

misteraitch | May 13, 2003 11:43 PM

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O.F. is simply excellent.. Cabinet mag also has a frankly stunning article by Zizek on hegemonic capitalist "Buddhism".

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php

tim | May 14, 2003 12:06 AM

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So... his parents were Norwegian but he moved from Brazil to Sweden and is considered Swedish? I'm confused!

language hat | May 14, 2003 8:10 AM

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From the biography page on that site, the following details can be gleaned:

1. Born in Sao Paolo to Norwegian father and Swedish mother.

2. At 10 1/2 is sent to Sweden and is stranded there by WWII.

3. In 1948 became a Swedish citizen and relinquished his Brazilian passport after having to decide between the two countries' compulsory military service.

yukino | May 14, 2003 9:56 AM

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Hey, LH, if his parents were from Madagascar and Kamchatka but he settled in the US he'd be considered American, right? So what's the mystery?

What I want to know is whether these conceptual projects were really "languages". Did they have grammar? Could they express a full range of human thought?*

(*For the latter test it is permissible to spot them a generous helping of vocabulary, and "full range" means not some Vulcan-mind-meld Platonic ideal but just more or less as well as other languages do it.)

Prentiss Riddle | May 19, 2003 2:42 PM

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Whammo sounds like fun.

You might be interested in Bzzurkk! The Thesaurus of Champions, "providing correct spellings withotu mention of time wasting parts of speech", all drawn from comic books:

http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/200/300/ktaylor/kaboom/bzzurkk.htm

Edward Vielmetti | May 19, 2003 2:48 PM

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r | September 30, 2003 6:50 PM

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Cool blog! Come visit my site. John Martinez

John Martinez | April 18, 2006 12:56 PM

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Cool blog! Come visit my site. John Martinez

John Martinez | April 19, 2006 8:44 AM

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