Project 3 Artist Statement

My project explores the range of language, running the gamut from pleasant sound to displeasing noise. It will feature the voices of several individuals reciting what native speakers feel are the most beautiful words in their language to the most ugly words. These words are picked by both the meaning of the word and, more importantly, by what they native speaker judges to be either a pleasant or unpleasant pronunciation. My project idea was inspired by the idea that people hold that some languages (such as the romance languages, like Spanish and French) can be perceived by non-native speakers as being more beautiful or more appealing than more harsh or guttural sounding languages (such as the germanic languages, like English and German). It turns this idea around by showcasing the more pleasant sounding words in each language along with each other, creating a somewhat pleasing sound, and then meshing and layering the most ugly words of each language along with each other to eventually create a steady stream of what can only be described as noise, produced in equal parts by languages with both beautiful and less-attractive reputations.