Euyoung Hong
"Progress and Degeneration: A Package Deal," sculpture
Language is defined as a system of symbols or gestures used by people to "communicate" their thoughts and emotions "intelligibly" with one another. More often then not, however, the language also functions as a hindrance to communication, and becomes a primary source of misunderstanding. By using language without proper thinking, the language is often degraded into a transient noise, more often harmful than harmless at that, and becomes an object of distrust better to be avoided. Sometimes silence is golden, because in the basic function of language both the positive and negative functions coexist side-by-side as if a package deal. They are non-separable. They say that homo sapiens are blessed with language. If so, one may say that homo sapiens are also cursed with language. The blessing and cursing come together as a non-separable package deal. In the beginning, however, the negative function of language was tolerable.