Notes on Verbalizing
Shravani Bagawde
Is this project better off as an essay? Is this essay better off as a set of pictures and interactions? Who’s going to read all of this anyway? Notes on Verbalizing is my unsteady attempt at answering these questions and figuring out why I asked them in the first place. Born out of a personal obsession with articulating research, it contends with the complexities of translating those articulations into a legible structure and a realistic practice.
The definitions of “verbalizing” represent this translation: turning a concept into words, or a noun into a verb. The term’s incomplete and uncertain state highlights how texts orbit between being form and content, and works orbit between being products and processes.
As the name suggests, this thesis is a collection of notes informed by assorted verbs (“querying,” “detailing,” “glitching,” etc.) Ranging from hypertext transcripts and map-like broadsheets, to narrated montages and ornamental borders, each verb employs a distinct format and visual language to examine and circulate its fragmented meanings. The fragments themselves are compiled from ongoing conversations with the texts and people around me.
At the risk of over-explaining—“verbalizing” is also defined as a tendency to excessively speak—I hope to explore and embrace the inconstancy that characterizes the overlaps of design and articulation. The essay is never really finished, the project is never really polished, and I think that’s okay!