An Universal Language?

Language plays an important role when articulating thought and perception of reality. It can even act as a barrier to understanding others and reaching agreement. Ramon Llull attempted to bridge the gap by inventing a logical system of figures with the aim of using them to validate or refute arguments put forward in the theological, scientific and humanistic debates of his day. Yet is it possible to reduce technical languages and reasoning to a single, formal, universal language? Does communicating consist of exchanging and assessing judgements in accordance with certain combinatorial mechanisms? How do the new media condition the construction and reception of complex linguistic content? 

Siegfried Zielinski, essayist and rector of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, Peter Weibel, conceptual artist, art theoretician and chairman of the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and Amador Vega, professor of Aesthetics in the Department of Humanities at the Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona) and curator of the exhibition La màquina de pensar: Ramon Llull i l’«Ars Combinatoria (The Thinking Machine: Ramon Llull and the Ars combinatoria) will be discussing all these questions.