Ptarmigan is now closed.

Ptarmigan operated in Tallinn from 2011-2014. We no longer maintain any presence in Tallinn, but this website will continue to serve as an archive of the activities produced at Ptarmigan during these years.

Events

Grawlixes: creative profanity workshop
workshop : writing : swearing
09 July, 2013 00:00 19:30
part of project: Undo Lab

grawlix (plural grawlixes or grawlix)

  1. A spiral-shaped graphic used to indicate swearing in comic strips.
  2. A string of typographical symbols, especially "@#$%&!", used (especially in comic strips) to represent an obscenity or swearword.
  3. A series of violence related images in a speech bubble to represent obscenity or swearwords

What does it mean to be profane? In our increasingly global era, where all taboos have been broken and boundaries no longer exist to protect the sacred, the act of swearing becomes lost in the ever-increasing glossolalia of everyday life. Yet profanity, like anything else, can be approached as an art. When placed carefully, a simple 'fuck' or 'cock' can express a truth unparallelled by family-friendly language. At the same time, more grandiose constructions of the obscene can be mellifluous and sublime.

As part of Ptarmigan's Undo Lab series of collaborative creative activities without pressure for resolution or conclusion, we invite you to Grawlixes, a workshop for writers, thinkers, and people who like to curse. We will look at some great examples of obscenity in art, literature and popular culture, and try to unravel the art of the swear. We'll play simple textual games to stimulate our nasty glands, and of course we'll insult the shit out of each other. 

Leave your sensitivity behind, and bring notebooks and pencils. This event is free but please register to let us know if you're fucking coming, dickheads.