(Typo)graphics  > TATTARRATTAT - THIS TOO SHALL PASS

this text is a translation of the text in the second image, which I wrote after the letters had already taken shape (with the intention of selling the work to a Joyce expert and collector.. which is why it sounds like it came from a sales brochure for an Irish rug dealer):

T A T T A R R A T T A T 
a palindrome that in English represents the sound of knocking on a door—transcends – pure literature through a 362-centimeter-long wooden sculpture.
it gives tangible form to rhythm and wordplay, combines Joyce’s modern reflection on language with physical art, and transforms a fleeting sound into a massive, space-filling object.

PARADOX OF FORM
the word TATTARRATTAT—coined by James Joyce in his work *Ulysses* to imitate the repeated, rapid knocking on a door, and listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as the longest palindrome—possesses a fascinating symmetry.
as a wooden sculpture measuring 362 cm in length and 55.2 cm in height, it manifests itself physically in the space.
the palindrome thus loses its temporality; it has no clear beginning and no end.
the eye and the sound wander from left to right and back again, and the visual symmetry makes the formal timelessness of this literary device palpable.

KNOCKING IS A THRESHOLD MOMENT
it signals that something is beginning or that someone wishes to enter. it is the threshold between the inside and the outside. this fleeting, invisible sound, translated into solid spruce letters, permanently preserves the “knock.”
the frozen moment of the knock invites us to reflect on the comings and goings of our own lives.

THE TACTILE WEIGHT OF LANGUAGE
language, especially in Joyce’s literary modernism, is often perceived as something abstract and intellectual. Spruce wood, on the other hand, is a tactile, grounding material.
the execution as a solid wood sculpture grounds the letters. the wood’s grain, its scent, and the visible growth rings point to the material’s origin, while the milled and sawn letters allude to human culture and intellect. a tension arises between the transience of sound and the permanence of wood.

CONCLUSION
TATTARRATTAT—the sculpture—is far more than a simple reproduction of a word. It is a three-dimensional interface between sound, time, and space. It takes Joyce’s playful approach to onomatopoeia and linguistic structures seriously by making the abstract physically tangible. It is an exciting endeavor because it invites the viewer not only to read language but also to experience and comprehend it as a phenomenon that occupies space.

simultaneously with TATTARRATTAT, I exhibited THIS TOO SHALL PASS in the adjacent James Joyce underpass, featuring individual terms on four large billboards in the subtractive and additive primary colors.
Find two images of this passage at the very bottom of this page.

> all photos on this page are by Miro Kuzmanovic.
> only the photos of the letters in the workshop are by Roland Adlassnig.
> the Last Three Photos of the Big Knock i took myself.