"ESL"
ESL is an extremely functional piece of art: it covers the floor of the foreign language section of the Seattle Public Library. The words on the floor, carved in raised type reading backwards from right to left, are first sentences from books in their original languages. The viewer can interpret the words with comprehension, confusion, or a combination of the two. This is reflected not only in their meanings, but in their appearance as a group: What seems like a wholly incomprehensible sea of backwards letters upon walking into the library reveals itself as truly systematic and logical. While the letters differ in typeface and size from one line of text to the next, each line contains an excerpt from one book in one language, printed in one direction in one font. If one could hover near the ceiling of the room and view the piece as a whole from that angle, it might seem even more organized: parallel lines of continuous text stretch from one end of the floor to the other. Interesting how something so seemingly complicated can be so simple.
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