Catchat: Following an Interview With a Cat

Publication
with Michal B. Ron and Noa Ginzburg
Protocols, Issue #6: Tongues
https://prtcls.com/article/catchat/
published January 2020


In 1970, the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) conducted and recorded an interview with a cat. Up until today, museumgoers pay greater attention to the artist’s questions than to the cat’s replies, and so the discourse on Broodthaers’ work mainly focuses on his words. But why? Actually, the cat, the interviewee, is the main protagonist. Once we tune in to all the voices that can be heard in this conversation, what do we hear?

We set out to listen attentively. We attempt to tie the two parties together in a shared alphabet and transcribe the conversation between Broodthaers (B) and Cat (C) anew. This unprecedented endeavor is mirrored in the typographical layout. Our textual enterprise takes a Talmudic form, putting in its center the dialogue, transliterated from utterances in French and Cat tongues into Hebrew and Latin letters, and opening up threads that introduce questions of translation and interpretation.