This chapter examines how a French artist, Villeglé, engaged in linguistic practices to subvert the hierarchies frequently embedded in the act of translation. Instead of prioritizing meaning, which he felt was commonly linked to historical usage, he explored the role of emotional awareness in the act of interpretation. He introduced the idea of ripping and tearing linguistic material in order to demonstrate the emotional loss incurred by ineffective translation. Later he established an alphabet constructed from icons whose meaning could be shared without being formally translated, including popular and notorious symbols such as the sickle or the whirligig. He shows how their emotional associations could play a more important role in their reception and interpretation than their erstwhile actual meanings. He later engaged in the playful creation of equivalence between symbols and referents to evolve new linguistic systems. As a result of his activity, Villeglé was ultimately an enterprising and subversive translator of street, global, war, and corporate culture.