Problems of Translation
Dec. 16, 2010 - Dec. 17, 2010
Jan Gerber, Sebastian Lutgert (0x2620.org) and Ashok Sukumaran (CAMP), co-founders of the Pad.ma video archive, initiate "Problems of Translation" a public discussion on the nature of translations between art and art's archive, technology and art history, software and painting, and digital and analog artifacts, at the
Thursday December 16, 2010
Problems of Translation
A public discussion with Jan Gerber, Sebastian Lütgert (both 0x2620, Berlin) and Ashok Sukumaran (CAMP, Bombay).
Problems of translation occur not only between written or spoken languages (such as Cantonese or English), but also are a much more common phenomenon.
Translation
is a challenge for all "gaps between disciplines" (such as between art
and technology). But a closer look at the practices of programmers and
painters for example, might reveal that principles and techniques they
apply in their respective fields, have much more in common than it is
usually assumed. Problems of translation may not lie where most
expected.
In the art archive, the verb "archiving" already implies many kinds
of translation, of the qualities and potentials of artworks and related
materials. In digital art archives, such translation is
present in many everyday acts of scanning, tagging and uploading. The
transformation of analog art works into digital items not only changes
their storage medium and handling qualities, but also makes them enter
completely new relations, exchanges and equations. Digital materials
tend to multiply and to leak, to both create great wealth and provide
great distraction. "Digital labour" or changed work habits is another
consequence of this, which in turn changes how we think about the
production and growth of such archives.
To realise the digital archive's full potential means to take the
idea of translation quite seriously, as a basic unit for all kinds of
distributive and transformative forces, indirect effects, and creative
misunderstandings.
