RIVERS&BRIDGES --- JOCELYN ROBERT

TEXT[1][2][3][4] [5] [6] FIGURES [1&2] [3&4]		[Français]


Translation as a language

Theory ?

The question -the quest- comes directly from the communication technologies & new media domain itself, where language plays a fundamental role.

The will to be understood and the general unadequacy of language generates daily annoyances that many will say unavoidable. These problems become major obstacles when one is involved in a work where communications and other forms of exchanges are basic processes. Artists and other radio people face these all the time, and even more so in the context of international collaborations, since the aim of creativity is to bring out new concepts and objects for which, obviously, no words are assigned yet.

    Hypothesis : this confrontation between the creative process and the translation process that tries to force creative attitude into language may indicate completely opposite attitudes, points of view, thoughts and mental processes, methods, tools, lives.
Translation is reduction. At the beginning of the process, every meaning is potential, possible. As the translation process goes on, the meaning narrows down, most possibilities are taken away, some are chosen as the best ones, things are put aside until there is only one meaning left. Which can be seen as in complete opposition with the creative process, in which a piece or work made out of a limited number of elements carries a growing number of significations as it meets with a growing number of listeners or spectators which become interpreters.

Following this, Bridges & Rivers should be an event that will grow instead of shrink, in which possibilities will become so numerous that they will get out of control instead of being managed down until they fit in a catalogue. A project that will be born out of audio considerations but that will translate out in the largest number of other fields. A project in which there will be some focused events in time but that will strech out in time before and after specified dates. We propose a movement instead of an event. A wave instead of a lake.

Translation goes from the broadest range of meanings to the narrowest; Backward Translation will bring us from the narrowest to the broadest.

J.Robert (05-01-96)

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