A thread of translation, a knot of thought - perceiving of a sensorial material, and improvising it back, through the imagination and the body into the world. Noting how and what it creates. A miniature of what happens in the real world, the creation, following the created, infinitely.
---- We receive, then we create - through a mixture of sensory information, sensorial memory, wild intuition----------
----------- I throw a fish in the water, and watch it evolve ------
Reflections
What was really evident in this process, was how every person interpreted what translation means in their own way, how every person decided to translate in their own manner.
The instructions I gave to the participants were pretty vague. I just told them I would send them a file and they would translate it into their chosen medium. Many of the participants are not artists, however, no one asked to many questions, and the task was organic to all of them.
Many of the feedbacks received from the participants, highlight the fact, that in the final result, they blended the inspiration from the received file, their own feeling and obsessions of the moment, and the things they felt like doing.
Also, the simple task, allowed them not to think to much about the final product, the fact that the end result is not only theirs, but a collective chain, allowed less pressure. People in all 3 chains were very thankful for the exercise (especially since it was done during the corona lockdown) and felt a liberation in being creative, without huge responsability.
I found this exercise as a very useful generation of material. A way to collectively merge things together.
However, I am looking forward to repeat the same exercise, in a context of being together, were all the participants can share the results with each other, and look at the final thread together and discuss it and bring it further. Due to the lockdown, everything was made online, so we did not have the time to properly share the results.
I also noted that often the participants decided to do the exercise not in their usual medium, a couple of the dancers involved decided to make videos, while one musician decided to write a poem, and a photographer, to make a drawing. I was expecting to have more movement based translations which did not happen. However it was insightful to explore the other disciplines and then relate them to the body. Taking this practice to the studio will allow further depth in he embodiment of the translation.
Feedback from the participants
"At first I was worried I wasn't going to be able to draw. I was afraid. And then it felt good, liberating actually, I really enjoyed it". Clara.
"I thought: Oh, a little bit of creativity to make these lonely times more interesting... it was not easy to write down something "fresh and different", I felt the prisioner of my usual way of interpretating. Suddenly the drawing I was to interpret reflected my actual thoughts." Polona.
"... so basically what I did was showing each picture to my mom without giving her context and told her to give me the first word/thought/feeling that pops up in her mind on each picture. Each word that she gave was based on a memory or an experience from the past. Basically what I did was i took all 12 words that she provided me with of her understanding of the pictures how she perceived them based on her subjectivity and I ran them through a generative model that produced a series of texts/poems from those 12 words." Rhea.
"The colors of the video made me think of worms. I have been obsessing about worms lately, so I followed the idea of the string, the worm. When I started filming it I heard birds, so I decided to make a nest for the worms, it made sense to me. I decided to add text to the video, to explain, to make things less out there in the clouds, less conceptual and more material." Asma.
"I got the file, I closed my eyes, I started to imagine how my version would work. The restrictions I had gave me my guidance, I decided to work with what I had at home. My main character should be a drawing that my daughter makes. Then I thought it should go on an adventure. I knew I wanted to use my voice. I translated the text into voice, and translated the image in my own cartoon version." Nadine
"I thought the worm became a butterfly, and lived in a castle. I put an umbrella, to take care of the butterfly. So for me it was more of a time travel, the passing of time, what comes next." Noemi.
I started three threads.
Here is one of them.
I told the people to chose a medium of translation.
I sent them a file with a sensory material.
I told them to see/hear it.
To translate it into their chosen medium.
To imagine it.
To improvise it.
To send it back.
To be sent to someone else.
Once upon a time there was a town that was nestled between the mountains and the green hills, covered with green grass and different flowers.
In the lap of the mountains there was this curious town, few houses, few squares and streets, but yes, you make large factories, electricity poles and a very compact sun that hung in the sky by day and covered with darkness at night.
I really can't speak of a people, it was an anti-people, an anti-everything. Instead of the trees growing brambles and wire, there was a hint of life only on the other side of the wall of the factories. I don't know if it was a factory or a prison.
One fine day a building began to shake, as if it were suffering from an earthquake. The walls swelled out and a long fireplace began to creak, spit black smoke, and suddenly, from this same fireplace, a black ghost came out. At first glance he looked like a phantom, a monster, something out of a nightmare. This arena was sent to the mountains and water sources.
They wondered what this was, what a bug, what a product of human machinery. It was simpler, it was the Industrial Spirit or Something, who got fed up. It was the revolutionary spirit that sometimes wakes up here or there, a phoenix reborn from its own ashes.
It is all that I know. Oh, and I saw the ghost again days later, it was a bird and this bird was my grandfather.
