Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Translation<3

My project is called Translation<3 (or TranslationHeart) and it's all about communication, language, reading information, and interpretation. These four areas intersect in my fictitious country of Borea, and the richly textured language of Hyperboreans. For those of you who may have missed or don't remember my idea when I explained it in class, the idea is that I provide participants with a minimum amount of information or instruction, and based on a clue of pseudocharacters of my fictitious language, write out a "translation" of the text. Really, it's just their own interpretation, of the photograph perhaps, or something completely abstract. An opportunity to write a quick poetic or prosaic piece.

I was inspired by the mythical region of the Hyperboreans that can be found in Greek legendry. Hyperborea is this ideal place full of light where every citizen is prosperous and healthy, and the food is so healthy and the air is so healthy that ordinary humans become immortal there. In fact, many people, once they set foot beyond the territory would grow old and die in moments because of the change. This may or may not tie into my inspiration for the piece, but if its there its subliminal right now. Anyway I was inspired by the notion of global community, of peacemaking between people, and of finding ways around the language barriers that provide the largest division between people. Simultaneously, I wanted to engage the verbal creativity of others. It could be seen as an elaborate set up to get my friends to write poetry, and I am completely fine with my ulterior motive being known!

Site: http://translation.marcelreyes.com

Blog: http://translationheart.blogspot.com

I NEED YOUR HELP!

PLEASE PARTICIPATE!

No comments:

Post a Comment

About the course:

Art from Ephemera (Mail Art and the Internet) was a multi-media studio class where students explored the distribution of images and text through network systems, creating art from ephemera in the form of hand-made mail art, as mass-produced printed material, and in digital format as e-mail art and blogs. Students were introduced to strategies of visual communication traditionally associated with Dada, Fluxus, and Mail Art movements, initially looking at a range of artists from Marcel Duchamp to Henrik Drescher. Our investigation each semester progressed towards more recent approaches to these strategies that utilize digital technology and the Internet, both as a broadcast medium (one to many), as well as a system that enables new forms of emergent content (many to many). In this way, students considered the medium of the Internet from both aesthetic and conceptual perspectives. Students had the opportunity to develop their personal voice through several short individual assignments, paying particular attention to the interface of art and technology, as well as contemporary theory around access, public and social spaces, interaction, audience, and community during class critiques, slide lectures, readings, films, and special presentations.

Download a sample syllabus

About the Instructor:

Rebecca Bird Grigsby origtinally taught this course as a Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship in the Text & Image Arts area at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA. As an interdisciplinary artist, Grigsby's work encourages transparency and active engagement with the illusion of control and related notions of interiority and domesticity, employing unlikely materials while flipping on its head a child’s typical practice of incorporating the detritus of the adult world in their creations. Other than her own photography and printed imagery, she now works almost exclusively with recycled materials and fragments of her daily experiences as primary caregiver for her two children. She received a MFA degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University ('08), and a BA degree in Art Practice and French from the University of California at Berkeley ('02). Other teaching and related educational experiences have included working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Print & Paper, Painting, and Text & Image Arts areas at SMFA; in the Education Department at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA; with SMFA's pre-college summer studio program; in the Art Practice Department at U.C. Berkeley; and with the ArtsBridge Scholar program in Oakland, CA. Exhibitions include Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL; Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; SMFA galleries; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; San Francisco's Fort Mason Center; the Berkeley Art Center; and the Worth Ryder Gallery at U.C. Berkeley.

Art from Ephemera