Aktuelles

Erstellt: 21. Juni 2021

SNEAKY TRANSLATORS

An online conference-performance taking place on Zoom, on July 2nd, 10:00-18:00 CEST

See the full program in the attached PDF

enter the event via Zoom, here <https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88437067940

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“Sneaky Translators” concludes the joint seminar by Boris Buden and workshop by Gabriel S Moses. The two classes met around the questions:

How do the performances that make up a lecture serve as translators of knowledge? How can these acts of translation be expanded to the broader settings in which a lecture is held? How has the shift online during Covid-19 brought this performativity to the fore? What is the role of artists in this exchange? What role can the lecture-performance or ‘artist talk’ play in artistic research?

This conference should be seen as an experiment: 

A practice-based and artistic-research conference where participants are asked to actively reflect on their own performances and roles as the conference comes along.

We are also thrilled to have with us, as guest speakers: 

Lucia Rainer and Eliran Bar-El.

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“Let me put this another way…” A note by the event directors

Say you are an artist invited to participate in an online conference in another field. You are a bit anxious. You sense that you might be a bit of an odd bird here, so you’re doing your best to follow the conversation and keep up with the jargon. You’ve quickly jotted down your main points so you don’t forget, but you miss the next point that was brought up. Your virtual Zoom backdrop is glitching and objects from your bedroom keep popping into the frame. You feel way too self-conscious. To distract yourself, you look away from the spotlit speaker. You observe the room – from the other panelists waiting their turn, seamlessly blending with the semi-engaged audience, and all the way to the moderators and conference organizers who negotiate this engagement. You tilt your head slightly further back and capture the entire screen - from the Zoom interface to the mosaic of compromised living rooms you are all talking from. Suddenly it hits you:

Your personal struggle to translate abstract thoughts is part of a much larger, general performance of this huge “translation machine”. You are all operators of this machine called a conference, where knowledge meets the public in one form and hopefully leaves with it in another. True, you are an artist. You’re bound to be misunderstood and part of you might feel like an impostor who snuck into this conference through the back door. But you’re a translator, all the same, you’re just the sneaky kind who directs the flow of knowledge in the most unexpected ways. The floor is yours.

Sincerely,

Gabriel S Moses and Boris Buden