Huis Clos | No Exit - On Translation — Telematic performance with 6 performers :: May 29, 2010; 8:30 pm :: Netherlands Media Art Institute, Keizersgracht 264, 1016 EV Amsterdam. (Part of the Performmikka Internettikka event curated by Petra Heck)

6 Netartists will challenge one another into collective actions. What will happen when they will only use their mother tongue and code to communicate? — Annie Abrahams in Amsterdam (NIMk) will only speak Dutch :: Ruth Catlow in London will only speak English :: Paolo Cirio in London will only speak Italian :: Ursula Endlicher in New York will only speak German :: Nicolas Frespech in Montélimar will only speak French :: Igor Stromajer in Hamburg will only speak Slovenian. Continue reading

common practice: Texts by mez breeze :: June 3, 2010; 5:00 - 8:00 pm :: Reading Room, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK and online.

Italo Calvino said ‘the storyteller explored the possibilities implied in his own language by combining and changing the permutations of the figures and the actions, and of the objects on which these actions could be brought to bear‘. It is by following this principle that common practice will start.

The first session will open with mez breeze’s mezangelle poems, written in a blend of code and language, and we will be practising a simultaneous reading-writing reworking of these texts to experience their language-code operations during the event. Seisure, Seisure 1 Continue reading

Übersetzung ist eine Form. | Translation is a mode. :: April 9 - May 29, 2010 :: Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna, Austria.

“Just as a tangent touches a circle lightly and at but one point, with this touch rather than with the point setting the law according to which it is to continue on its straight path to infinity, a translation touches the original lightly and only at the infinitely small point of the sense, thereupon pursuing its own course according to the laws of fidelity in the freedom of linguistic flux.” (Walter Benjamin)

Manner, quality, version, condition, design, look, shape, arrangement, fashion, style, way, cut, type, structure and form… a quick search of any dictionary and online translation programme gives numerous results for the English term mode. Continue reading

Art in Translation: International Conference on Language and the Arts :: May 27-29, 2010 :: University of Iceland and the Nordic House, Reykjavik, Iceland :: Call for Papers — Deadline: February 22, 2010

Like so many nations historically on the cultural and geographical fringes of globalized society, Iceland has seen tremendous growth in its presence on the international arts scene in recent years. And like visual artists, musicians, performers, filmmakers, writers, and arts professionals from other small language communities, many Icelanders have-whether by choice or necessity-embraced English as an integral aspect of the creation of and discourse on the arts, sometimes side-by-side with their native language, sometimes not. Continue reading

Critical Play: Radical Game Design by Mary Flanagan, MIT Press:

For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games—games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry — and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Continue reading

1. Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.

2. Vernacular means of everyday communication — cellphones, social networks, streaming video — are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.

3. Intellectual property systems failing.

4. Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized. Continue reading

[Image: Kate Armstrong & Michael Tippett / Grafik Dynamo / 2004-2005] Kate Armstrong is a Vancouver-based artist and theorist with a panache for new media powered permutational storytelling. Her work questions the nature of narrative in light of computation, social media and contemporary urban space. She has exhibited widely and is currently en route to Turkey for the March 8th launch of PATH, a bookwork generated by “an anonymous individual living in the city of Montreal between 2005-2007″ at the Akbank Art Centre in Istanbul. Above and beyond her creative practice, she is the author of Crisis and Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture, sits on the board at The Western Front artist-run centre and is a lecturer at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts + Technology. Continue reading

Sala-Manca Group presents in the frame of the series Something Different by the Jerusalem Foundation & Gerard Bechar Center: The Story of Batya M. — An original telenovela screening with life dubbing performance by Sala-Manca Group with the live music performance of Yarden Erez (composer of the film soundtrack) :: June 10, 2009; 9:00 pm :: Leo Model, Gerard Bechar, Jerusalem.

The Story of Batya M. is the last (and unique) chapter of a fictional Argentinean “telenovela” (soap opera) projected on the screen and experienced as live performance. In a live performance the two leading actors from the film dub the scenes (from Spanish into English). The language they use changes, the translation becomes dubious, the design of the subtitles and the conventions of the genre are also transformed and subverted. Continue reading

Xu Tan — Keywords School•Venice Recruitment Notice: Deadline: May 31, 2009 :: part of Making Worlds, 53rd La Biennale di Venezia.

The Keywords School is a project based on the continuous investigation and research of “keywords” by the Chinese artist Xu Tan. Underway since 2006, the project’s central premise of communication between audience and artist/art project now takes the form of “school”. The content of this school is “keywords”, terms gathered from Xu Tan’s persistent searching and researching through interviews and discussions among people from different fields and backgrounds. In Keywords School, Xu Tan communicates with all participants through the “keywords” to create a new idealistic public space. Continue reading

Open Translation Tools 2009 (OTT09) :: June 22-24, 2009 :: Amsterdam, The Netherlands :: Call for Participants!

OTT09 will be followed by an Open Translation “Book Sprint” which will produce a first-of-its-kind volume on tools and best practices in the field of Open Translation. Both events are being co-organized in partnership with FLOSSManuals.net and Translate.org.za, and generously supported by the Open Society Institute. Continue reading