Media Translation and the Migration of Born-Digital Literature
Submission Type
Paper
Start Date/Time (EDT)
18-7-2024 3:30 PM
End Date/Time (EDT)
18-7-2024 4:30 PM
Location
Narrative & Worlds
Abstract
This presentation discusses the concept of media translation, a form of enhanced translation that goes beyond the linguistic. The case studies used as examples are drawn from reconstruction work undertaken in our labs, notably the migrations of Richard Holeton’s Figurski at Findhorn on Acid and Michael Joyce’s Twilight, A Sympathy from the Storyspace platform to open Web languages, as well as the Polish translation of Joyce’s afternoon, a story to illustrate challenges to what we call “radical media translations” that involve both linguistic and media transformations of a text. We focus our attention on four key attributes of pre-Web born-digital literature––that is, the loading screen, multilink, Tinker and Bell Keys, and link names and paths––to look at the way in which a work’s presentation and functionality are translated in the process of migration.
While linguistic translation involves the transformation of language, a process that never results in a text exactly the same as the original (Biguenet and Schulte 1989: viii), reconstructing the total image of a text and the situation conveyed through text via the limiting possibilities of language, media translation also involves a process of transformation. But where linguistic translation looks at relationships surrounding words, media translation focuses on “the signifying components” of electronic texts, what N. Katherine Hayles identifies as “sound, animation, motion, video, kinesthetic involvement, and software functionality” (Hayles 2002: 20). Moreover, preserving born-digital literature through the process of migration involves the translation potentially between formats, software, platforms, hardware, computer languages, and/or digital qualities in a way that impacts the human experience with such works. It may or may not involve linguistic transformation, but always the underlying code is affected.
Our practical experience in translating and reconstructing born-digital literature presented cases where the signifying components of a born-digital work cross beyond the digital into the realm of physical artefacts crucial for the delivery of the work. Such non-digital signification can be both part of authorial strategy and part of the technological milleu of the work, where – for example – even trivial hardware components present their own sensory inputs important for the reader. It led us to expand the notion of media in "media translation" into a model offered by media philosopher Vilém Flusser for whom the medium is a container of interconnected components from various domains that orchestrate communication experience: a movie theatre, a marketplace, a forest. Fromhis radical perspective, media translation brings forward an important aspect of scale. The process can go as far in recreating components and contexts of the original as the translator is allowed or willing to. Should we translate the "chocolate box full of death" while creating a contemporary edition of Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse? How many parralel translations should accompany a "linguistic" translation of a hypertext classic if the publisher is serious about recreating the original experience of the work? Answers to these questions affect budgets, timeframes, publishing policies and standards.
The translation of creative media, such as born-digital literature, requires the interpretative intervention of the translator and, so, is itself an act of creation. It may or may not result in transcreation, defined by Cinzia Spinzi as, “taking a concept in one language and completely recreating it in another language,” a process “generally applied to the marketing of an idea, product or service to international audiences.” Because the recreated language is devised to “resonate with an intended audience,” the act of transcreation “take[s] translation a stage further [than translation] . . . by letting translators leave their isolation and by requiring a “different mindset to that of translation.” Whereas with translation “words such as ‘faithful’ and ‘accurate’ are normally used to describe the quality” with transcreation words like “‘creative’, ‘original’ and ‘bold’” seem to be more common (Spinzi, 2018: 6). Taken in this context, media translation is not necessarily centered on transcreative practices, although as we will show––the choice of typography for the 2021 version of Figurski at Findhorn on Acid demonstrates––it does require creative interventions when the translator determines the most suitable equivalents that can be delivered when migrating the work to her contemporary audience.
If, as Hans Georg Gadamer claims about translating print literary works, "reading is already translation, and translation is translation for the second time” (Gadamer, qtd Biguenet and Schulte: ix), then translating a work of born-digital literature across its various material and digital components adds the additional level of transcoding to its translation. This means that any media translation results in three levels of translation: that of the reading, that of the rendering of the source language into the target language, and that of the transformation of it from its original programming language in a new one.
While on the one hand a “translator betrays” the original work, they are, on the other hand, engaged in an act of “salvation, bringing to the translated text the kind of long life it could not possibly have in the original . . . especially when the original is in an obscure language” (Keeley 54)––or in the case of early hypertext literature, published on physical media for outmoded hardware and software.
Recommended Citation
Grigar, Dene and Pisarski, Mariusz, "Media Translation and the Migration of Born-Digital Literature" (2024). ELO (un)linked 2024. 4.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2024/narrativeandworlds/schedule/4
Media Translation and the Migration of Born-Digital Literature
Narrative & Worlds
This presentation discusses the concept of media translation, a form of enhanced translation that goes beyond the linguistic. The case studies used as examples are drawn from reconstruction work undertaken in our labs, notably the migrations of Richard Holeton’s Figurski at Findhorn on Acid and Michael Joyce’s Twilight, A Sympathy from the Storyspace platform to open Web languages, as well as the Polish translation of Joyce’s afternoon, a story to illustrate challenges to what we call “radical media translations” that involve both linguistic and media transformations of a text. We focus our attention on four key attributes of pre-Web born-digital literature––that is, the loading screen, multilink, Tinker and Bell Keys, and link names and paths––to look at the way in which a work’s presentation and functionality are translated in the process of migration.
While linguistic translation involves the transformation of language, a process that never results in a text exactly the same as the original (Biguenet and Schulte 1989: viii), reconstructing the total image of a text and the situation conveyed through text via the limiting possibilities of language, media translation also involves a process of transformation. But where linguistic translation looks at relationships surrounding words, media translation focuses on “the signifying components” of electronic texts, what N. Katherine Hayles identifies as “sound, animation, motion, video, kinesthetic involvement, and software functionality” (Hayles 2002: 20). Moreover, preserving born-digital literature through the process of migration involves the translation potentially between formats, software, platforms, hardware, computer languages, and/or digital qualities in a way that impacts the human experience with such works. It may or may not involve linguistic transformation, but always the underlying code is affected.
Our practical experience in translating and reconstructing born-digital literature presented cases where the signifying components of a born-digital work cross beyond the digital into the realm of physical artefacts crucial for the delivery of the work. Such non-digital signification can be both part of authorial strategy and part of the technological milleu of the work, where – for example – even trivial hardware components present their own sensory inputs important for the reader. It led us to expand the notion of media in "media translation" into a model offered by media philosopher Vilém Flusser for whom the medium is a container of interconnected components from various domains that orchestrate communication experience: a movie theatre, a marketplace, a forest. Fromhis radical perspective, media translation brings forward an important aspect of scale. The process can go as far in recreating components and contexts of the original as the translator is allowed or willing to. Should we translate the "chocolate box full of death" while creating a contemporary edition of Uncle Buddy's Phantom Funhouse? How many parralel translations should accompany a "linguistic" translation of a hypertext classic if the publisher is serious about recreating the original experience of the work? Answers to these questions affect budgets, timeframes, publishing policies and standards.
The translation of creative media, such as born-digital literature, requires the interpretative intervention of the translator and, so, is itself an act of creation. It may or may not result in transcreation, defined by Cinzia Spinzi as, “taking a concept in one language and completely recreating it in another language,” a process “generally applied to the marketing of an idea, product or service to international audiences.” Because the recreated language is devised to “resonate with an intended audience,” the act of transcreation “take[s] translation a stage further [than translation] . . . by letting translators leave their isolation and by requiring a “different mindset to that of translation.” Whereas with translation “words such as ‘faithful’ and ‘accurate’ are normally used to describe the quality” with transcreation words like “‘creative’, ‘original’ and ‘bold’” seem to be more common (Spinzi, 2018: 6). Taken in this context, media translation is not necessarily centered on transcreative practices, although as we will show––the choice of typography for the 2021 version of Figurski at Findhorn on Acid demonstrates––it does require creative interventions when the translator determines the most suitable equivalents that can be delivered when migrating the work to her contemporary audience.
If, as Hans Georg Gadamer claims about translating print literary works, "reading is already translation, and translation is translation for the second time” (Gadamer, qtd Biguenet and Schulte: ix), then translating a work of born-digital literature across its various material and digital components adds the additional level of transcoding to its translation. This means that any media translation results in three levels of translation: that of the reading, that of the rendering of the source language into the target language, and that of the transformation of it from its original programming language in a new one.
While on the one hand a “translator betrays” the original work, they are, on the other hand, engaged in an act of “salvation, bringing to the translated text the kind of long life it could not possibly have in the original . . . especially when the original is in an obscure language” (Keeley 54)––or in the case of early hypertext literature, published on physical media for outmoded hardware and software.
Bio
Dene Grigar is Founder and Director of the Electronic Literature Lab. She also serves as the Director of the Creative Media & Digital Technology Program at Washington State University Vancouver, with research focusing on the creation, curation, preservation, and criticism of Electronic Literature, specifically building multimedial environments and experiences for live performance, installations, and curated spaces; desktop computers; and mobile media devices. She has authored or co-authored 14 media works, such as Curlew (with Greg Philbrook, 2014), “A Villager’s Tale” (with Brett Oppegaard, 2011), the “24-Hour Micro-Elit Project” (2009), as well as six books and over 60 articles. She curates exhibits of electronic literature and media art, mounting shows at the Library of Congress and for the Modern Language Association, among other venues. She serves as Associate Editor for Leonardo Reviews. For the Electronic Literature Organization she served as President from 2013-2019 and currently as its Managing Director and Curator of The NEXT. Her website is located at http://nouspace.net/dene.
Mariusz Pisarski, PhD, is author of “Xanadu. Hypertextual metamorphosis of fiction” (Kraków, 2013). He has presented digital literacy projects at contemporary art spaces in Paris, Warsaw, Bratislava, Kosice and Vancouver and has translated American digital literature. He also serves as the chief editor of Techsty, a journal on new media and literature, and as creative director for multimedia in Korporacja Ha!art from Cracow.