UEBERSETZUNG IST EINE FORM. | TRANSLATION IS A MODE.

Location/duration:
Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna/Austria, kunstraum.net
08 April 2010, 7 pm (Opening), 09 April - 29 May 2010

Featuring works by:
Eva Beierheimer / Miriam Laussegger, Aylor Brown / Arend deGryuter-Helfer, Gerhard Dirmoser, Aleksandra Domanovic, Jochen Hoeller, Michael Kargl - aka carlos katastrofsky, Annja Krautgasser, Michail Michailov, MTAA (M. River & T. Whid Art Associates), Joerg Piringer, Arnold Reinthaler, Veronika Schubert, Johanna Tinzl / Stefan Flunger

“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. The path of translation, however, is a long one when a text is to be transferred into another language and ascribed new purposes in order ultimately to learn that each new reception entails a change in meaning in the sense of interpretation n translation, a mode?

Based on philological-linguistic translation theories, the exhibition “Uebersetzung ist eine Form. | Translation is a mode.” shows 13 contemporary positions of language-based conceptual art relating to the broad subject area of translation. The focus of consideration is, on the one hand, on translation processes inherent in the work, which are scrutinised regarding their mutual relationship at the level of the content, the medium and the form. On the other hand it illuminates context-related interpretation processes, which influence the individual works of art from a curatorial as well as from the recipientis perspective and locate them as an indispensable practice in the world of mutual dependences and networking. As a result, linguistically critical elements come into view that are related to socio-economic, socio-political and not least (art-) institutional contexts and transferred to the phenomenon of translation.

curated by CONT3XT.NET

For the exhibition, CONT3XT.NET selected 2 MTAA works.
Simple Net Art Diagram (ca. 1997) | Commons Art Diagram (2007)
Installation, web page on server | paper poster, black and white

As an agreement to the nature of the exhibition, we gave the curators the sole responsibility of translating these two digital works into the physical exhibition. From this quick first jpeg of the instalation, it looks they made great choices with the output. The following is their text about the works.

Two computers, linked by a cable with a flashing red spark sign on it captioned The art happens here. As early as 1997, with Simple Net Art Diagram (ca. 1997), the artist duo MTAA (M. River & T. Whid Art Associates) were visualising the fundamental processual approach of internet-based art. Their diagram, however, is not just an attempt to relate to the technological and media conditions of net art, but also to the questions that are immanent in art, which had already been posed by predecessors in the 1960s/70s. If in Simple Net Art Diagram it was just two computers illustrating the network, in Commons Art Diagram (2007), produced ten years later, it is a strictly market-regulated commercialisation system in which the internet-based art ihappensi today. Again, The art happens here is the accompanying text to the spark, but this time it is surrounded by symbols for music, data, moving images, texts and logos of alternative copyright licences. permanent link to this post