Re: [-empyre-] Translation: Forward from Brigid McLeer

[marcus bastos <bastos.marcus@gmail.com>]

<<it would be fun for this list to begin to compile a glossary of terms>>
this is a great idea. It seems that this diversity of vocabulary is
also related to the different approaches to digital writing, on the
list. Isn´t it interesting how some conversations evolve side by side,
and how this parallel paths rarely cross each other? Maybe such a
glossary could be a great tool to understand such different
perspectives and possible differences and / or connections among them.

On 10/12/05, Christina McPhee <christina112@earthlink.net> wrote:
> This was another bounce.
>
> new topic: Translation
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: mailman-bounces@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Date: October 12, 2005 12:05:02 PM PDT
> > To: empyre-owner@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> > Subject: Content filtered message notification
> >
> >
> > The attached message matched the empyre mailing list's content
> > filtering rules and was prevented from being forwarded on to the list
> > membership.  You are receiving the only remaining copy of the
> > discarded message.
> >
> >
> > From: "Brigid McLeer" <bmcleer@barbican.org.uk>
> > Date: October 12, 2005 12:01:02 PM PDT
> > To: <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> > Cc: <mcleer.bridge@virgin.net>
> > Subject: translation
> >
> >
> >
> > hi
> >
> > i was interested in what i would loosely describe as issues of
> > 'translation' that were coming up in the last bunch of posts (not
> > todays particularly but yesterdays). And in the implied questions
> > of the reader and the reading experience (Barrie mentions in
> > relation to reading a screen as opposed to a book) - but also how
> > these things are played out in cultural terms  and that seems to be
> > arising in the discussion too - questions of meaning not only in
> > relation to 'new' modes of communication/writing but also across
> > cultural differences.
> > This question of translation particularly interested me because of
> > much of the language being used in various posts to describe
> > digital entities and 'phenomena' - some of which i understand or
> > can work out - or is being explained - and some of which i would
> > really need a dictionary of digital terms in order to decipher it.
> > (Incidentally is there such a thing - if not, perhaps it would be
> > fun for this list to begin to compile a glossary of terms - in the
> > spirit of mediating writing about writing about the digital!)
> > Obviously a new technology and cultural mediator will require new
> > kinds of vocabularies to describe it and enable its operations in
> > the world and it strikes me that one of the key changes that occurs
> > to writing, or to the 'written language' in digital culture is the
> > huge range of invented words, grammars, sytactical structures, not
> > to mention modes and forms of code. In this sense i think there is
> > a very big change to not only what we think of as writing in
> > digital media but also to the actual writing itself - even at its
> > most familiar. This i think is also very closely related to what
> > barrie was talking about in terms of the experience of reading off
> > the screen - in the sense that it is more difficult (for most
> > people from what i've gathered over the years) to read long tracts
> > of text on screen, so what seems to happen is that reading occurs
> > much more literally in an active state, while writing or playing
> > (if in a game context) or 'navigating' or 'chatting' etc. This
> > presumably makes for a more dynamic, adapted, truncated, redevised
> > etc. kind of writing. A writing altered not only by the nature of
> > the technology but also by the nature of the experience of using
> > that technology. The experience, as it were, of typing, sitting
> > upright, gazing into a light filled frame and all that. Again I
> > think it's also a writing that is often much more closely affected
> > by the principles and temporal proximity (even if this is illusory)
> > of speech. Which i guess in turn has implications for some
> > reconsideration of theories around the differentiation of writing
> > from speech, from Plato to Ong (speech lovers) to Barthes, Derrida
> > and others (writing lovers). This is further emphasised by the
> > compromised materiality of writing in digital media/space - its
> > reinsertion (if I can describe it as such) into a weirder and much
> > more complicated kind of transparency. Maybe??
> > I'm also interested in relation to the question of cultural
> > exchange, what do those of you for whom english is not your 'first'
> > langauge make of the predominance of english in cyberculture - is
> > it just the same as the globalising use of english that we see in
> > other aspects of contemporary life, or is its adapted qualities
> > something that makes it potentially more maleable and therefore
> > more open to reuse/abuse, interaction/interference from other
> > vocabularies, languages, cultural traditions?
> >
> > bests
> > Brigid
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