Studio Experiences of Translation

Abstract

The experience of visual arts is synonymous with exploring new ways of thinking and making in the studio. As a practice-led researcher, I explore in this article how my acts of ‘translation’ serve as catalyst and intervention to my familiar approaches to studio practice; specifically, I explore my experience translating videogame tropes into figurative painting. Translation goes beyond the reworking of a text for a new audience or language. Broadly speaking, translation is any attempt to shift meaning, content, or expression between different modalities, while intending to preserve an essence of the original. In the context of visual arts practice, this term still encompasses shifts between cultural and linguistic frameworks, but also between alternative modes of representation (words and images) and different creative disciplines. It is not difficult to apply conceptions of cultural translation to studio practice as both culture and artmaking are performed and embodied. Culture is expressed socially as a living framework, not simply as reflections of a “fixed tablet of tradition” (Bhabha 2). Artmaking is undeniably intertwined with the cultures and contexts from which artists practice, while engaging with art necessitates reiterative acts of communication and interpretation. Just as with cultural translation, creative practice negotiates conceptual and material shifts between different approaches to thinking and making. Cultural Translation and Creativity Dialogue between different positions, perspectives, and/or practices is a source of creativity and emergence; all dialogue between difference necessitates some level of translation. Influential cultural theorist Nikos Papastergiadis argues that translation embodies transformation and innovation through a “robust process of mutation, appropriation, assemblage and reconfiguration” (7). This is a process where cultural entities move from one cultural framework to another as they are reactivated, recoded, and re-evaluated within (and by) the frameworks of the recipient; however, when entities move between frameworks, there is always an “unevenness or non-equivalence [that] inspires both a lament for what is lost in translation and a celebration of the extension in conceptual understanding through creative improvisation and hybridization” (Papastergiadis 5). Improvisation may reveal similarities between positions, but there will always be “an uneven fit” (Papastergiadis 5) that ensures an accurate replication of meaning cannot be absolute. Attempts to bridge incommensurability often lead to novelty and critical self-reflection; seminal cultural theorist Homi Bhabha asserts that it is from negotiations between different, competing, and even antagonistic priorities and practices that new understandings and hybridities emerge (210–1). From a creativity standpoint, translation is an outward-looking process that embraces new ideas, establishes new connections, and shows a “commitment to imagining” alternative ways of being (Papastergiadis 11)—or as cultural and literary theorist Caryl Emerson aptly posits, translation is never about seeking perfect interpretations but being liberated by its impossibility (110–1). This impossibility is not just a practical limitation, but also at times an ethical one. Regarding notions of cultural opacity and transparency, seminal poets and scholars Édouard Glissant (see ‘Poetics of Relation’) and Fred Moten (see ‘Black and Blur’), remind us in their influential texts that culture does not need to be completely understood or articulated—made transparent—to still be respected, engaged with, or legitimised by those outside of them (for further discussion, refer to See & Amorim 59–60). Translation between Modalities Studio practice innately demands moving between different modalities of expression, representation, and knowledge as ideas are interrogated through the artist’s praxis of theory and practice. Thinking through materials in this way, therefore, also demands improvising connections between the unevenness or non-equivalence of these modalities. Intermodality is often encountered when artists must work with both the tacit or embodied knowledge embedded in materials and processes and that of written and spoken language; this process is formalised further through exegetical writing, didactic labels, and artist talks. Influential art theorist Barbara Bolt describes this as the “double articulation” of practice that is central to practice-led research (29). Theorist Jillian Hamilton highlights the tension that emerges when artist-researchers must rationalise the subjective nature of studio practice—describing “a push and pull upon meaning and interpretation; between the analytical and the experiential” (3). Tension notwithstanding, translating ideas between different modes of thinking and making is valuable to facilitate critical insights and reflections; however, the materiality and experience embedded in artefacts can demand considerable improvisation to bridge between the logic and aesthetics of spoken and written language, and vice versa. The notion of translation is also relevant to visual arts’ inherent interdisciplinarity; this is not interdisciplinarity in terms of an artist and scientist co-exploring a problem via the space between their disciplinary perspectives. Rather, theorist and artist Mieke Bal argues that all cultural artefacts are inherently interdisciplinary and cannot “be confined to categories such as ‘painting,’ ‘sculpture,’ or ‘film,’ [as] the awareness has grown that not only now but always, many artworks fit uneasily in the disciplinary categories designed for their study” (2). Bal outlines her argument while analysing Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s 2008 video work, ‘WHERE IS WHERE?’, as she identifies at least seven disciplines, including history, cinema, theatre, politics, language, literature, and philosophy. Bal makes a clear distinction between of and as, stating that Ahtila’s artwork is of the cinematic and of the philosophical—in sharp contrast to cinema as philosophical—as "to ‘give’ philosophical status to cinema is different from explaining cinema philosophically” (11). Bal adds that just as this interdisciplinarity is inevitable, it is equally impossible to make full use of the entire paradigms and methodological packages of these disciplines. Nor is it possible for any individual to be knowledgeable in the canonical texts whose importance these disciplines tend to take for granted. This confronts us with the primary challenge interdisciplinarity poses. (3–4) Disciplines are not required to (nor can) be on ‘equal footing’, nor are their connections “harmonious and blending” (Bal 5). Approaching the creation and interpretation of artworks from Bal’s perspective is not to divide disciplinary integrations into separate studies, but to explore the connections that form between disciplines. For me, integrations took the form of adopting and adapting (a.k.a. translating) videogame tropes into my approach to painting (for a more in-depth discussion, refer to See 253–4). A Practice-Led Approach Embracing translation as a catalyst to disrupt and expand my approaches to painting was undertaken within a practice-led research (PLR) methodology. In PLR, creative practice is the animating force behind scholarly inquiry as insights emerge through the studio materials and methods familiar to the researcher (Bolt 28–9). Data takes the form of studio artefacts and experiences, which are contextualised, interpreted, and theorised through exegetical writing. My data predominantly constitutes painting and drawing, along with studio documentation through journalling, photography, and videography; insights emerge through critical analysis and reflection on data in dialogue with relevant creative and cultural theory. Bolt asserts that when thinking through materials, knowledge forms through the rigorous and responsive “handling [of] materials in practice” (29) in dialogue with the broader contexts and theories that inform how that practice is performed. Drawing on Bolt, theorist Katve-Kaisa Kontturi posits how art emerges from a “complex ecology of participation” (21) from which artists follow their more-than-human collaborators. Kontturi (2018) uses more-than-human to describe the material, conceptual, and temporal qualities that artists activate through practice. To pursue new ways of thinking and making, artists must first locate themselves within the ecology from which they participate. One such way is by acknowledging the key cultural texts and artefacts that have informed their practice, especially those beyond the silo of our primary disciplines. For me, this meant acknowledging how influential videogames are to my approach to painting. PLR has an inherently “outward-looking attitude” (Gray and Malins 21) that encourages the incorporation of other research methods, theories and paradigms. It is this attitude that both revealed videogames as an influence, and facilitated its exploratory integration into painting. Videogames into Painting Curator and author Anthony Bond once commented how a generation of Australian artists learned to paint from magazines and books; situated far from the galleries of Europe and North America, printed media were their window to their Western contemporaries and traditional canons, but at the same time translated the material qualities of these cultural artefacts into flat photographic reproduction. If these artists experienced cultural artefacts through books and magazines, then I did so through digital, interactive media. Born 3 years after Bond’s 1987 comments, my formative years were not spent in art galleries but playing videogames. Once thought to be a frivolous pastime that sat outside of my creative practice, this medium was my first meaningful experience with cultural texts and artefacts; more specifically, playing videogames was my first deep engagement with how a creative medium might a