ON TRANSLATION. Antoni Muntadas and the Politics of Translation in Visual Arts (1995 - 2015)
ON TRANSLATION. Antoni Muntadas and the Politics of Translation in Visual Arts (1995 - 2015)

Summary/Abstract: The essay starts with a reflection on the interpretative authority of curators and audience, sketching the progressive shift in visual arts from canonic criticism to context-sensitive and community- sensitive mediation and translation processes. From the 19th century, the nature of translation has gradually adopted a philosophical category and entered into the analysis of how we ‘understand’ a discourse, also providing a synapse for work in psychology, anthropology, sociology and in intermediary fields such as ethnolinguistics and sociolinguistics. In the visual arts field, the most extensive project developed so far on the topic is On Translation, that artist Antoni Muntadas initiated in 1995. On Translation consists of about 35 subprojects realised over more than 20 years, in which Muntadas engages with translation as an autonomous medium which occurs when a piece of information (either textual, visual or under other forms) shifts from context to context. Muntadas is universally regarded as a pioneer media artist for the extensive usage of and reflection about technology potentiality and limits. He uses the notion of Media Landscape as the aggregate of communication media that transmits information. Their role in this transmission - or translation – is fundamental and has, according to Muntadas, a strength equal to human verbal translation in its capability to convey or transform a message. On Translation also highlights the audience's responsibility in critically understanding the processes behind translation and committing to participate in the formation of meaning. One of the recurrent symbols of the project is, in fact, a red, bright sign stating Warning: Perception requires involvement. Muntadas’s warning points particularly to the easy manipulation of communication media by political and economic powers to create different narratives, attractive myths, and points of tension.

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