translation

Tutorial 18/04/2023 /  by Justin Harrison

We covered a lot of ground - which is why I like talking with Jonathan so much. Always so much to discuss.

I spoke about my current interest in translation, around Benjamin and Bhabha and Derrida. I’ve found yet another connection that they share. In my work I’m looking at translation as passage , that it too is a form of liminal passage.

I’ve managed to contact a Professor who specialises Derrida and intercontinental philosophy, I’m hoping to discuss with him n Derrida and the divine and the liminal, he’s also studied languages to better read the original works - so I’m hoping this too will expand the research.

I’ve been thinking about the show a lot and the discussion with Jonathan was very helpful to.

We had quiet a lot of discussion about my drawing, looking back at which ones were worth continuing to explore more - imaginary bundles, negative passage and the general drawing of my sculptures. In discussion it came up how central drawing is too my practice, to making sculpture and after. I've always gravitated to drawing and it's become central to my process. That it can begin or end a work. It’s core to the work rather than a means to plan or document.

Another point that Jonathan raised that I have been thinking for some time is about the scale of my drawings and sculpture. That this feels like a time to go big. I need to meditate on this I had been thinking about making 2-3 meter high drawings, but then Jonathan challenged me to work way bigger 2 - 3 stories. That scares me but also excites me. What would I draw? What would merit such effort?

For the show I have been thinking about making an installation of the sculptures that I have been making over the past few months, to hang them in a vertical circle, and to possibly offset a wall drawing in clay (Research Richard Long) The intent is to dialogue about passage/translation through the liminal. Looking at the ritualised tools of passage - especially the modified paddles.  There appear to be various possibilities around showing this format, however I could also move away from the circle and show drawings and sculptures alongside each other...but this needs more thought. How would I do it and what would it bring to the dialogue?

JK also discussed with me the titling of my work to help give access and context. This has been a practice whenever I blog about a piece I try and find some sort of title and there has been the phrase, Ritualised tools of Passage and Poetic discovery of the hidden. I also found the phrase 'Middle Voice' which is an interesting term. Originally in a text from Derrida, however it is also a grammatical term.

Middle Voice

A voice that is neither active nor passive, because the subject of the verb cannot be categorized as either agent or patient, having elements of both.

I like this very much and want to incorporate it. Ill need to build a catalogue of terms an titles to aid access to the work, but without oversimplifying.

So much to consider and plan and I’m also need to process a film about mu practice…

 

Process Post. /  by Justin Harrison

Nothing too deep or revelatory. More me just making sure I’m writing about my process.

Yet something feels right about this, somethings I make and am unsure, but this I’m ok with.

Materials lead me again and there is something provocative and pleasing about the natural canvas.

I’m making a large icing bag basically, but for clay. I’m making my own tools to work with and that to is satisfying. I’m tempted to get ealborate, but I should have learnt from previous lessons that it will slow me down, but it’s hard - I want to make pretty!

The plan is to locate naturally occurring clay and use it as a medium to draw with, although I am now having to research and figure where I might find it. This could involve a number of exploratory walks and scrambling but then I like that kinda thing.

I feel drawn to the process of engaging with the land, gently moving an element and decontextualising it into a medium and meaning - a form of translation.

This too I’ve been looking at ‘Translation’ what does it really mean to translate language and other things? What and how does it happen? It’s connected to the Liminal.

Also please note it took me a ridiculously long time to figure the pattern out, when it shouldn’t.

 

Drawing meditation /  by Justin Harrison

Just trying to get my head back into making, after the research paper I kind went off-line. I needed a break and to reset. I visit the movie the revenant again. Trying to summon what is it about kenoticism. Drawing is.good point of meditation,, in addition I also want to animate some more drawings and need to get my eye back in as well as my head.

I like the last drawing best - it even works upside down. I think I enjoy the departure from the formal and real, a fluidity of movement where translation is free to move in a less linear fashion.

(Am also still misusing the Stuart Semple ink)

I’m keen to hold onto a few thoughts that have manifested over the past year: Bundles, Granular, Bleeding through, Kenotic, it’s hard to keep up with all the thoughts and I need to find a more organised way to formally collate the most significant. The curated blogs help but I still fear I am forgetting stuff.

Been also looking at Benjamin on translation as a point of research.

 

Stacking /  by Justin Harrison

This piece has come from fussing in my studio over various works, I’m not sure I love it, but I don’t hate it either. It needs re-photographing as it’s flattened out in the photograph.

More intuitive making without solid plans or intentions but rather letting the materials find their own voice, working quickly I ask questions of the form and wood, where does it want to be, in what state, why is the harder question I have left aside for now. I’ve been thinking a lot about materials and their role in the language of the work. Dialects and translation and interpretation. Intentional application of histories.

The elements are bundled again, stacked the wood finished and unfinished, left in different states. Histories are stacked and layered.

Benjamin's proposal Cultural translation is a coming to terms with the foreigness of language. Such foreignness revealing the liminality of both the indigenous and the extra territorial. Working with materials and modalities of difference whether linguistic, visual or digital demands something other than finding a consensual form of resemblance or appropriation.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=homi+bhabha+translation+and+displacement 1:01:40

 

On the floor /  by Justin Harrison

I’m sat in the library, although I might as well be sat on the floor. It feels a more comfortable place. I’m dizzy. In researching for my paper I’ve journeyed a lot with Ursula von Rydingsvard and her making from marginality. This is all in concern to the liminal and transformation. Derrida haunts me all the time with notions of difference and Hauntology, the phenomena or not of spectres. And now I’ve taken a sharp left and have started looking at Homi Bhabha. He speaks of the ‘Third space’ and ties it to creativity and making in concern to Anish Kapoor.

Kapoor repeatedly presents us with an ambiguity of locating the self in space and time. The void is cast before us in multiple iterations, refusing to abate. But I haven’t studied Kapoor so much and some days I find him pompous. Yet I do see the significance of his work.

So now I have books surrounding me on Kapoor, Bhabha, Derrida oh and Deleuze I’ve been avoiding him but it was unavoidable. I keep on finding connections with "‘Terrain’ and ‘Territory’ ‘Translation’ - the connections make me wonder if everyone is all speaking about the same thing, or are they nuance or completely different and deserve the nomenclature, and dense books assigned to them?

I feel like I’m on to something but I can’t quiet pull it all in. This formlessness that is the generative. The Difference that permits us to create, be, not be. Make some sort of meaning.

It’s 14:55 I need to write more - write an intelligible draft. But then there’s my work too. I see more threads between my making and preoccupations. I’d draw a map yet I fear it will be of no use the moment I finish it.

Deleuze says;


The map is the production of an experimental reading, the word experiment being used here as John Cage uses it, "not as descriptive of an act to be later judged in terms of success and failure, but simply as an act the outcome of which is unknown."
Deleuze and Guattari - What is a minor Literature

There is a thread at least, of time and space and thought. That in the fluidity there is movement, a freedom to create. In creativity there is the power to imagineer and realise the new. Ownership is hard in the liminal.

 

Translation /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

Translation can be more than just. language:

Objects, people, time, thoughts, feelings, beliefs

Many things can be translated, their location and nature moved.

Categories are a important but not essential structure and often articles can 'bleed' through into another. Poetry can become a film, a book can become a painting. Death can become life.

In the moment of translation, something new and generative can happen. Through the interstices - Homi Bhabha.

There is a poetic sense that can be felt around the phenomena of translation, in addition it almost feels divine. That as an act it is the will of a deity becoming manifest.