But we thought we would read from our manifesto
for Ultratranslation as a way of introducing some
of the ideas of what do we do when we encounter work that
feels impossible to translate, which is we get really excited
and then we write things like this.
And I would just say to-- when we were in the car today,
there wasn't a moment.
I can't remember.
We were in so many cars with so many people.
[LAUGHTER]
In one of the moments--
there was a moment where we were talking
about poetry, obviously.
And there was a moment where I said, yeah,
whenever you think that we do as a poetic practice--
so you might be sitting there saying
like, these people aren't reading.
Where's the poetry?
And I think that's part of the work
that we're doing to is trying to say poetry
and poetic practice can be bigger
than just writing a poem.
And so many people in this audience
are involved in that work as well,
so public poetry, poetry and public,
poetry in all kinds of different forms,
making a cargo track of books as poetry,
making an installation of books as poetry, all of these things
as a form of poetry, so trying to open space.
And for us, those practices are absolutely not distinct from
and, in fact, are completely intertwined with our practice
as cross-language organizers.
That being politically activated in the world
is part of the poetic practice.
"A Manifesto for Ultratranslation."
"Nothing is lost in translation.
Nothing is lost in translation.
Everything was already lost, was always already lost
long before we arrived.
Translation is its own undoing, a feedback loop, a Mobius strip
or trip, an unwriting of the original,
which is never the same as itself
anyway, a writing of the unoriginal translation.
Translation is an asymptote.
No matter how close we try to get,
there's always a space between the two bodies,
and that is the space where we live,
the space where we transpose or are transposed.
Untranslatability is at the root of our practice.
Moments of untranslatability lead directly
to untranslation, undertranslation,
overtranslation, and excess extranslation
a lack of limit and expressions and impropriety,
distranslation, retranslation, multitranslation,
a mistake, a conflict, distranslation,
an understanding of the potential in not understanding,
an ultratranslation.
Ultratranslation, an awareness, or hum, or breath.
Not all translation is ultratranslation.
Ultratranslation is moments within translation,
a part of translation, parting it
to expose the irreducible gaps.
Ultra translation bubbles up from translation,
moves translation somewhere else,
transposes it, ultra, spatially beyond on the other side
indicating elsewhere, ultra, going beyond surpassing,
transcending the limits, ultra and excessive,
or extreme degree.
Ultratranslation is messy.
Ultratranslation is excessive.
Ultratranslation is unruly.
Ultratranslation is absurdly invested in the glories
of translation ease.
Ultratranslation takes the untranslatable
as starting point, not ending point.
Ultratranslation labors to translate the untranslatable
and also to preserve it, not to reduce the irreducible.
Not to know, but to acknowledge.
Ultratranslation does not replace translation,
nor does it seek to depose.
They exist beside one another and concurrently,
one feeding the other, two bodies
with the negative space of relation between them,
only in the geography of the margins
and the space between only there.
Ultratranslation is not translation
unmoored from meaning but translation that questions what
and how meaning itself means.
We are opposed to seamless translation
as it seeks to stitch innumerable disparate words
and ideas and divides together as if they had always
been fused.
We oppose ourselves to poses, positions
of control or superiority.
We want ultratranslation to untranslate the seams,
to extratranslate the gaps, to multitranslate the leaps,
to infratranslate the porosities.
We want the transfer and the untransferable both.
We cannot take for granted that this word can be used for that
body.
We cannot take as a given that we share the same understanding
of even or perhaps especially the most familiar words.
The familiar demands translation.
The ultrafamiliar demands ultratranslation.
Work across languages needs contextualization.
Ultratranslation attempts to contextualize
from within the language, within the syntax,
between and around the words, the breath, the utterance, air
and diaphragm contracting and relaxing.
Ultratranslation lures translators out
of invisibility and onto the streets, into the margins,
into the footnotes, into annotation, into activism,
into failure, into irrationality, the intuitive
channeling.
The work might speak for itself, but the translation never does.
Nor can it be spoken for by the translator or by anyone else.
Rather translators speak for ourselves,
addressing questions of stance, position, and perspective,
replacing invisibility with transparency
by writing notes toward an understanding of the tools
and processes that made the translation toward
and understanding of the ultratranslator's practice."
Now we want to invite Myriam Moscona to join us.
[APPLAUSE]