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“Translation as a Spiritual Practice”
A Report on Bruce Boone’s Recent Talk

On Thursday, March 7 2008 Bruce Boone gave a talk and facilitated a discussion as part of Nonsite’s “Translation as Social and Aesthetic Practice” curriculum. This was a follow-up to his presentation at SF Camerawork on 2/28, where Bruce presented together with Chris Nagler and Susan Greene.

Bruce’s talk was remarkable for its range and its depth, and the report that follows here is my attempt to get at a few of its key propositions/provocations.

In attendance: Tanya Hollis, Robert Glück, David Larsen, Eirik Steinhoff, Chris Nagler, Rob Halpern and Jocelyn Saidenberg.

Bruce began with a rather startling proposition: more than just social and aesthetic, translation is a “spiritual” practice. He went on to note that some translations are spiritual while others are not, and that this amounts to a hierarchy that exceeds the valuation of “good” and “bad.” Moreover, those translations that incline toward “the spiritual” exact a physical toll on the body of the translator. This isn’t meant to be taken metaphorically. Like Jalal Toufic, who uses what often seem to be extravagant metaphors quite literally, Bruce proposes that this toll is indeed corporeal.

For Bruce, “non-spiritual” translations — say, the commercial — presuppose the false value of transparent, unimpeded transmission. By contrast, a “spiritual” translation would conceal and reveal an encounter with the pre-prosodic asociality of language. In the process of rendering the asocial as social, the translator comes into contact with the non-differentiation of meaning and meaninglessness — a kind of death — something the work of translation must go on to affirm paradoxically as a life source. Read more

Hi everyone,

Here is a section from a paper I wrote for the Oppen conference at SUNY Bflo the week before last, in relation to the work of Nonsite Collective and the poet George Oppen. Tho the section is already posted to the web I thot I'd post it here to share and for curricula...

Thom

Discussing George Oppen with my friend Kyle Schlesinger recently, and contrasting his work with the collaboration of Taylor Brady and Rob Halpern, *Snow Sensitive Skin*, Kyle reminded me that the situation distinguishing contemporary poets from Oppen is not just a matter of generation and historical embeddedness, but of degree. When I proposed that the poetry of Taylor and Rob was a new kind of lyrical reportage, Kyle imagined the daily routines of the poets searching beyond mainstream newspaper dailies for indymedia sources, bringing to bear on these sources minds shaped by radical habits of thought, attention and action. Read more

I was going to add this to the agenda, but I wasn't sure about how that worked since I cannot attend the Sunday meeting. I thought it could live here for now and I will re-post it again later when there is a meeting I can go to.

In June, the Bay Area will be treated to year 27 of Superfest, the longest-running disability film festival in the world. This year, films
from 60 international entries were narrowed down to a select few.

Last weekend, I attended the Dance Under Construction conference hosted by UCB’s Theater, Dance and Disability Studies Departments. Academics and artists from all over the country came to discuss how integrated dance and new explorations with differently abled bodies are reshaping the core aesthetics of performance arts and creating a fresh movement vocabulary. The Bay Area is at the heart of this, with AXIS Dance Company residing in Oakland and Dandelion Dance Theater in San Francisco.

Each year, since 1986, the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in conjunction with the San Francisco Arts Commission holds a juried
exhibition of visual art made by blind or low vision artists. Gestural, kinesthetic and tactile process unfolds through sculpture, paintings and even photography.

Meanwhile, the Bay Area, home to the Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement in the 1970’s, today remains one of the most accessible
cities for the disabled in terms of transit, policy and programming. The Bancroft maintains an impressive written and oral archive of the movement while UCB and SF State offer departments that figure prominently in the burgeoning academic discipline that is disability studies.

So, I suppose my question is—how does all this energy and innovation translate into the poetry community? In conventional literature,
disability is shackled to outmoded tropes (the saccharine triumph stories and the throwbacks to telethon pity). It goes without saying that Read more

State of Exile is a new book of poetry by exiled Uruguayan poet and novelist Cristina Peri Rossi, translated by US political prisoner Marilyn Buck.

Selections will be performed at La Pena, 3105 Shattuck Av, Berkeley on May 20th at 7 pm.

Speakers and guest poets: Cherrie Moraga, Graciela Trevison, Mitsuye Yamada and Maisha Quint.

$10 donation requested.

-empyre- May 2008 :

¿Qué Onda Izquierda? : Artist-social interventions in Latin America

http://www.subtle.net/empyre

This month's discussion explores the political potential of creative practice and the creativity demanded in social and subjective transformation. Our guests are artists, activists, and researchers from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the US who create and act collectively in concert with social movements and in situated struggles against the (de)formations of imperialist capital." With guest moderators Jennifer Flores Sternad and Brian Whitener,

La discusión de este mes es sobre la potencia política de prácticas creativas y de la creatividad que necesita la transformación social. Nuestros invitados son artistas, activistas e investigadores de Argentina, Brasil, México, y los Estados Unidos, quienes crean y actúan en colectivo con movimientos sociales y determinadas luchas contra las (de)formaciones del capitalismo imperialista.

To join the conversation (in English and Spanish) , subscribe at http://www.subtle.net/empyre

with guests: Ala Plástica, BijaRi, Etcétera, Fabiane Borges, Ricardo A. Bracho, Frente 3 de Fevereiro, Daniel Lima, Felipe Teixeira Gonçalves, La Lleca, Eduardo Molinari

------------------.>Ala Plástica (AR) is an arts and environmental organization that works bio-regionally within the nation of Argentina and internationally. Their principle concern lies in linking ways of thinking and working in the arts to the development of active projects in social and environmental arenas.

------------------->Ala Plástica (AR) es una asociación artística ambientalista que trabaja bio-regionalmente, dentro de la nación Argentina así como internacionalmente. Su mayor preocupación es relacionar modos de pensar y trabajar en las artes para desarrollar proyectos activos en los ámbitos sociales y ambientales. Read more