Experimental Publications Spring 2016Christina Latina and Frances Pharr

Project One: Respond

Shikha Subramaniam

Reading Unbearable Lightness of Being, translated from Czech to English&A conversation with my Austrian friend about untranslatable German words: “We have a word for that in German”

Prompt:

Intent

Message Medium

Making people aware of the languages and the scope of words outside of English.

A moment of delight, of surprise.

A window into another person’s culture.

A commentary of the act of translation itself, not just of spoken languages, but from text to visual.

Intent:

Untranslatable words from different languages, for example:

Trepverter (Yiddish): A witty comeback you think of only when it’s too late to use.

Jayus (Indonesian): An unfunny joke told so poorly that one cannot help but laugh.

Sonder (English): the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as yours

Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist

Tsundoku (Japanese): The act of buying a book and leaving it unread, piling it up with other such books

Message:

Medium 1: Fortune Cookies

Food is another window to a new culture, and it also accentuates the element of surprise

Method of Publication: Handed to friends/ classmates

Medium 2: Hand-lettered PostCardsTranslation is best done by hand, and Postcards are also related to Travel and interaction with new places/ languages.

Method of Publication: Slipped into mailboxes

Medium 3: New Visual LanguageBreaking down the meaning of the word through repetition and arranging it translates the textual into a visual language

SCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEE

SCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEESCHNAPSIDEE

Method of Publication: Packaging, of something related to the word. For example: a box of memories for Razbliuto (Russian):“A feeling a person has for someone he or she once loved but no longer feels the same way about