Final Paper

Here is the link to my final paper.

Thanks for an interesting (and unconventional) semester.

Translations and Collation

Considering Rothenberg’s task of translating poetry and in a sense, translating a culture, I began questioning the impact of translation on authorship and intended meaning. Authorship is an intriguing topic to me and I would like to use this essay to question and discuss how translation and sound recordings are related to text collation. Using the chapter on “Editorial Procedure” in William Proctor Williams and Craig S. Abbott’s An Introduction to Bibliographical and Textual Studies, I will consider text collation in its attempt to truly reconstruct authorial intent in creating critical editions.
Translation of a text can significantly alter meaning, as we saw in the discussion of Rothenberg’s translations. This essay will question how translation can be separated from authorship and when the translator exceeds his or her authority in deciding what to translate and how to translate it. I will also question if it is possible to translate a text without authority on the subject. In the translation process, is authorial intent lost or miscommunicated, and how does this impact the critical edition when translations are ultimately included in creating the textual apparatus.
Furthermore, this essay will explore the impact of sound recordings on textual collation. Addressing the recordings and translations as a project in academic anthropology as presented by Frank Boas, I will consider how sound recordings and translations are representative of the study of human culture and how these types of transmission impact the “spirit of the text.” I will explore the questions of whether translating meaning is more important than trying to maintain a literal word for word transcription. By including or excluding translations and a sound recording of the author reading his or her text, does the spoken text differ from the written text and, if so, which is more closely connected to authorial intent? How does excluding a sound recording alter the meaning, even though the written words may not change? This essay will ultimately question whether the editorial procedure of comparing notes and constructing trees and a textual apparatus is sufficient in formulating authorial intent, or does the inclusion of a sound recording and exclusion of a literal translation more fully complete the process and create a better critical edition.

Technology Doesn't Replace the Brain in Your Head!

I find myself really interested in most of the essays from Sound Unbound. Particularly of interest, however, is Bruce Sterling's "The Life and Death of Media.” I think I mostly connected with this essay because my “cutting edge” computer is still running on Windows98 and I have no desire to upgrade. Technology certainly is helpful, but it seems overdone sometimes. Medical technology has made huge advancements I really can't argue against, but some other things seem simply a money-maker. Cell phones, for example. Until very recently when my old Nokia battery quit holding a charge, I was still using the very old Nokia that didn't even have a color screen and I was very disappointed when AT&T told me I would have to upgrade because of the SIM card and some other things I didn't quite understand. My new phone, a Sony is pretty in pink and has a ton of features—but I've never played the games, listened to the walkman, or downloaded a cool ringtone. I think this only really bothers me because our society invests so much time and money into creating and selling the newest technology that I'm afraid we may overlook or sidestep some very important advancements in other areas. Imagine how much progress we might have made in alternative energy sources if there wasn't a new cellphone hitting the market every month (or more). Is this the point of the Dead Media Project? Does Sterling want us to investigate what may be missing from what we have, rather than just replacing it with something new and not necessarily better? The quality of the phone conversation between the Nokia and the Sony sound the same to me, why couldn't I keep my old phone?

Also, technology seems to replace our brains. Where would we be without calculators? Granted, they are incredibly helpful, particularly to the mathematically challenged like myself, but maybe I could balance my checkbook without a calculator if I hadn't been handed one in second grade and became dependent on it. Another example, I was recently riding with my mother and sister to La Plata, MD where my sister lives, a trip all of us have made multiple times, and my mother insisted on using her Garmin. When the Garmin didn't say to exit, even though we all knew what exit to take and were being instructed to drive past it, my mother kept driving until we were far into Virginia and the Garmin began rerouting the directions. An argument quickly ensued, and my sister got the last word when she shouted, “The Garmin doesn't replace the brain in your head, Mom!” How true. The Garmin is helpful—unless you're lost in Pittsburgh and it keeps telling you to turn the wrong way on a one way street—but why do we feel the need to constantly replace what already works? This is why I liked the Dead Media Project. Maybe we should slowdown the technological advancements and work on improving what we have, rather than always creating something new. Maybe we are missing something that could help us in the present because we are too busy looking for something newer and faster. It's a tough call. I cannot and do not want to discredit some of the advancements made in technology, like the unbelievably clear 3D ultrasound I recently had, but at the same time, I cannot get completely on board with always upgrading.

I realize the questions are missing here and this is not exactly on point with Sterling's essay, I just really enjoyed this reading and began thinking of these issues as Sterling discussed the need to investigate dead media. So, in a final attempt to ask a question, what can we learn from examining dead media, and why haven't we been doing more of this?

Why are intellectual property and copyright laws so strict in America? It’s hard for me to even make this claim because I certainly have not studied the laws in other countries, but from my few readings and discussions in other classes, it seems like in America we take these laws way too seriously. I like what Miller says about remixing and all throughout reading, I kept thinking of Lawrence Lessig. He certainly has very similar ideas on copyright laws and I agree with them. It seems as though everything new in literature, music, and other art forms is influenced in one way or another by a previous piece. It’s as though music is much easier to notice the sampling because of the actual sounds. Still, I think a new sound is created and that new sampling or remix does not detract from the original inspiration.

That said, I wonder if anything can still be original. Whether authorial intent plays a role or just the criticism of the audience makes something sampled, there seems to always be a comparison or a harkening back to a previous form. I have yet to read a book, or hear a song or album, that is not likened to something before it, either for its similarities or blatant attempts to be different. Of course, originality seems to have varying meanings then. Some work has to be original. Whether influenced or not, any remix or sampling is original in its own form and has to have properties that separates it from the predecessor, otherwise it is an exact copy. Whether is varies only in the handwriting, there is something different about it that makes it unique.

Random and Confused or Organized and Intentional?

I like these articles for opening the possibilities of art and sound performance. Though each goes about it in a different way, each author/article seems to be suggesting that art has no boundaries. Realizing that sound can be noise or performance, coming from the same channel, helps to dissolve some prejudices people may have, particularly with regard to avant garde, or even modern art. What I don’t understand, however, is how something so random can still be art? Surely it is a performance, and meaning is not entirely lost, though unexplicably altered, depending on the “channel.” Is the message of anti-records and conceptual records to simply undercut the commercialism and capitalism that goes along with performance? Or are these simply self-expression? Do they have some deeper underlying meaning rather than to just destroy a record? The channel, of course, will change the art significantly. I imagine this YouTube video, “Anti-Record #3 by The Adjective Noun,” would be significantly different if played on a different turntable and would continue to change with repeated playings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxrI561jqbw

How then, does such a random performance maintain enough of its original state to be art? More importantly, is the randomness itself the art?

As I am very unfamiliar with sonic culture, sound performance, noise, etc… I tried to connect all of this to something I can better understand. Hip-hop and dj performances are not completely different from anti-records. The underground scene and dj battles especially. As this video shows, this is certainly a performance and arguably art, and though the recording itself won’t change much. The performance/art could change dramatically depending on the venue, the turntables, mixer, speakers, amplifiers, other equipment, even the dj’s mood at the time. So even though this seems really planned and thought out, the art itself can be just as random and different as an anti-record.

http://www.djbattle.net/video_view.php?mID=46 (I apologize if you have to download this. I had trouble uploading the file from my computer.)

This video brings me to my second point. Considering last week’s discussion on the history of sound production and recordings, combined with Shannon and Rice from this week, I wonder how much these things have evolved or revolutionized? It seems that what was being done in the 1930s is still being done today. DJs, though not entirely of the same sound performance, destroy records to make a new sound. They “recycle records to create sound montages” like Paul Hidemith and Ernst Toch did in 1930; they experiment “with records, playing them backwards, varying speeds, etc.” like Edgard Varese in 1936; they stick “tape on top of records, paint over them, burn them, cut them up and glue different parts of records back together, etc.” like Milan Knizak in 1963 (some of this is visible on A-Trak’s vinyls.) All of this creates “new compositions” and plays into the idea that “no recording medium, it seems, can escape eventual manipulation by conceptual artists” (Rice). If this is the case now, in 2009, for both underground and commercial hip-hop, what has changed other than the technology? The techniques are the same though the quality may be different. The performers/artists are not radical, not even totally original in their methods. Perhaps this goes along with the theme that art has no boundaries and exposing oneself to the various possibilities will help develop a better understanding of/appreciation for, noise in all its forms.

Use your listening ears!

I wonder what exactly Sterne is attempting to say in The Audible Past. Perhaps I need to keep reading, but I find myself really disagreeing with him thus far. I do not dispute the fact that the way a culture hears helps shape, and is shaped by, the culture, though I don’t think it can be considered definitive. Why does Sterne focus so heavily on listening while there are still technological issues that effect listening today? And what exactly does he mean by “listening?” Sterne repeatedly writes “sound, hearing, and listening” though I’m not sure if these three are one in the same, or three completely different items/issues for him.

Furthermore, why should “we … presume to know exactly what it was like to hear at a particular time or place in the past" (19). All history is interpretation. Reading Victorian novels offers a glimpse into the historical society, but does not tell the reader what exactly it was like during that time and place. I’m not sure why Sterne focuses so heavily on sound as being shaped by history and culture, I think all things are. Written text certainly is shaped by culture and different movements arrive at different times. Visual arts see the impact of a historical moment. I do not see why sound recordings should be any different.

There are no real answers here and I’m hoping to read more of the book and find some answers. Sterne intrigues me more out of disagreement than enlightenment, but I still need to figure out what his real message is. I will keep reading and hopefully have some more answers before class discussion. For now, however, I think sound recordings are outstanding and helpful, though not definitive, in understanding history.

Not Discontinued, New and Improved

I find all of the readings and ideas on orality and literacy, orality vs literacy, etc very intriguing. I'm especially interested, however, in The People's Poetry Language Initiative. There seems to be a push from the Initiative toward avoiding the dominant culture/language, but it also seems as though the weaker languages depend on the dominant culture/language. Through translation, particularly of “original works” that aren't “translatable literally,” the culture and tradition of that language does not necessarily disappear but it evolves (Rothenberg, Total Translation). In fact, it seems undeniable that without the dominant cultures with the “means to document, preserve and disseminate cultural expression” of endangered languages, these languages would already be dead. How then, can the Initiative, and anyone who has an interest in preserving these endangered languages, translate and foster human creativity without changing the original or instituting some necessary form of adaptation? And even though multilinguaslism would certainly help, I don't think anyone could learn all 6500 languages that could potentially be lost.

Also from this essay, or declaration, I wonder about the true nature of endangerment poetry faces. It seems that poetry is less endangered than perhaps the language itself. At the risk of making a completely incorrect claim (as I have not studied/researched this enough to know), it seems as though poetry of a particular language can long outlive the language itself. Sounds contradictory, but I believe many cultures speak a different language in daily communication, but have been able to maintain some originality of the previous language through poem recitations and song. And while I am concerned and disheartened to think that a language could die or be lost, I am also inclined to believe that this is the natural order of things. It is “the Darwinian way of the world,” and though it is unfortunate, I don't think it is entirely bad. With the evolution of a language, we get something greater. I have never believed language to be static and unchanging, even in dominant cultures, language evolves—and I think this is good. I'm glad that we have “hip hop, poetry slam[s], and cowboy poetry [that] harken back to the ancient oral traditions, to the poetry competitions spanning cultures from Ancient Rome to medieval Japan, and to the devastated poetry of indigenous communities from the Americas to Oceania” (Initiative 4). Such performances are new and different, but not bad. I do not disagree that we need to protect endangered languages (i.e. cultures) as much as possible, but I do not think we should do so at the risk of missing something new.

I like the Word

I’m having trouble relating to the readings for this week. Sound poetry just doesn’t make much sense to me. What are we supposed to get out of sound poetry? I first believed it to be complete nonsense (as Higgins very briefly suggested) then I began thinking of it as very intentional. Sound poetry as a way of making various, not necessarily related sounds, into a meaningful work—just as written (perhaps traditional?) poetry is really nothing more than a bunch of words with no singular distinction, worked together to make a meaning. Written poetry asks the reader to think about certain words/meaning in certain and defined terms. Sound poetry asks the listener to think about certain sounds/meaning in certain and defined terms, not necessarily dependant on the individual sound—but the whole compilation. Sound poetry does not depend on rules of language to be effective—but what then, is the point? The listenings for the week did not exactly agree with my assumptions based on the readings. These listenings, even the ones with people speaking in tongues, seem not so much about the single or compiled sounds. This really seems completely intentional and put together in a way to have a very distinct (though maybe undiscernable) message or purpose. These don’t seem to be necessarily free from “semantic function” (McCaffery). The sound poetry, as I heard it, functions as noise moreso than poetry.

Also, Minarelli left me with questions regarding electronic media and the mouth. If the “exploitation of sound has no limits [and] It must be carried beyond the border of pure noise, a signifying noise: linguistic and oral ambiguity has a sense only if it completely uses the instrument of the mouth,” why is electronic media so essential (Minareli)? Why does it link so heavily to musicality, mimcry, dance, movement, image, etc… Why can it not be just sound, in and of itself, with no other interference? And why must sound poetry rid itself of the Word to be so effective? I happen to like the Word. The Word does not make me feel dead, the Word does not seem so destructive and ruinous to life. I’m sorry, Mr. Chopin, I’ve either completely missed your meaning, or I completely disagree. I have yet to see how sound—of any kind—can free us “slaves of rhetoric, prisoners of explanation that explains nothing.” What can sound poetry do that the Word cannot? What have I missed in the readings/listenings that has left me completely unconvinced of the effectiveness of sound poetry in changing the world?

Lost in the Crowd

I feel obliged to preface this blog with a few disclaimers. First, I'm new to blogging. I have blogged for class before, but always on a joint blog, never one of my own and I do not read/follow any blogs. Call me old school (or out of touch) but I typically avoid computers/internet and technology in general (i.e. no iPod, no TV, no laptop and I'm still running Windows 98) as much as possible. Thus, I apologize in advance if I seem mildly confused when posting, something does not appear, or my blog lacks personality. Second, I'm slightly apprehensive about undertaking this course. I have never really studied poetry and never considered voice/noise aspects. I'm glad to learn more about this as it seems very interesting, but can't help feeling anxious over all the things I do not know. Third, I'm mildly confused with the syllabus changes and not sure what I need to post on, so I'm going with Cage. That said, I will begin my feeble attempt...

1. What is Cage doing with 4'33”? I did not find anything interesting or valuable and rather than really listening, I began reading random papers on my desk. Perhaps I lack a cultural understanding for noise and/or sound. I'm sure (at least I hope) I'm not the only one that felt this way. Furthermore, I couldn't separate myself from the visual aspects. I imagined the symphony performers thinking to themselves what a waste of their talent this experiment was, the close-up of the clock left me hearing an imagined tick-tock, and the audience just sounded uncomfortable/annoyed. I'm very helpful that lecture/discussion with help me develop an appreciation for this and realize that Cage is doing something extraordinary, not just out of the ordinary.

2. I would also like to comment on “Mushroom Haiku.” I enjoyed listening to this and found it somewhat amusing and began contemplating authority. This has been a topic in nearly every class since I began grad school and a topic that seems to never really have an answer. How can something have true authority, especially in translation? Though not really associated with noise/voice, I began thinking of other texts that have changed significantly in translation. The Bible, is always first in my mind when on this topic. I'm not a theology scholar but the translation of the Bible has certainly been debated and this fascinates me because so many people make choices and live their lives according to the Bible.

Critical editions also hold interest for me. I think working on text collation would be really interesting to do someday, but even for all the work that goes into collation, how can we be sure that the critical edition most closely resembles authorial intent? This is why I enjoyed “Mushroom Haiku” and some of Cage's writings, because I think personal interpretation determines meaning more than anything the author writes. Cage and his friend each had their own interpretation, each making me understand the haiku very differently. Then, when the text is spoken, a new verbal authority comes into play, introducing a whole new meaning. I wonder if Cage's friend had been the one speaking, rather than Cage, would I feel differently about translations? Would I think one had more authority than another? Which one most closely resembles the original intentions of the author, or do neither of them? It is interesting to think that simply speaking/hearing, rather than seeing/reading the haiku could introduce the listener to so many new possibilities.