In Context: Martine Syms. © MAS Context.
This contribution is part of “In Context,” a series that features guest curators who browse the archives of MAS Context, uncovering new relationships between articles and establishing new topics.
Notes on Translation
For the past few months I’ve been thinking about the form of narrative. What does it mean to be formalist in a transmedia landscape? Each medium has its own language. What would a film, which includes mise en scène, cinematography, editing and sound, broadcast as a book or a building? Why make one and not the other? How you say is just as important as what you say. If we understand manufacturing as a process or context that provides repetition, then mass media allows for narratives—and subsequently, ideologies and typologies—to be industrialized. A wide vocabulary of words, images, styles, actions and techniques in every possible language is at the immediate disposal of the independent imagination. Hence the golden age of the “hyphenate” or, if you will, “slasher.” Perhaps we’ve actually come to value the translator.
My selection for In Context is about translation, going from this to that. Jenova Chen makes video games from feelings. Paul Shepheard explains how the present is a utopia. Jörg M. Colberg considers whether or not truth is any different in high-definition. Denise Scott Brown examines the paradoxes of place making. Sam Jacobs wonders what architecture can communicate.
DELIVERING AN EMOTION
Andrew Clark interviews Jenova Chen.
Issue 6 | AMUSEMENT SUMMER 10
THE ONLY POSSIBLE WORLD
Essay by Paul Shepheard.
Issue 12 | ABERRATION WINTER 11
PHOTOGRAPHY, INFORMATION, AND MEANING
Essay by Jörg M. Colberg.
Issue 7 | INFORMATION SPRING 12
INVENTION AND TRADITION
Essay by Denise Scott Brown.
Issue 13 | OWNERSHIP SPRING 12
THE COMMUNICATIVE MODE OF ARCHITECTURE
Essay by Sam Jacob.
Issue 14 | COMMUNICATION SUMMER 12