{"id":213,"date":"2016-01-12T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T20:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/?p=213"},"modified":"2016-01-12T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T20:14:18","slug":"week-2-technology-as-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/2016\/01\/12\/week-2-technology-as-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 2: Technology as Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A une Damoyselle Malade<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Ma Mignonne<\/span><\/p>\n

Je vous donne<\/span><\/p>\n

Le bon jour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Le sejour<\/span><\/p>\n

C’est prison :<\/span><\/p>\n

Guerison<\/span><\/p>\n

Recouvrez,<\/span><\/p>\n

Puis ouvrez<\/span><\/p>\n

Vostre porte,<\/span><\/p>\n

Et qu’on sorte<\/span><\/p>\n

Vistement :<\/span><\/p>\n

Car Clement<\/span><\/p>\n

Le vous mande.<\/span><\/p>\n

Va friande<\/span><\/p>\n

De ta bouche,<\/span><\/p>\n

Qui se couche<\/span><\/p>\n

En danger<\/span><\/p>\n

Pour manger<\/span><\/p>\n

Confitures :<\/span><\/p>\n

Si tu dures<\/span><\/p>\n

Trop malade,<\/span><\/p>\n

Couleur fade<\/span><\/p>\n

Tu prendras,<\/span><\/p>\n

Et perdras<\/span><\/p>\n

L’embonpoint.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dieu te doint<\/span><\/p>\n

Sant\u00e9 bonne<\/span><\/p>\n

Ma Mignonne<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Clement Marot<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The poem itself, a silly get well card of sorts, has little relevance to museums, technology, or the digital humanities. What matters is that it\u2019s featured as the topic of the first story on season 13, episode 1<\/a> of Radiolab. The episode is called \u201cTranslation,\u201d and this particular story details Douglas Hofstadter\u2019s obsession with translating the poem into English. After many years, dozens of translators, and hundreds of versions, no one poem managed to maintain Marot\u2019s strict form, lighthearted tone, and original content all at once. Hofstadter makes the point that just as one cannot understand the essence of a person based on a single photograph, one must read a collection of translations to truly understand a poem. In a world where technology has the potential to either enhance or detract from the museum experience, where \u201cmuseums will have to find new ways to tell stories and engage their audiences,\u201d this holistic approach to translation might act as a crucial tenet of the marriage of museums and technology (Museums in the Digital Age, 2013). <\/span><\/p>\n

The ARUP article cites collaboration and diversification as two themes that museums must seek to incorporate in our increasingly global and desensitized society. Hofstadter\u2019s approach speaks to both of these issues: by inviting and sharing translations of the poem done by people of all walks of life, he engages disparate people in an obscure, arguably irrelevant 16th century poem, to the point that they undergo a shift from apathy (I am projecting and generalizing here, but I know that if I had come upon this poem, I would\u2019ve glanced at it, recognized a few words I knew, and never given it a second thought), to connection on a very personal level. In fact, in the comments section on the Radiolab website, members of the general public offered their own translations and insights, proving a deeper engagement with the piece. Further, the vehicle of Radiolab, as a popular podcast, allows for the expansion of the audience of the poem in a way that an anthology of 16th Century French poetry, for example,\u00a0would not. In fact, \u201cTranslation\u201d has the most downloads of any Radiolab episode ever. Scholars of Marot can only dream of his poems, on their own, reaching even a fraction of that audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

The integration of technology in museums can serve a purpose similar to the effects detailed above. If one applies Hofstadter\u2019s approach to the considerations detailed in the ARUP article, technology can have the ability to contextualize objects, further their storytelling, expose diverse audiences to them, and facilitate engagement with them on a deeper level, in a way that the traditional museum setting cannot.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A une Damoyselle Malade Ma Mignonne Je vous donne Le bon jour. Le sejour C’est prison : Guerison Recouvrez, Puis ouvrez Vostre porte, Et qu’on sorte Vistement : Car Clement … Continue reading “Week 2: Technology as Translation”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh150w16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}