Linguistic
Mutation
Olga Gurina
Interactive video-installation
DK Rosa, St. Petersburg, June 27, 2021
Interactive video-installation
DK Rosa, St. Petersburg, June 27, 2021
The installation consisted of three parts:
- Treasure map
- Video documentation of the journey
- An online game in which the audience could participate. Rules were attached.
- Treasure map
- Video documentation of the journey
- An online game in which the audience could participate. Rules were attached.
The video uses screen recordings, translations of texts, pictures and videos found through Google and YouTube searches for the corresponding translations, as well as the voiceover of the texts by the Google translator. For languages that Google does not speak, I did the voice acting myself. This work is part of a project called Linguistic Mutation, in which the author investigated linguistic interactions between people from different countries in order to understand whether online translation technology improves understanding or is it just an illusion.
This installation became the final representation of the project, which lasted for a year from June 2020 to June 2021.
At one time, using the Google translator to communicate with foreign acquaintances, I remembered the game of "broken phone". Sitting on a bench in a kindergarten gazebo, we whispered a phrase to each other. Giggling and clapping our hands, we rejoiced at the final semantic distortion. Now I hear more and more optimistic predictions that very soon there will be no need to learn foreign languages, since Google or another technology giant will give us a “Babylonian fish” in our ear. But how much will cost this prosperity? Can electronic means of transmitting information increase the intensity of our mutual understanding? How many languages will survive in optimized algorithms? What's the other side of this moon called Google Translate?
With the help of services Google My Maps, Google Translate, Google Earth and Youtube, I made a linguistic trip around the world using the principle of "broken phone". It began in Kiev and continued with a vector specified by a longitude of 50 °. As a result, I got a collection of digital artifacts from each waypoint, which I collected using Google Search and Youtube.
At one time, using the Google translator to communicate with foreign acquaintances, I remembered the game of "broken phone". Sitting on a bench in a kindergarten gazebo, we whispered a phrase to each other. Giggling and clapping our hands, we rejoiced at the final semantic distortion. Now I hear more and more optimistic predictions that very soon there will be no need to learn foreign languages, since Google or another technology giant will give us a “Babylonian fish” in our ear. But how much will cost this prosperity? Can electronic means of transmitting information increase the intensity of our mutual understanding? How many languages will survive in optimized algorithms? What's the other side of this moon called Google Translate?
With the help of services Google My Maps, Google Translate, Google Earth and Youtube, I made a linguistic trip around the world using the principle of "broken phone". It began in Kiev and continued with a vector specified by a longitude of 50 °. As a result, I got a collection of digital artifacts from each waypoint, which I collected using Google Search and Youtube.