What is the measure of a man?

Measurement: that is the form of translation I wish to make manifest for my part of this installation. It suddenly struck me the other day that I want finally to make my own version of Robert Hoddles's chain which he allegedly used to measure Melbourne. I first saw it when I returned to Australia in 2008 during a residency at La Trobe University in Bendigo.

I had wanted to revisit the State Library of Victoria, a space I really loved going to when I lived there in 1992. The wooden reading tables, with their green-glass and brass lamps, create a very Victorian atmosphere. It's a marvelous public space, always full of the kind of hushed energy that only seems to occur when strangers all embrace the hushed energy of concentration.

The chain is a part of the library's collection, which includes Ned Kelly's armor, which I'd gone to see. Whilst climbing the stairs and peering into the glass cases that house much of the collection on display, I saw the chain. There was something humble and yet beautiful in the wire loops in contrast to the straight sections and the seemingly inexplicable triangular loop some 25 lengths in.

According to Wikipedia: "Robert Hoddle (20 April 1794 – 24 October 1881) was a surveyor of Port Phillip in the 1830s, and the creator of the Hoddle Grid, the street grid system upon which inner city Melbourne is based."

It made me think of Tom Friedman's hand-made ruler and the nature of measurement, but also about Plato's famous quote "The measure of a man is what he does with power," which, in turn, made me think of the 1968 Civil Rights marchs on Beale Street and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death at the Lorraine Motel.
So... I'm not sure where these thoughts will lead, but I plan to begin fabrication of a chain based upon my bodily measurements: a translation of myself, if you will, into facts and figures: my head, my foot, my hand and my thumb, all common measurements. Then I shall use my body's increments to measure more of my environment from there.

One and Three Chairs ... or What was I thinking?!?

I was thinking this morning about the nature of translation, and how, for the majority of my artistic life, I have acted as an interpreter, and not as a translator. I have seen, thought about and responded to cultural phenomena, and sought to give form to how I understand it.

The act of translation seems much more tied to the concept of accuracy and portrayal of a true essence of something else; it’s more closely tied to a source. There is also the notion of moving from one language to another and bridging the gap between one audience and another. To my mind, the translator’s job is not to interpret freely, but to honor the “original” and to seek to reformulate a parallel truth in another language.

My “job” as an artist, at least as I have understood it, has heretofore been more self-indulgent: I have sought to formulate parallel fictions that, hopefully, point to some underlying “truth” or poetic understanding, more-or-less of the “personal is political” school of thought.

In terms of translation, I keep coming back to the phrase and idea that “there is not word for that in our language,” as well as the notion of foregoing the “literal translation” for a more meaningful and accurate cultural “fit.”

If I recall my junior high German correctly, Germans literally say, “Will you with me in movie go?” Only they say it as “Willst du mit mir ins Kino gehen?” in the informal language of friends, or “Wollen sie mit mir ins Kino gehen?” when speaking formally*. Even after we have transposed the structure of the sentence, we have no way to convey the formality or lack thereof of the two sentences. What do we do? Offer a backslap after the first and bow before the latter?

It also brings to mind the idea of the primary text, the original source, as well as the question of what language is being spoken? Who can best serve as it’s authoritative translator? Further, who is my audience?

It also makes me think of Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs. Perhaps it’s more of a re-presentation than a pure translation, but I do think it at least hints at translation with how the original, the language and the image all interact as differing manifestations of the same “reality.”

So, I need to determine my sources and my audience. In the context of this installation, my audience is the gallery going public of Winston Salem. Okay, but who are they? More importantly, what do they need translating in my estimation, because, certainly, they’ve never asked me to interpret anything for them formally. I’ve not been elected, appointed or even asked, to serve in the capacity of translator.

What were we thinking? At the very least, I need to work out of this linguistic box I’ve put myself in. My solution? Simple: turn to what I know best: build my way out of it. Objects have always spoken back to me emphatically as both a repository for ideas, and a catalyst for thought. Or in the case of Kosuth's chairs, at least one can sit on the one while reading the other two.

* Thank you Frau Hanka, for junior high school German I still recall (and the Kalamazoo Public School System), but any inaccuracies in my remembrances and my translation are completely my own.