Bad Translation

Bad translation is a fight in which analogue wins over digital

O le faaliliuga leaga o se taua lea e manumalo ai le analogue i masini komepiuta

Bad translation is a war that analogously uses on computer devices

糟糕的翻譯是類似於計算機設備上的戰爭

Bad translation is similar to the war on computer equipment

ترجمه نادر شبیه به جنگ در تجهیزات کامپیوتری است

La traducción rara en el equipo informático es similar a la Guerra.

レア翻訳コンピュータ機器は、戦争に似ています

Rare translation computer equipment is like war

Редкое переводное компьютерное оборудование похоже на войну

Σπάνια εργαλεία μετατροπής υπολογιστών, όπως πόλεμοςIntaneti Air Nkhondo

Small transfers of computers, such as wars

O mea laiti e liliuina ai komipiuta, e pei o taua

Little things became computerized, such as war

Bagay sa yo te vin tounen yon ti kras òdinatè

Little things has became a little computer

Kaikki oli pieni tietokone.

Everything is a small computer

Bad Translation is a project by Cris Blanco created and developed in collaboration with the performers Amaranta Velarde, Javier Cruz, Cris Celada, Cris Blanco and Óscar Bueno Rodríguez.

artistic assistant/dramaturgy: Ayara Hernández

art and set design: Javier Cruz and the Translator team
choreography: Amaranta Velarde, Ayara Hernández.

live music: Óscar Bueno and Cris Blanco

lights:Sergio Roca Saiz, Miguel Ruz Velasco

sound: Carlos Parra

Technical director: Miguel Ruz

a Cris Blanco production, co-produced by Mercat de les Flors/El Graner, La Casa Encendida, Las Naves, Fuga.es and CAET- Centre d’arts escèniques de Terrassa.

The idea behind Bad Translation is to translate the digital world into the analogue universe. “Handmade” digital culture brought into everyday life in cardboard, plastic and fabric in a desperate attempt to make it tangible.

We have chosen a Mac computer – the maximum exponent of the digital world in our everyday life – to be recreated manually on stage, with the live activation of all the computer’s functions and mechanisms. The 5 performers on stage become operators of the computer system and the stage is transformed into an analogue computer: the Mac desktop is a decorated theatre curtain, the folders are made of cardboard and the theatre lights are the brightness of the screen.

We decode the digital functions as we operate the computer through choreographies on the stage, and then recode the results in digital form on a screen.

The mechanism is a closed-circuit camera system that allows the audience two see the results in two dimensions on the screen, and at the same time watch the “making of” in three dimensions, live on stage.

Meanwhile, other bad translations keep happening in the life of our Mac user, who we get to know through what she does on her computer: some regrettable translations into Polish intended to improve her online identity and lies about her geolocalisation to fake a digital life that is more interesting than her real analogue life are MacGuffins that allow us to reflect on our relationship to digital and virtual technologies, on how much time we spend living in our computer and mobile phone screens compared to the real world.

Interview: https://bit.ly/1Y3t45X

Full video: https://youtu.be/bSSVwzUSlIw