I continued through the experiments of recording sounds from Google Translate. I recorded the translation of the available 65 languages in alphabetical order, but starting with the English phrase: “I don’t understand, can you speak English?”. Took that English phrase and then translated it to Afrikaans. Then took the output of Afrikaans and translated it to Albanian, then took the output translation of Albanian and translated that to Arabic, and continuing on that pattern until the last language available–Yiddish. Then I copied the translated output in Yiddish and Google translated that to English to result in: “Loud anglorum intellegere Sunday”. I didn’t know it at the time, but my colleague Morgan mentioned that the theme song Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has gone through Google Translate 64 times (view Fresh Prince: Google Translated | cdza Opus No. 16).

Then my professor asked me what kind of visual would pair with the sound…I wasn’t quite sure how to present it, but since my classmates mentioned that the sound reminded them of being at the airport, I was imagining words on LED screens scrolling horizontally across. I created a Flash file that included the 65 language text outputs from Google Translate. Then added some simple animations such as moving from left to right, top to bottom, fading in and out, opacity transitions, and overlapping of text. There a portion of the animation where the text goes back and forth–representing the continual exchange of communication with language and language learning. Also I wanted to show some of the density of the text overlapping as we sometimes may get frustrated and confused at attempts to understand or speak an unfamiliar language. Also added some slight flickers of black screen and fading to represent the sudden misunderstandings or ‘blank stares’ from miscommunication or misunderstandings of languages.

my classmates interacting with the projection of the animation

not sure how the colors showed up on the photo–but an intriguing surprise!

another image of the unexpected colorful stripes

seeing how the text moves over Morgan’s arm

seeing how the text moves across Ryan’s arm

I originally had it projected straight on the wall, but my classmate Jackson suggested using the side of the column–it seemed to work much better!

showing the animation moving across the different sides

My original intention was to project the animation flat against the wall and have people walk by the animation so that the projection goes across them, to convey the sense that they are immersed or surrounded by the languages. My professor had suggested just projecting the animation on people. I also experimented with moving the stand in 360 degrees, and seeing the projection projected across my classmates seemed to further emphasize the different cultures and languages that an individual may experience–and perhaps experiencing various cultures at the same time. My classmates gave me a lot of suggestions to further experiment with–Shaban suggested I project it somewhere with crowds of people, such as the university central library so see how masses of people would interact with the dynamic text. Jackson recommended projected it in a smaller space, such as an elevator, just to see more detailed projection of text on a smaller group of individuals. Even though the class is over, I would like to go back to this sometime and continue to explore the different options for this presentation.