A strange new kind of in-between thing. Ένα παράξενο νέο είδος μεταξύ. A strange new species in-between. (Miasma)
2021
Jenny Carolin & Nick Mittelstead
Anne Carson’s translation of Sophokles’s Antigone opens with an explanation of why it is impossible to translate Greek into English without impairing the original text. She focuses on a few stanzas, such as when the seer Teiresias warns Kreon that “it all sounds wrong” and particularly when Antigone sings her own funeral dirge and laments the unnatural laws that brought about her demise. In this same scene, Antigone says, “I was caught in an act of perfect piety.” Carson dissects this word, “piety,” and contrasts it with the original Greek verb, Eusebia, which she takes to mean “a fear that moves as devotion.” We are left wanting more than the limp English “piety.”
Language degrades with translation and often degrades again in mis-understandings. The contexts of original works evaporate and we lose access to meaning and metaphor. Not unlike reading translated text, we, as Americans, are foreigners to Greece - beguiled by its natural beauty, we foist our own experiences and interpretations upon this place. Greeks can also experience this anxiety; with increases in interconnectivity the Greek language is vanishing from keyboards, the internet, and even public signage in favor of a more contemporary phonetic Roman alphabet.
…Miasma renders this anxiety present, urgent, and to borrow from Teiresias, “wrong.” Using magnetic tape, principles of Musique Concrète, and generative synthesis from MAX MSP, our recordings interpret the natural sounds of Crete unnaturally. To add another layer to the wrongness, we are performing Carson’s translation of Sophokles’s text. It has been fed through Google translate, and what we are reading is Google’s phonetic offering.
“The failure of the signs is in itself a sign”, says Teiresias to Kreon. The very wrongness of a thing articulates its own importance.
Miasma (2021) is a collaborative and ongoing performance and sound work between Jenny Carolin and Nick Mittelstead. The first iteration of Miasma was installed and performed in one of the ruins, in the village of Agios Ioannis, Crete, where the Mudhouse Residency is held. Nick recorded both the artists’ speaking parts and wrote a program in MAX/MSP infinitely “perform” their dialogue. The artists also occasionally performed the piece live, omitting the MAX/MSP program. Rather than a program defining the conversational tone, the artists set the pace of the conversation, using the text colloquially; listening, interrupting, pausing, and repeating stanzas for emphasis.
Nick Mittelstead’s work can be found here.
Photo and Video Documentation by Kate Stone and Erin Glass.