Sarah Coller

Lost In Translation (but something found)

Artist Statement

Sarah Coller

Walking in the market, people push by, motorbikes manoeuvre through the stalls and people. Vegetables, herbs, fruit and dead meat on all sides, the air is pungent. It’s noisy and hot. I want some dill. I stop at a stall and the vendor asks me what I want, I attempt to say dill, she looks blankly at me, I repeat my version of the Vietnamese word for dill, she frowns, I smile hopefully. I look at the herbs, I point at the herbs, she shrugs, I smile again. Fish for dinner, dill for fish, fish! I mime a fish and point at the herbs, she laughs, but shakes her head. I point to the green end of a carrot and back at the herbs. I’m a fish again. She looks from the carrot to the herbs, to me, smiles broadly and rummages in a pile of greenery pulling out a bedraggled bundle of dill, speaking the name excitedly. I jump with delight, she laughs and our eyes meet, she nods happily as I pay her. I thank her profusely and move on through the market.

The word ‘dill’ was lost in translation and the communication failed, another channel had to be found. The communication which ensured was absurdly satisfying and oddly intimate, we exchanged more than the desired transaction would have and actually looked at each other, saw each other and understood something more.

Communication interference, whether semantic or psychological is something we avoid, bad things come from a miscommunicated messages and information that can’t be decoded, on the whole that may be true, but if the communication process continues and both parties persevere, sometimes something extra comes, something more than just the intended message.

My art is looking at communication interference and how things get lost in translation, but if approached differently, something new can emerge, maybe even better.

The works are derived from digital video files of popular television shows that can’t be read by my computer- the video codec required to decode the file is different from what my codec pack has, consequently the television show is unwatchable in its intended form. Initially a frustrating experience and like buying dill with the incorrect pronunciation, apparently fruitless. Then I noticed that although the files didn’t play as intended and the original message was corrupted, the file still existed in its entirety; a barrage of colour, line and shape, flashing in synch to the embedded images within. I watched and then, like a hip hop artist started sampling the data, choosing snippets that spoke to me.

The works consist of 2 images, one is a painting of the selected digital image, the other the original digital image with a charcoal drawing of a character from the television show superimposed over the top and manipulated.

They are the manifestation of communication breakdown and what can be found by looking through the interference and experiencing something else.