Budget rationale

We have been granted a Rockefeller-funded artist residency to implement the initial prototype of the Translation Map at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, Arts Technology Center in July 2002. Although these funds will allow us to complete the software prototype, we would like to extend the prototype and, furthermore, design and implement a gallery-specific installation of the work.

This project, the Translation Map, visualizes and reconfigures the task of the translator from an isolated, independent exercise into a collaborative work collectively achieved through a heterogeneous mix of people and machines. The architecture of the system will allow interested parties to participate through many different Internet means including the web, email, instant messaging, shared file systems (e.g., Gnutella), newsgroups, and so forth. Moreover the protocol we have designed will also allow paper-based participation where the means of message movement/translation will be achieved by hand: through the physical transfer of documents from one person to the next in a social network. Consequently, we are designing both a software architecture and a set of hardcopy output and physical "routing routines" to allow messages to move over the Internet but also to continue to move through physical spaces beyond the boundaries of the Internet.

To install the work in a gallery or museum will involve the design of a new "gateway" to the protocol to allow visitors to upload, download and read messages in the gallery space; and, also, the design of a means to address and send messages throughout the local space of the gallery itself in addition to the existing methods we are implementing to allow messages to be routed throughout the world. We propose that a set of digital cameras connected to networked computers could be the means to both allow visitors to view and upload messages and, moreover, would give the Translation Map the ability to check to see if a message has arrived at a given location in the gallery. Each upload/download site within the gallery would require the design and installation of (1) a table with paper where visitors could write and fold messages; (2) a digital camera to allow paper-based messages to be uploaded as pictures into the network; and, also, to allow the arrival of particular paper-based messages to be noted by the software; and, (3) a computer to allow visitors to see their own messages online and in transit as well as to view and translate messages and pieces of messages moving through the network. Finally we envision one large projector to be installed in the gallery to view the ongoing translations and one high-quality printer to allow visitor's to print out messages.

Budget