Glossary entry (derived from question below)
Spanish term or phrase:
de lo infraordinario y el gusto en evidenciarlo
English translation:
from the infra-ordinary and the pleasure of revealing it
Added to glossary by
teju
Apr 15, 2013 16:24
11 yrs ago
Spanish term
de lo infraordinario y el gusto en evidenciarlo
Spanish to English
Art/Literary
Art, Arts & Crafts, Painting
Photography exhibit - art
Same document as my previous question. It's an artist's statement for an art exhibit. Gracias a todos!
Mi trabajo surge de observar, a manera de curiosidad-morbo, los rituales del ser humano tanto en su individualismo como en su manera de interactuar con los demás y la forma en que este lucha o se somete, de lo infraordinario y el gusto al evidenciarlo, de reflexionar acerca de la labor del artista, me interesa explorar las posibilidades expresivas del cuerpo y las reacciones de éste ante diversas provocaciones, siento una atracción de jugar con los signos y símbolos y ver como estos tienen tanto poder sobre nosotros que los masticamos y los digerimos de una manera inevitable en nuestro entorno.
Mi trabajo surge de observar, a manera de curiosidad-morbo, los rituales del ser humano tanto en su individualismo como en su manera de interactuar con los demás y la forma en que este lucha o se somete, de lo infraordinario y el gusto al evidenciarlo, de reflexionar acerca de la labor del artista, me interesa explorar las posibilidades expresivas del cuerpo y las reacciones de éste ante diversas provocaciones, siento una atracción de jugar con los signos y símbolos y ver como estos tienen tanto poder sobre nosotros que los masticamos y los digerimos de una manera inevitable en nuestro entorno.
Proposed translations
55 mins
Selected
from the infra-ordinary and the pleasure of revealing it
"From", because this follows on from "Mi trabajo surge de...".
For "evidenciar" there are several possibilities, but I think "reveal" will do.
But yes, seriously, the infra-ordinary. This is art-speak, and it's a specific and recognised term. It is a word coined (I believe) by the idiosyncratic French writer Georges Perec:
"This blog is an attempt to document and examine the infra-ordinary. Something that is infra-ordinary is the opposite of extraordinary. It is the unremarkable day-to-day. It can be a mundane item – a spoon or hairpin. It can be a mindless task – sweeping the floor, opening a jar. While it is not newsworthy, this is what composes the bulk of our lives.
Author Georges Perec coined the phrase “infra-ordinary” in his essay “Approaches to What?” (1973):
“The daily papers talk about everything except the daily. The papers annoy me, they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn’t concern me, doesn’t ask me questions and doesn’t answer the questions I ask or would like to ask.
What’s really going on, what we’re experiencing, the rest, all the rest, where is it? How should we take account of, question, describe what happens every day and recurs every day: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual?”
http://infraordinary.com/about/
Perec later published a book called L'Infra-ordinaire (Paris: Seuil, 1989), and it has caught on quite widely in the world of art and literature. It doesn't mean the sordid or the hidden, exactly; it means the opposite of extraordinary, the mundane.
Here, for example, is a Guardian film review which uses it in relation to Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life:
"Somewhere in the middle of this sequence I realised that this may be the only American movie since 2001 brave or foolhardy enough to take on – to conflate, even – the infinite and the intimate, the cosmic and the cellular, the extraordinary and the infra-ordinary, all in Malick's habitual spirit of big-hearted, symphonic grandeur, steeped in Whitman, Emerson and Yeats."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/02/terrence-malick-t...
There are really a lot of uses of it on the Internet,
https://www.google.es/search?num=100&site=webhp&q="infra-ord...
So I think you not only can but must use it here.
I don't see any problem with using "it" to refer to it.
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Note added at 58 mins (2013-04-15 17:23:09 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Re. your comment to Robert on the construction: "la forma en que este lucha o se somete" means "the way they [human beings] struggle or submit", then there's a comma, then this bit about the infraordinario; it's a separate part of the sentence.
For "evidenciar" there are several possibilities, but I think "reveal" will do.
But yes, seriously, the infra-ordinary. This is art-speak, and it's a specific and recognised term. It is a word coined (I believe) by the idiosyncratic French writer Georges Perec:
"This blog is an attempt to document and examine the infra-ordinary. Something that is infra-ordinary is the opposite of extraordinary. It is the unremarkable day-to-day. It can be a mundane item – a spoon or hairpin. It can be a mindless task – sweeping the floor, opening a jar. While it is not newsworthy, this is what composes the bulk of our lives.
Author Georges Perec coined the phrase “infra-ordinary” in his essay “Approaches to What?” (1973):
“The daily papers talk about everything except the daily. The papers annoy me, they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn’t concern me, doesn’t ask me questions and doesn’t answer the questions I ask or would like to ask.
What’s really going on, what we’re experiencing, the rest, all the rest, where is it? How should we take account of, question, describe what happens every day and recurs every day: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual?”
http://infraordinary.com/about/
Perec later published a book called L'Infra-ordinaire (Paris: Seuil, 1989), and it has caught on quite widely in the world of art and literature. It doesn't mean the sordid or the hidden, exactly; it means the opposite of extraordinary, the mundane.
Here, for example, is a Guardian film review which uses it in relation to Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life:
"Somewhere in the middle of this sequence I realised that this may be the only American movie since 2001 brave or foolhardy enough to take on – to conflate, even – the infinite and the intimate, the cosmic and the cellular, the extraordinary and the infra-ordinary, all in Malick's habitual spirit of big-hearted, symphonic grandeur, steeped in Whitman, Emerson and Yeats."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jul/02/terrence-malick-t...
There are really a lot of uses of it on the Internet,
https://www.google.es/search?num=100&site=webhp&q="infra-ord...
So I think you not only can but must use it here.
I don't see any problem with using "it" to refer to it.
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 58 mins (2013-04-15 17:23:09 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Re. your comment to Robert on the construction: "la forma en que este lucha o se somete" means "the way they [human beings] struggle or submit", then there's a comma, then this bit about the infraordinario; it's a separate part of the sentence.
Note from asker:
| All I can say is "wow". thank you so much for your well-documented answer. Saludos Charles! |
Peer comment(s):
| neutral |
Robert Forstag
: Please see my discussion comment.
3 hrs
|
|
I've replied there; there isn't room here.
|
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "Fabulous as always, thank you Charles!"
+1
18 mins
Robert Forstag
United States
United States
Native in English
Works in field
United States
Translating words, preserving meaning
Native in: English
Works in: Spanish to English, English
Related KudoZ points
:
134
from the seemy underbelly of existence and the delight in projecting this particular side of life
A wordy translation that seems necessary given that "it" won't work as a translation of "lo" here.
Alternatives to "seemy underbelly of existence":
netherworld
underworld
hidden aspects of existence
Suerte.
Alternatives to "seemy underbelly of existence":
netherworld
underworld
hidden aspects of existence
Suerte.
Note from asker:
| What throws me off here is the odd construction: "la forma en que éste lucha o se somete de lo infraordinario". I have the freedom to edit the original Spanish, I think something needs to be done with this. Thank you for your suggestion Robert! |
Discussion
Without wishing to sound too cynical, and speaking as someone who has translated quite a lot of essays for exhibition catalogues, I am fairly sure that the readership of this sort of text is pretty limited and doesn't by any means include all those who attend the show. Usually only people really interested in this sort of stuff can be bothered to read the catalogue.
"The term 'infra-ordinary' designates an everydayness that requires a kind of quixotic or excessive attention. Perec uses neologisms like 'infra-ordinary' and 'endotic' to describe an everyday that is neither ordinary nor extraordinary, neither banal nor exotic. [...] Perec's task then is to foreground what is continually missed when traditional notions of significance are applied"
http://tinyurl.com/braarqx
Whether we think these distinctions are nonsense is irrelevant; this is what the artist in invoking, and we have to express it.
2. I presume the intended readership consists mainly of people who frequent art exhibitions and read catalogues, and do not require a footnote to the title of "The Poetics of the Infra-Ordinary" by Elvira Dyangani Ose of the Tate Modern, for example. Art essays use terms like this all the time.
1.)
There is already a common English word that means the opposite of "extraordinary." That would be "ordinary." "Infra-ordinary" therefore intuitively suggests something dark, sinister, and forbidding. Hence my (admittedly uninformed) suggestion.
2.)
Accepting for the sake of argument that "infra-ordinary" is a widely accepted term in certain art circles, there remains the more fundamental question of whether the intended readership of the material here will readily understand the term without explanation (given that a lengthy footnote citing multiple sources doesn't seem to be an option here). If so, then "infra-ordinary" may be a viable translation here. If not, then not.