ABOUT
SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION

2. background

This first hour-long concert was presented to a live audience at the Auditorio Colegio Mayor Juan Luis Vives of the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid, Spain on December 17, 2004. The performance began In Madrid with readings led on-stage by the artist Miguel Ramos. Three themes ran through these spoken texts: language, time and distance. The performance was divided into three 20 minute movements, one for each theme. The spoken text was sent out over the internet as streaming mp3 data. Participants in Italy, the US and Germany listened to the stream, manipulated it in a variety of ways and sent the altered version back to Madrid. The participants followed a score which indicated at what times they should start and stop their streams in the three movements during the performance.

Click the image to see the
graphic score.

The streams that arrived back in Madrid were mixed by an on-stage mixing team, but also by special Sim-Trans software developed by Willy Whip of Nantes, France. (see Software section) The shape of the final piece was determined partly by human intentionality (the sensibility of the remote sound artists and the on-stage mixing team) and partly by a machine (the Sim-Trans software) which acts outside of the control or desires of the participants. So, it is like a language which evolves through the nurturing of its host culture but cannot escape unpredictable outside influences such as time, migration, education, poverty, affluence, popular culture, high culture, media, etc.

The shape of Simultaneous Translation
was influenced by the comparison
of three forms of diagramming.

1. Language maps

2. Diagrams drawn to show
the relationship of the participants
and the host site in Madrid

3. Maps of data from the internet.
Traceroute maps, ISP maps,
backbone maps, etc.