“Translation,” a digital artwork by Professor and Chair of Literary Arts John Cayley, is currently featured in “Mapping Multilingualism,” a virtual exhibit created by the Center for Language Studies at Brown.  “Translation” is a  work of ambient time-based poetics that makes use of short textual extracts from Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘On Language as Such and on the Language of Man,’ and passages from Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way.  The passages transliterate and shift, surfacing, floating or sinking and shifting from time to time to appear in German, English, or French.  The music for the piece was developed in collaboration with Giles Perring, with base alphabets sung by Melanie Pappenheim.

 “Mapping Multilingualism” features artwork that “considers how language and culture influences physical, social and political landscapes.”  The rolling exhibit will include original artwork by Brown students, staff, and faculty.