Translation as an Act of Freedom

Vilém Flusser’s Philosophy of Translation

Introduction

New words to learn

domains -   a sphere of activity, influence, or knowledge

abysmal -   very bad

 oeuvre   -   the complete works of a writer, painter, or other artist

 negation -   to cause something to have no effect

cognitive -   connected with thinking or conscious mental processes

This essay takes as starting point Flusser’s early writings about language and translation.

Language is reflected through

existentialism (a system of ideas made famous by Jean Paul Sartre in the 1940s in which the world has no meaning and each person is alone and completely responsible for their own actions, by which they make their own character),

logical symbolism (a type of art and literature developed in the late 19^th century that tries to express ideas or states of mind rather than represent the realworld, using the power of words and images), the philosophy of language and

phenome-nology (the study of phenomena (= things that exist and can be seen, felt, tasted, etc.) and how we experience them).  

It becomes thereby itself an object of vertical translations (a vertical translation is a translation of a geometric object in a direction parallel to the 
vertical axis) into

different knowledge domains (a sphere of activity, influence, or knowledge).

However, the crucial question related to translation into another language is how linguistic utterances (something that someone says), embedded in different grammatical structures, can be successfully communicated. This leads Flusser to the problem of translation and lastly to the question of freedom. His theory of translation arises from an existentialist view on his immediate surroundings – in the sense of Or-tegas’ ‘circumstances’ – which is brought up only through language. It echoes his own experience that he describes as abysmal (very bad) or ‘groundless’ (bodenlos).

The expression ‘groundlessness’ characterizes his whole oeuvre (the complete works of a writer, painter, or other artist) and it is, besides, the title of his autobiographical book Bodenlos. In an existential way, it attests (to show something or to say or prove that something is true) exactly what it expresses: to be without ground under the feet, that is, to have no livelihood and support. It is the negation (to cause something to have no effect) of an existence, the ‘being thrown’ (Geworfensein) into new contexts.

According to Flusser, it denotes (to represent something) the breakdown of civilization that happened with Auschwitz. Thereby new perspectives are unfolded. Habits are put aside; groundlessness turns into freedom, which gets a positive frame through Heidegger’s concept. (Heidegger 2006: 178)

Exile (the condition of someone being sent or kept away from their own country) becomes the condition of the possibility for writing in four languages. In terms of communication theory, migration and exile stand for a situation of new information while redundancy prevails at home. In Brazil, Flusser discovers through the contact with artists, such as Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Guimarães Rosa, the poetry and force of imagination of the Portuguese language announcing a new start and a chance for self-fulfillment. Groundlessness as practical and cognitive (connected with thinking or conscious mental processes) experience is tied to the religious field without being restricted to any special kind of faith or religion. Moreover, it is related to an abyss ( a very deep hole that seems to have no bottom) as in Camus’ (Albert Camus (French: [albɛʁ kamy]; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed tothe rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essayThe Rebel that his whole life was devoted 
to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He

won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957) notion of the ‘absurd’. Translation is therefore interpreted as a jump over the abyss of nothingness, in which language comes to silence while being in prayer with the divine.

Flusser’s Brazilian engagement has to be understood in terms of this notion (a belief or idea). As Camus notes in Le Mythe de Sisyphe the ‘absurd man’ never gives up and his efforts do not cease despite of the barriers man challenges. Cf. Albert Camus, Der Mythos des Sisyphos, p. 145 (ist ein philosophischer Essay von Albert Camus aus dem Jahr 1942, erschienen bei Gallimard in Paris. Die erste deutsche Übersetzung aus dem Jahr 1950 trägt den Titel Der Mythos von Sisyphos. Ein Versuch über das Absurde)

The abyss is also emblematic for Flusser’s ambition to translate and retranslate his texts in search of comprehension on both sides of the Atlantic.