ART*ificial intelligence…

… is a term I originally coined for fun. But then I realised that translating art texts really does involve a special combination of intelligences!

One is linguistic intelligence, or the ability to understand and interpret texts, craft meaningful writing, and ultimately engage in storytelling. Because to me, art tells a story, and the accompanying text reveals how the writer experienced that story. So, translating is about weaving together all those different levels of meaning and experience.

Another is emotional intelligence, or the capacity to sense and interpret emotional cues, moods and tensions in both art and texts. Emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with interpersonal intelligence, or the ability to ‘feel’ your way into the artist’s and writer’s mind, understand their intentions and carry them across in the translation.

Unlike regular AI…

… as a human, I have the capacity to ‘feel’ my way into an artwork and its accompanying text and truly grasp their meaning. I explore their themes and  bring the interplay between them to life in my translation.

Art translations are about the uniqueness of artworks, texts and the people behind them. The depth of understanding required to craft them lies beyond the reach of regular AI.