Mudam in conversation with Franco “Bifo” Berardi
Alaa Abu Asad, Bekriah Mawasi, Malak Afouneh, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi March 22, 2021, 18:00 pm
What does transferring a text from a source language to another mean / require / entail? How important is the immersion in the original text? How does a translator leave trace? How can a conversation with the text's writer infiltrate into the translation process? Mudam Collective with Franco "Bifo" Berardi will discuss translation, reading, writing, evolving curious desires and finding pleasure in doing so collectively. The conversation will focus on Bifo's text from 2019 "Desire and Pleasure", and will be presented as part of the final stages of Mudam's experience in translating the text.
Mudam مُدام (means unstoppable rain in Arabic) is a cooperative online project. The collective translates seminal texts that discuss the interpretation of images and the photographic event into Arabic, and discusses their contemporary relevance.
Alaa Abu Asad is an artist, researcher, and photographer. His practice revolves around developing and experiencing alternative trajectories where values of (re)presentation, translation, viewing, reading, and understanding intersect.
Bekriah Mawasi is a Palestinian writer and translator. Her interdisciplinary translation and writing work stands at the intersection of linguistics, visual culture, and contemporary literature. She coordinates educational projects in the fields of digital literacy, public knowledge, information accessibility, and creative writing.
Malak Afouneh is a writer, editor, and translator from Palestine. She is currently a faculty member of the Philosophy and Cultural Studies department at Birzeit University. She has done her MA in Philosophy and Literature from Sussex University in England.
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi is a contemporary writer, media-theorist and activist, in the autonomist tradition. He founded the magazine A/traverso (1975-1981) and was part of the staff of Radio Alice, the first free pirate radio station in Italy (1976-1978). Like other intellectuals involved in the political movement of Autonomia in Italy during the 1970's, he fled to Paris, where he worked with Felix Guattari in the field of schizoanalysis. In 1994 he organised the International Conference CIBERNAUTI, with the University of Bologna, and he was the protagonist of the movie Il Trasloco (The move) with the direction of Renato De Maria.He has been a contributor to the magazines Semiotexte (New York), Chimerees (Paris), Metropoli (Rome) and Musica 80 (Milan) and Archipielago (Barcelona). He has published over 20 books including: Le ciel est enfin tombé sur la terre (Paris, 1978), Mutazione e Ciberpunk (Genoa, 1993), Cibernauti (Rome, 1994), Felix (Rome, 2001; London, 2009), Generacion Postalfa (Buenos Aires, 2007), La fabrica de la infelicidad (Roma, 2000; Madrid, 2004).
His last books include Futurability—The Age of Impotence And The Horizon of Possibility (Verso, 2017), and Breathing, Chaos and poetry.