[RWET week 4] Native speaker

Assignment #3
The digital cut-up. Create a notebook program that reads in two or more texts and stores portions of them in Python data structures. The program should create textual output that creatively rearranges the contents of the text. Use functions from the random module as appropriate. You must use lists and dictionaries as part of your procedure. Choose one text that you created with your program to present in class.

In the past few weeks, I have been specially aware of the process of translating my thoughts from Brazilian Portuguese to English. Many of my class notes are written in mixed language, for it is not rare for me to break my flow of thoughts while writing something in one language and only knowing how to continue in the other — usually being it for not knowing ordinary words in English, or technical words in Portuguese.

A few notes that I found in my notebook:
“desktop performance, altas calculadoras, rs”
“Magic Circle – Johan Huizinga (Homo Ludens): o espaço de diferenciação entre as normas do “mundo real” e das normas do espaço virtual de jogo. (magic circle as this chalk line that changes a space within a space)”
“how does ritual-based communities migrate? (ex: quando Farmville perde popularidade)”
“as ações do farmville parecem muito com o tipo de interação/reward que fazemos no instagram”
“RHYTHM: beat, tempo (speed), subdivisions (agrupando batidas, normalmente em 2/3/4 – compasso/bar/measure), accent (nota mais forte, normalmente a primeira do compasso), syncopation (shifting the accent in the measure), cross-rhythm (juxtaposition)”

In a day in which the awareness of my internal translations was very intense, I made a 20 min voice recording talking about this process in mixed language, and my first intent with this assignment was to transcript and translate the whole text to both Brazilian and English, and mix them by choosing the language randomly for each word. But, in my first tests with the code, before stating the transcription, I thought that the program wouldn’t be very dynamic, because the output wouldn’t have many possibilities of juxtaposition different than what was already in the initial text.

After trying a few things with a text that was a bit longer, I realized that eventually the words would stop matching their correspondent in the other language, possibly creating more surprising outputs. I then decided to use a poem about the tensions between bodies, spaces, physicality and virtuality, and translate it into four different languages that I have some level of knowledge. The program then sorts between the languages in a proportion similar to what I believe to be my knowledge of those languages. Having Portuguese as the base to it’s shape, the phrases usually start relatively similar to the initial structure, and then the text gets messier and messier until the end.

Here is a selected output:

O que body corpo what qu'est-ce que é presença aujourd'hui? Encounter today? Se encontro hoje? 
 
 Seu exist. A pas. 
 Um corpo que appartient exist. existe. 
 Ruled body does não existe. 
 Não há no kingdom over corpo, os the bodies 
 
 é It sim, possible, o curso de de corpo, 
       of 
       desmerecer, 
       d'un corps, 
       corpo, 
       compel 
       contraindre 
       body, corps, incarcerate, 
       esmagar, 
       faire 
       extinguir a body, 
       mas bone, controlar. 
 
 É preciso escolher mover. Control. One mais vil to move. É sempre the escolher mover. 
 one always 
 
 pela to pelo choisir de And they abrigo, by bougent. By fatigue, by tempo by shelter, ou que par 
 
 a terre, do olhar the moment ação have created, decisão that não created. Ou agir of outros sentidos, 
 e est is the decision 
 e tantas, 
 e tão rápidas, 
 e un são sens, again 
 e tão and 
 so já engolem tudo fast, and podem, 
 e já não and mais all, para a decisão, 
 everything já não há a tempo para o time 
 for the decision, há there tempo para a time 
 e já present, et there is algum, 
 e time temps 
 
 
 um respiro. 
 
 
 And memória expande no espaço plus o tempo dilata, a une se torna into som e space, da expands, forma, somos imagem, som, e sentido. Son excluir same de we même image, sound, and meaning. Lembrar, editar exclude que erase what corpos do que estes to percebam. 
 
 Edit what happened, encontro bodies without sabe-se s'est noticing. Tudo. 
 
 A definitions are updated. Little is de Les que disparam the réunion espaço compartilhado. Ainda packets os corpos that shoot ubiquitous decidindo la shared space. Por si. 
 
 Exist, estamos: criaturas habitantes to qui sont omniprésents move número. 
 
 Themselves. Here vivo.

Link to the program.

I really enjoy reading those and seeing where my brain goes when there’s a word that could be in many or even all of those languages. Each reading has different meanings depending on my accent saying the words, and I sometimes I don’t even know what a few of those words mean at all. I wonder what would come out if someone that has no reference to those languages read it.