On the Grapevine, 2005

video installation
7 monitors, 7 DVD players, 7 headphones, 7 digital videos, looped; painted wood

“Learning a language is related not only to the understanding of a sentence structure and the meaning of the words, but also to the organization of letters. Furthermore, it is also characteristic of any language that the person calling forth the words with a certain sound and rhythm designates the usage of that language. Even a person learning a new language still approaches the foreign language with his/her own linguistic melody and rhythm and this phenomenon sometimes causes misunderstanding.”

Özlem Günyol’s video installation On the Grapevine consist of the simultaneous translation of the text upon, from Turkish to German and from German to Turkish several times by seven different translators. Each translator translates the translation of the one before him/her. In this way, the text changes by using the gaps between these two languages and the perception of the translators.

Installation view; Basis, Frankfurt
photograph: Cem Yücetaş