Translate and describe: archive-based image description as an intermedial translation technique

Abstract

Archive-based image description is examined as intermedial translation technique, and similarities to interlingual translation are considered here. Inside the archive, description exists as stand-in for the unseen photograph and the two media must perform common roles. A visual content-based description, applying restricted institutional language and record-keeping methodologies, is well-placed to provide a “word for word” translation of the technical image, as it catalogues visual elements and spatial relationships between them, always within systems of shared knowledge and language. It can be compared to the direct and literal translation of texts between languages, where analysis of meaning is not required. Description performs a non-hermeneutical translation of image to text that is routine in the archive and consistent with current critique around photographic practices; yet the description itself appears radical when transported out of the archive. An argument is made for the elevation and the autonomy of description, or “secondary” text. In line with this, my own set-piece description of a news image is included as an example of practice-oriented knowledge production and a vehicle for metatranslational discussion.

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ORCID for Jane Birkin: orcid.org/0000-0002-6025-9300

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