Streaming, Meme-ing, Intervening in Meaning: Cultural Translation and the Transformation of Global Popular Culture Through the Creative Use of Online Participatory Technologies
Led by Dr Sarah Maitland (Director of Translation Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London and member of the CCL) and Dr Gan Sheuo Hui (Puttnam School of Film and Animation at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore), Streaming, Meme-ing, Intervening in Meaning is an international multidisciplinary cultural translation research network. Supported by the Goldsmiths-LASALLE Partnership Innovation Fund (PIF), the two-year project will deliver a programme of research workshops, public roundtables and knowledge exchange events aimed at investigating how global audiences are transforming popular culture content produced in other cultural and linguistic contexts through their creative use of online participatory technologies (including video-sharing platforms, static and animated image macro generators, video editing software and livestreaming services).
There is a thirst for popular culture content unhindered by national and linguistic borders. To engage in meaningful encounters with manifestations of culture produced outside their own locality, global audiences have turned to a range of freely-available online technologies to not only bridge the various divides that separate them from accessing the material successfully, but also to create pathways for others to share in the content alongside them. Cultural translation research suggests that in the passage from one audience to another, and from one cultural and linguistic context to another, original content is both translated interlingually and transformed creatively by the new audience it secures, facilitating more inclusive participation in global culture and opening up new ways of conceiving of original works and their meanings in the world. By charting creative interventions in the global dissemination of popular culture, this project will establish the foundations for better understanding the role of online technology as a tool of participation and promoter of transformative and inclusive experiences with global popular culture.
As part of the project, a newly-established international cultural research project has been launched, comprising researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London; LASALLE College of the Arts; Kanto Gakuin University; and Soka University.
Sarah is Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at the Department of English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she leads the MA in Translation and PhD programmes in Translation and Translation by Practice. Dr Gan Sheuo Hui is a lecturer at Puttnam School of Film and Animation, LASALLE College of the Arts, where she teaches contextual studies in animation and screen studies.
