Archive or Anarchive ? — Cyberschnaps °

I was invited to talk for the collective translation project Translating the impossible, which began at CIRA at the start of the summer in 2024. We were discussing translation as a social space, myself alongside Giada Olivotto (Bambine, Sonnenstube).

Here is the official text:
Translating the Impossible is a collective translation project that will produce the first French translation of an introduction to anarchism by Peter Marshall. Here, the text becomes a pretext for reflecting together on the issues arising from the act of translating, and on the questions raised by contemporary libertarian thought and practice. Translation will be produced around a series of public events bringing together professional∙le∙s and amateur translators, artists, activists∙e∙s and editors.

Giada Olivotto, Bambine

Bambine is a festival, a residency, a small community of people that grows from year to year with the intention of opening a self-managed discussion space in Lugano under the direction of Ticino author Alice Ceresa. The festival features collective translation sessions, readings, workshops, exhibitions, parties and dances, academic panels and film screenings.

Giada Olivotto (Locarno, 1990), curator and doctoral student at ZHDK Zurich, lives and works in Lugano. Giada is an independent curator, her research oscillating between the investigation of community phenomena and feminist collectives. Since 2017, Giada is co-director of the offspace Sonnenstube in Lugano and founder of the webradio Canale Milva with Camilla Paolino. Giada is also the founder of Fervida, a new production and workshop space in Lugano.

Lucien Langton, Archive or anarchive? Permanent collective translation as living memory

What are the links between free software, anarchist organizations and international collaborative translation? Drawing on current examples of digital commons and collaborative translation, the links between Creative Commons, self-management and decolonialism will be explored from practical, ethical and technical angles. Balancing collective generosity and individual freedom, we'll look at how to articulate these practices in a coordinated, open and inclusive way, without favoring a prescriptive approach.

Here is the link to the presentation:

https://www.figma.com/design/WCIXcYaLZMO3XtwioX3j4z/Demanding-the-impossible?node-id=0-1&t=0VVOwJhSdYhts17m-1

Closing thoughts:
“You never change anything by fighting the existing. Instead, form a new model and make the existing obsolete.”
— Buckminster Fuller

Anarchism also has an obsession with the past, and perhaps lacks any projection into the future: how does life look like after the revolution? In this sense, commoning is an imperfect nevertheless projective way to move towards a desirable future, bound between current compromises and the promise everything can change.