+++specification on the essay+++
- 6000-8000 words by end of Dec
- This call for papers for a special issue of the Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP)
- asks: How do we integrate and practice the value of multilingualism into a more equitable and epistemically just scholarly communication and publishing system?
- issues around:
- translation (text and / or multimedia)
- English-language dominance
- multilingual theory and praxis
- epistemic justice and knowledge equity
- digital monolingualism
- infrastructure, tools, and best practices
- access and minimal computing
- language-specific writing styles and epistemologies
- historical precedents and trajectories
- experimental knowledge production
- linguistic, national, and infrastructural contexts
- Non-imperial and indigenous language epistemologies
+++

+++==abstract for publishing essay==+++

**co-authors:** Winnie Soon, Geoff Cox, Tzu-Tung Lee, Shih-yu Hsu, Chia-Lin Lee [pls add your name...]

**Title:** (needs a better title, anyone?)
- [ ] Forking (分岔) as a collective translation practice

**Description:** [feel free to edit/del/modify...] Together with a Taiwanese working group, we have been producing a Chinese translation of Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies, a free and open source book first written by Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox in 2020, and released in English in a git repository, dynamic website, downloadable PDF and printed form. Apart from learning to code in p5.js, the book addresses the cultural and aesthetic dimensions of programming from its insides, as a means to think and act critically, and to understand the importance of programming as a cultural practice that can develop discussion of issues that are relatively under-acknowledged in technical subjects such as gender, race and sexuality. Importantly, the book is understood as a computational object, not released as a fixed and universal teaching resource, but rather a situated curriculum with the potential for extension and customization with other arts and coding communities. The use of Git has allowed the authors to formalize its production as an iterative process, allowing for reversioning and for others to fork a copy and customize with different references, examples, critical reflections and even new chapters. The interest is in forking a book like forking software, and incorporating local knowledge and examples, and how this resonates with a politics of cultural translation. This essay will elaborate on the process of running two open participatory workshops that were conducted in Taipei and London (in 2023) with the aim to challenge some of the normative social relations of production associated with translation, and explore other possibilities of collective practice.

The politics of translation has been well-established in general, but what of the specifics of translating a book such as this? Aside from the technical and aesthetic challenges and implications, this raises the question of how the Chinese language model enforces particular hegemonic worldviews that occlude differences. With all the variants of Chinese language, how is this tied to expressions of colonial power that resonates with our use of English? Given the rich variations of Chinese and indigenous languages (not least in a Taiwanese context), we are curious how we might be sensitive to language diversity that challenges the Western-centrism of programming in English (and inherent nationalisms). We are also mindful of the way that "queer" politics has informed the way that terms can be appropriated/expropriated, as a means to "talk back" to the source codes of oppression. What are the implications of drawing the practices of forking and translating together?

+++

+++old conf abstract+++

Forking the book: an open invitation to translate Aesthetic Programming

Together with a Taiwanese working group, we are working on a Chinese translation of Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies, a free and open source book first written by Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox in 2020, and released in English in a git repository, dynamic website, downloadable PDF and printed form. Apart from learning to code in p5.js, the book addresses the cultural and aesthetic dimensions of programming from its insides, as a means to think and act critically, and to understand the importance of programming as a cultural practice that can develop discussion of issues that are relatively under-acknowledged in technical subjects such as gender, race and sexuality. Importantly, the book is understood as a computational object, not released as a fixed and universal teaching resource, but rather a situated curriculum with the potential for extension and customization with other arts and coding communities. The use of Git has allowed the authors to formalize its production as an iterative process, allowing for reversioning and for others to fork a copy and customize with different references, examples, critical reflections and even new chapters. The interest is in forking a book like forking software, and incorporating local knowledge and examples, and how this comes together with the politics of cultural translation. The talk elaborates on the process but also serves as an invitation to join us on this collaborative project to translate the book into Traditional Chinese with the support from Digital Art Center, Taipei. In upcoming workshops, we aim to challenge some of the normative social relations of production associated with book publishing and translation practices, and explore other possibilities.