Adam Thirlwell explores translation through Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's DICTEE and Samuel Beckett

Adam Thirlwell examines translation as a conceptual tool for both writing and art, focusing on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's 1982 experimental work DICTEE. This hybrid text-artwork explores gender, colonial war, and subjugation through multilingual operations across French, English, Korean, and Chinese. Cha's life experience—born in South Korea during the Korean War, moving to America at twelve, and becoming fluent in French—informs her approach to language as contingent and sometimes violently imposed. DICTEE's structure oscillates between languages, using dictation exercises and mirrored sequences that create uncertain translation states. Thirlwell contrasts translation's traditional role of revealing universal meaning with Cha's emphasis on specific, opaque meaning-making. He references philosopher W.V.O. Quine's mid-twentieth century thought experiment about linguistic interpretation and Samuel Beckett's compact translation of an eighteenth-century Nicolas Chamfort aphorism. Cha, who also created performances and videos, was murdered at age thirty-one. Thirlwell's analysis positions translation as a practice that simultaneously reveals and bridges communicative gaps.