Fire is Scary: Translations Sound and Image

Fire is Scary is a collaboration between artists Sol Enae Lee and Gordon H. Williams and musicians Agustin Faundez Rojas and Ariel Sin Yu Lee. The themes of this project are translation, the borderlands (from Gloria E. Anzaldua- the experience of living between/across cultures) and learning to live in a damaged world.

Translation figures both literally and metaphorically in our work, starting from Sol Enae Lee’s texts, which inspired the music for Fire is Scary. In our work, translation also plays a role as we move between the domains of visual art, design, music and text, as well as between our various cultural perspectives.

The research project Fire is Scary: Translations of Sound and Image is aimed at developing techniques of translation between sound and image, as an extension of Fire is Scary and as an investigation into how to share, present and transfer musical work (in particular the work that we have created together). This research will look at what is lost, distorted, and generated in the process of translation.

Accordingly the research questions for this project are ‘What is lost, distorted and generated in the translation between sound and image?’ and ‘How can the themes of translation, the borderlands, and living to live in a damaged world guide and shape the sharing, presentation and transfer of music?’

This research will be presented in a publication containing various documentation from our collective work, including Sol’s lyrics, various translations, images of translated sound, newly composed images, writings and notations.