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Güggle Translator

Medium - Augmented Reality

Size/Duration - Interactive

When I began researching what kind of topics I would like to explore for this project, the first thing that came to mind was the idea of technology not working how it’s supposed to. I began researching AR and VR projects where technology did not act as intended. There were many artistic examples of static and other types of electronic noise affecting how the world is viewed around us. The application that interested me the most however was the integration of image recognition into the google translation service. The software observes what is in front of it, whether it be a sign, a menu, or a business card. It then overlays the translation into your preferred language right on top of the existing image. This technology is very handy if you are in another country or even going to a foreign restaurant. The application itself however is not perfect. It often loses track of the text, mistranslates, or gives up completely trying to figure it out, so many times you may be relying on this piece of equipment to help you in your day to day life to no avail. This made me wonder how distressed and confused you could be when attempting to translate something in the moment. At points the program could look like complete gibberish when it is having a hard time translating the information at hand.

For the first project I want to explore how it would look if someone wanted to read a piece of information and all that they could see is a mess of letters that could vaguely resemble words in their language. The translated writing would be treated like a cypher where the letters visible are equivalent to the correct letters in some way. This way there is still a possibility of someone translating the text into a readable state but it is long winded and confusing. The exact opposite of how this technology is meant to be so useful to us. The viewer should be disoriented when viewing the work and questioning whether or not things are working how they are supposed to.