Author: Milena Spelta Parenti

Are we going “Virtual”?

The great success of art events like Infinity Mirror by Yayoi Kusama and Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit touring in the USA, just to name two of them, is recording huge number of visitors.

Unburdened by the traditional exhibition model of borrowing original works of art and relying on latest technology, immersive art events are sprouting everywhere: from Europe to Japan, from the USA to Dubai.

Immersive art provides the opportunity for the public to experience art as more than simply looking.

It’s an experience that is interactive and can bring a whole new dimension to the way a piece or installation is appreciated,

Why is immersive art popular?

New approach to art which prompts the viewer to go beyond the brush-stroke and penetrate the essence of the work of art.

A superficial, instagram-able theme park experience.

What do you think?

“Anything that brings people to the fine arts is worthwhile,” says Steven Naifeh, curator and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Van Gogh: The Life. “But at the same time, I think of it like music. As nice as listening to a recording can be, it would be terribly sad to never see a live performance.”

Immersive art provides the opportunity for the public to experience art as more than simply looking.

It’s an experience that is interactive and can bring a whole new dimension to the way a piece or installation is appreciated.

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms Extended to June 2023

Due to overwhelming public demand, Tate Modern today announces a one-year-extension of Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms.

One of the most celebrated artists working today, the exhibition features two of Yayoi Kusama’s major installations alongside fascinating early documentation of her experimental performances and a recent sculptural work continuing her interest in infinite space.

The show will now run until 11 June 2023.

Head here to learn more.

The Largest Van Gogh Exhibit in the World now open at Pier 36 NYC

The ORIGINAL Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is thrilled to announce the once-in-a-lifetime exhibit will be located at Pier 36 NYC, a 75,000 square foot waterfront space located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side with spectacular views of the East River with the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges.

To help reimagine this massive venue, Immersive Van Gogh has joined forces with Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated designer David Korins, known for his set design of countless Broadway hits including Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen.

Get a sneak-peak of the exhibit here: https://www.vangoghnyc.com/

Immersive Van Gogh was created by the world-renowned master of digital art, Italy’s Massimiliano Siccardi, who for 30 years has been pioneering immersive exhibitions in Europe.

His magnificent installations have been seen by over two million visitors in Paris and featured on the Netflix hit TV series Emily in Paris.

With the help of 60,600 frames of video, 90,000,000 pixels, and 500,000+ cubic feet of projections, this captivating digital art exhibit merges state-of-the-art technology, theatrical storytelling, and world-class animation.

It gives guests the rare opportunity to “step inside” and experience the incredible post-Impressionist works of Van Gogh like never before.

If you wish to understand Immersive Art deeper, I’m sharing to you these resources:

Are you an culture and art enthusiast too? Let’s get connected!

Tags exhibitions, immersive art, Van Gogh, Yayoi Kusama

Books

Leadership and Self-deception

Post author By Milena Spelta Parenti
Post date March 16, 2022
No Comments on Leadership and Self-deception

Milena has been reading books since forever.

She is always looking for answers and have found some of them by reading what others were thinking.

She indicates, “Smarter minds will let me understand, have a wider perspective, and go deeper into things.”

Often, She happens to end a book with even more questions and doubts. She is fed with good food for thoughts, thus makes her crave for more answers.

Perhaps, this is the ultimate goal.

There is so much focus on Leadership in the last years, and so does for Milena as an individual.

If you belong to the funny Club of the Go-Deepers, we are dedicating a blog post for an interesting book about Leadership read by Milena.

Also, we are noting a few resources which will impact on how we see leadership – a exciting and meaningful dimension to explore.

Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box

You can check some sample pages here.

For the Italian Readers, here’s a small abstract.

The Role of Self-Deception in Leadership Ineffectiveness — a Theoretical Overview

First Published on March 1, 2009 as a Research Article in Sage Journals.

Abstract

The impact of effective leadership practices on various components of organisational success is a well-researched area in the domain of leadership and management. There is, however, little research available that focuses on those aspects that constitute leadership ineffectiveness and that, in turn, contribute to organisational failure. A literature review was conducted, identifying those behaviours that are responsible for leadership ineffectiveness. A fairly large amount of the literature consulted appears to suggest that the character of a leader; the ability to manage one’s own emotions; and difficulty in effectively managing interpersonal relationships may be some of the major aspects impacting negatively on the effectiveness of a leader. In this article I raise a topic in leadership research previously neglected by researchers in that I explore and illustrate how self-deception could be regarded as one of the primary reasons contributing to leadership ineffectiveness. The implication for leaders, organizations and those responsible for the development of leaders is also discussed, while areas for future research are indicated.

Identity, Self-Awareness, and Self-Deception: Ethical Implications for Leaders and Organizations

Abstract

The ability of leaders to be perceived as trustworthy and to develop authentic and effective relationships is largely a function of their personal identities and their self-awareness in understanding and making accommodations for their weaknesses. The research about self-deception confirms that we often practice denial regarding our identities without being fully aware of the ethical duties that we owe to ourselves and to others. This article offers insights about the nature of identity and self-awareness, specifically examining how self-deception can create barriers to self-awareness within both a personal and a business context.

References: Arbinger Institute: 2000, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, CA).

Want to know more resources about Leadership?

Let's connect!

Tags books, bookworm, leadership, self-deception, self-improvement

Arts Culture

Digital Valentine?

The Belvedere in Vienna is launching a completely new #NFT drop of a historical masterpiece. Just in time for #Valentine’s Day, the most famous depiction of a loving couple will be offered for sale in a limited number of digital excerpts.

Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ (Lovers) is one of the world’s most famous works of art and the centerpiece of Belvedere’s collection will be specially transformed into an NFT project. A high-resolution digital copy will be divided into a 100 x 100 grid, resulting in 10,000 inimitable individual pieces that will be offered as NFTs. Each NFT costs about €1.850 and has the number and other distinctive coordinates imprinted on it.

The whitelisting phase started on January 26th and is still ongoing. All willing to own the outstanding tokens will be able to participate in the minting starting from February 10th up to the public sale on February 14th.

The drop is going to take place on the specially created platform, where the picture can be viewed in its entirety. In addition to purchasing the NFT, buyers can register as owners of their pieces. This entry can also serve as a declaration of love – just in time for Valentine’s Day. Each holder can add his personal dedication of love to the NFT via the platform. These dedications can be seen on the platform starting February 14th.

ArtèQ founder Farbod Sadeghian also revealed the collective’s plans to further bridge the gap between traditional art and NFTs through a metaverse gallery: “We look forward to the creation of our own metaverse gallery, metaQ, where the users will be able to view and purchase a range of fine art NFTs.”

https://thekiss.art/

Own a unique NFT of The Kiss!

This NFT drop goes beyond taking the chance to own a fraction of the digitalized image of The Kiss. It is about creating a personal connection to the masterpiece. Becoming part of a community that will be written in the pages of the history of art and viewed as a pioneer in the metaverse.

The exclusive drop is limited to 10.000 pieces and each one is a unique part of the high-resolution image of The Kiss.

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Tags Digital, Gustav, NFT, valentine

Culture Languages Translations

Happiness: An Analyses of the Term in Different Languages

Post author By Milena Spelta Parenti
Post date August 9, 2021
No Comments on Happiness: An Analyses of the Term in Different Languages

Happiness: an analyses of the term in different languages

The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following definitions:

In English:

In a way, happiness (and its antonymous term – unhappiness) are related to the verb to happen, linking them with favourable or unfavourable events taking place outside of us, our state of mind dependent on external factors. In Old English you would wish “good luck” by saying “good hap”.

In Latin, Felicitas means fortune, luck, or more rarely, destiny. (Minois, 2009)

In German, Glück means both happiness and fortune. While its antonym, Unglück, is the state of being sad, unhappy and also means disgrace.

In French we have bonheur and malheur, which follow an identical pattern.

Are we right? Are we sure that happiness comes from what happens to us?
Maybe it’s just a culturally rooted point of view.

What about in Africa? Could African culture give the West a much more interesting perspective?

For instance, the Fante speakers of Ghana describe happiness/excitement literally as “eye-get” (“anigye”) and joy/contentment as “eye-agree/reach” (“anika”), in contrast with shame as “eye-die” (“aniwu”) and guilty as “eye-put” (“anyito” in Dzokoto & Okazaki, 2006)

Suhipelli in Dagbani language (Ghana) can be translated as White heart.

Both languages suggest that Happiness is moving from inside the individual, towards the outside, so it depends on us.

Maybe we should take this possibility into consideration.

Curious to know more?

“Although many theories about the structure of emotion have been developed, none of them seem to adequately explain the African experience. This study examined the folk emotion lexica of two indigenous West African languages. Fifty monolingual Fante speakers and 50 monolingual Dagbani speakers from rural and semirural Ghana participated in focus groups to generate words in their native language that they use to describe experiences that involve emotions. Qualitative analysis of the emotion lexica generated by the focus group participants revealed frequent somatic referencing in the emotion talk of Fante and Dagbani, although there were differences in the specific body parts mentioned in references to various emotional experiences. The ubiquity of somatic referents in the expression of African emotions suggests that future theories of emotion structure may need to incorporate the concept of embodiment.”

“Happiness in the Eye and the Heart: Somatic Referencing in West African Emotion Lexica”, Vivian Afi Dzokoto, Sumie Okazaki, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0095798406286799

“Several programs of empirical research have also revealed cultural variations in the connotation of happiness. For instance, Lu and Gilmour (2004) found that Americans tend to associate excitement and success with happiness, whereas the Chinese tend to associate peace and calm with happiness. Similarly, Jeanne Tsai and her colleagues found that Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese value low-arousal positive affect such as calmness, whereas Americans typically value high-arousal positive affect such as excitement

(Tsai, Knutson, & Fung, 2006). Interestingly, Taiwanese children’s books depicted a mild smile more often than a wide smile, whereas American children’s books depicted a wide smile more often than a mild smile (Tsai, Louie, Chen, & Uchida, 2007). Similarly, Christian texts often use high arousal positive emotions, whereas Buddhist texts often use low arousal positive emotions (Tsai, Miao, & Seppala, 2007).

Given that American concepts of happiness center on achieving of one’s goals, it makes sense that the resulting emotions are excitement and pride.

In contrast, given that Chinese conceptions of happiness center on luck, the resulting emotional state might not be excitement but rather akin to gratitude and satisfaction”

By Shigehiro Oishi, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia

https://nobascholar.com/chapters/46/download.pdf

How do you express happiness and luck in your language?

Do you differentiate between the two?

Let us know your thoughts.

If you wish to go deeper on Africa:

Cultural Models of Well-Being Implicit in Four Ghanaian Languages

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01798/full

Folk emotion concepts: Lexicalization of emotional experiences across languages and cultures

By Anna Ogarkova

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anna-Ogarkova-3/publication/313528499_Folk_emotion_concepts_Lexicalization_of_emotional_experiences_across_languages_and_cultures1/links/59dfc4710f7e9bc51256aea9/Folk-emotion-concepts-Lexicalization-of-emotional-experiences-across-languages-and-cultures1.pdf

Happiness in the Eye and the Heart: Somatic Referencing in West African Emotion Lexica

Vivian Afi Dzokoto, Sumie Okazaki

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0095798406286799

Tags african culture, chinese culture, different languages, meaning of happiness, western african culture

Literature Quality

Quality Part II: “Es kann immer besser werden”

Post author By Milena Spelta Parenti
Post date June 22, 2021
No Comments on Quality Part II: “Es kann immer besser werden”

or "It can always be better".

This is a brief summary with personal insights about an enlightning book "Humble Inquiry" by Edgard H. Schein.

The trickiest thing about our “errors” is that they are hard to detect, otherwise we would not make them in the first place.

On the other hand, we are inclined to see mistakes made by others.

This assumption is, in my opinion, a great starting point if we aim at improving our team’s work. It is an incredible tool.

Quality improvement in a company (or any organization) starts by isolating weak points, what we commonly call “errors”.

First things first, it is crucial to detect every single mistake, false step, or underperformance. Second step is of course, to search for a solution, or at least an improvement.

Easy as it sounds, we cannot forget that this is not automatic: it cannot be imposed from above (the management), rather it has to be built one brick at a time, through daily practice and it can happen only thanks to open and frank communication. It’s a collective action, involving all stakeholders.

We are often too focused on the result, on implementing strategic choices, following market trends and neglect to improve communication inside our organisation.

Communication is like the oil inside the cylinders of an engine. If it’s lacking or low quality, our engine sooner or later will stop working smoothly.

How can we create and nourish communication?

Through what E. Schein calls “humble inquiry” i.e. asking questions with open mind and sincere interest in the answer.

In Western society, we prefer to assert (“to tell”) rather than ask (“inquire”), because asking is felt as sign of ignorance and inferiority. When we ask questions, we temporarily transfer our power to the other, we make ourselves vulnerable as it implies that the other knows more than we do. We need to overcome this cultural bias, and the question shall be considered the will to go deeper, to improve.

What, when and how we ask questions – it’s all bricks building a relationship, which is, by definition a complex matter. It takes time and trust.

Maybe my personal takeaway of all, is the approach: it has to be transparent, respectful and sincere, if we wish to have clear communication, we need to build reciprocal trust and we do it by temporarily abdicating to the power of assertion.

Instead of you and me, it is advisable to go for a “we”. This shift in perspective will bring a joint solution to a problem.

In his book, Schein gives a beautiful example.

Colleagues are like runners in a relay race.

Each runner has to do their best, but also needs to think about the next team member “how shall I pass the baton?”, “Is my team mate left or right handed?”. I do depend on them for the final result of the race, the same way they depend on my performance. This is a clear metaphor standing for: “how can I facilitate the next step?”.

Now let me share a personal example: when I talk to our CAT Tool specialist to solve an issue. His activities are outside my field of competence. I ask questions, yet I still don’t always understand the answer. So, before answering my questions, maybe he shall try to understand what I really want to know, as sometimes I am not asking the right questions. On the other hand, I need to understand the essence of his “geek” language and see how I can find the right information. We need to put together different aspects, maybe client’s request, the choice for the best technical tool for the specific case, as well all the needs of a linguist, for instance.

Our industry joins different cultures by definition and we need to find a common tongue to reach the common goal. We are aware of how a virtuous workflow will impact on final result. As tasks become more complex and articulate we need to find a good solution together. The key is asking humble questions and listening with an open mind.

The success of what we do will depend on the way we pass the ‘baton’.

Would you like to ask us anything?

We're ready to listen and share some answers.

Educational Translations

Quality Part I: “Ad meliora et maiora semper”

Post author By Milena Spelta Parenti
Post date May 20, 2021
No Comments on Quality Part I: “Ad meliora et maiora semper”

Quality is an ancient topic :Code of Hammurabi

or continuous aiming at better and greater things.

Among the many meanings of the word “quality”, two are of critical importance to managing for quality:

· Quality means those features of products which meet customer needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction.

· Quality means freedom from deficiencies / freedom from errors that require doing work over again (rework) or that result field failures, customer dissatisfaction, customer claims and so on.

Quality is an ancient topic.

In the beginning, Quality Control focused on “after the fact” – The Code of Hammurabi (c. 2000 B.C.) prescribed the death penalty for any builder of a house that later collapsed and killed the owner. So laws were enacted for punishing those whose poor quality caused damages.

This approach proved limited with the growth in science and technology. Therefore, over time, a trend for Quality Regulation “before the fact” emerged, to become preventive in nature.

It is clear that – now more than ever before – quality has come to take center stage. It is crucial for products reaching consumers to guarantee their safety and general satisfaction.

If you feel like going deep into Code of Hammurabi, make sure you don’t miss this source shared by Wikipedia.

The translation industry plays its role in the process and must comply with the latest quality requirements; thus it is also regulated by International Standards (ISO EN Norms, for instance) in the same way products are.

The nature of translation itself as a nonmaterial good (intangible product according to ISO EN 17100), makes Quality management a subtler topic if compared to measurable features of a material object. It is not possible to perform a chemical analyses or a lab test to check for objective failures.

So how do we strive towards Quality?
What are our tools to ensure it?

Quality
Assurance

&

Quality
Control

LSCs working in our industry are well aware that QA Check is a powerful tool evaluating the performance of a specific project and implementing necessary corrections. It can be embedded in the CAT Tools or used as a further stand-alone step. It provides for quality assurance by pointing out errors and warnings from terminology, spelling, inconsistencies to missing localization standards.

Yet quality control in a broader sense aims at ‘continual improvement’. This term connotes the ongoing nature of strategy and its main purpose is to verify that control is being attained and maintained.

Every single step of the process shall aim at quality.

Clear communication between client and LSC is crucial to successfully carry out the tasks on a specific translation project, and also to maintain and improve the quality on future projects through the virtuous habit of using a feedback loop. Systematic planning for quality control, with extensive participation of all stakeholders is the key: Quality is the result of interactive cooperation between the client and the provider of translation.

While the 20^th Century has been the ‘century of productivity’, the 21^st Century will be known as the ‘Century of Quality’
[Juran J.M.- 1989].

Want to discover more of
Quality Assurance?

Let us take you deeper into it.

Tags QA, Quality, Quality Assurance, Quality Control, Translation Quality, Translations