On October 13th, ADAPT academic Dr. Joss Moorkens gave a keynote presentation at the conference Rewind Fast-Forward: Past, present and future scenarios in audiovisual translation at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The theme of this symposium was examining the impacts of human and computer interaction in translation practices. Following this, Dr Moorkens’ talk focussed on the increasing prevalence of digital platform work and Digital Taylorism that has become common in the translation industry, particularly in regards to audiovisual translation.
The talk highlighted the risk to sustainability of work practices that do not foreground satisfying and motivating work and introduced the concept of algorithmic norms, whereby workers find that the need to produce translations tailored to their audience competes with the demands of algorithmic management based on an opaque compendium of automated measures to evaluate work and guide decisions on further employment. The talk closed with a look at various attempts to push back against unsustainable practices.
The conference, Rewind Fast-Forward, sets out to bring a diachronic perspective to the development of audiovisual translation, through a consideration of historical practices and their influence on the contemporary context.
More information about this conference can be found here.
