Asja Lacis and Walter Benjamin: Translating Different Cities

Abstract

"Translating cities is a metaphor whose cognitive value consists of different aspects of translation and understanding included in that process. These aspects must reveal themselves when we are trying to describe the experience of the different languages and urban realities that Asja Lācis and Walter Benjamin had during their short period of acquaintance and love.... If...communication is the translation of materials into statements and back into materials in the imagination of the audience, parallel to the transportation of thought from the artist’s studio to the exhibition place, then “translation of cities” means the spatial movement of Asja Lācis and Benjamin and the translation of their experiences into texts and back into experienced realities: the interpretation of texts in commentary."