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agencements du regard

English translation: tricks of perspective

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
French term or phrase:agencements du regard
English translation:tricks of perspective
Entered by: Miranda Joubioux (X)

15:02 May 15, 2012
French to English translations [PRO]
Poetry & Literature
French term or phrase: agencements du regard
Target=uk
article for architecture magazine

The author speaks of his daydreaming as a student while listening to his lecturers. In this instance the lecturer is a philosopher.
To be blunt it is difficult to explain the context which wanders in and out of his daydreaming.
The text is difficult to translate. He talks of a woman on the radio who asks a professor of quantum mechanics 'Can we really understand quantum mechanics?' He answers 'No, but you get used to it'

On s’habitue, comme on s’habitue aux nuages, à la philosophie, aux agencements du regard, à la surprise.

My mind has gone into complete turmoil, with his dreams and his clouds. Any help would be appreciated.

I've put this in Literature & Poetry, because the text is written in a fairly poetic style.
If that doesn't come up trumps, I'll change it to General.
Miranda Joubioux (X)
Local time: 20:13
tricks of perspective
Explanation:
first thing that came to mind
Selected response from:

Paul Hirsh
France
Local time: 20:13
Grading comment
This was not an easy one, and the number of entries here just goes to show how difficult it is to get across the idea. I feel in the context of an article by an architect that 'perspective' is the right word. However, there is nothing to indicate shifting/changing perspectives. I feel that 'tricks' does actually get the meaning across, whereas 'different' is not quite sufficient IMO. The nature of the article, makes the choice of word fairly important. Thank you to everyone who participated in this one. As Yoland says, 'regard' is one of those tricky words!
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
2 +3different viewpoints
Carol Gullidge
4 +1new settings/arrangements
Lara Barnett
5Illimunation systems
Salih YILDIRIM
4one's window on the world
Timothy Rake
3tricks of perspective
Paul Hirsh
3Arrangement of thought or arrangement of one's thought
Jason Holt (X)
3different ways of looking at things
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
3changes of perspective
katsy
3optical illusions
Wolf Draeger
3shifting perspectives
Laurette Tassin
Summary of reference entries provided
Deleuze / Guattari + agencements
Just Opera

  

Answers


6 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
tricks of perspective


Explanation:
first thing that came to mind

Paul Hirsh
France
Local time: 20:13
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 44
Grading comment
This was not an easy one, and the number of entries here just goes to show how difficult it is to get across the idea. I feel in the context of an article by an architect that 'perspective' is the right word. However, there is nothing to indicate shifting/changing perspectives. I feel that 'tricks' does actually get the meaning across, whereas 'different' is not quite sufficient IMO. The nature of the article, makes the choice of word fairly important. Thank you to everyone who participated in this one. As Yoland says, 'regard' is one of those tricky words!
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12 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 2/5Answerer confidence 2/5 peer agreement (net): +3
different viewpoints


Explanation:
different ways of looking at things

But note the low CR! Hopefully this is an intelligent/educated (?) guess! It at least is in keeping with all that philosophising

Carol Gullidge
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:13
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 80

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Yolanda Broad: "regard" is such a tricky term to translate, isn't it?
57 mins
  -> many thanks - yes it certainly can be!
agree  Nikki Scott-Despaigne: Sorry, just noticed yours Carol. I think "different points of view" reads more naturally in English though. I feel the need for this to be longer and more waffly, as English wafllers are wont to, er, well, waffle! ;-) The French lingers, the English can!
1 hr
  -> Many thanks Nikki! Points of view, viewpoints, perspectives, stances... the list of synonyms goes on. I like "points of view", but not sure that the English are generally more waffly/fluffy than the French though...!
agree  Catherine Gilsenan
22 hrs
  -> many thanks Catherine!
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38 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +1
new settings/arrangements


Explanation:
I am aware that the word "new" is not present here, but I think in the context this is implied as each object the author talks about "getting used to" leads from the basic "clouds" through to more abstract ideas, through to "surprise".

Lara Barnett
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:13
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 4

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Jason Holt (X): Actually I like this better than my own.
1 min
  -> Thank you.
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39 mins   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
Arrangement of thought or arrangement of one's thought


Explanation:
Just considering that the context is how one gets used to seeing certain things, specially related to philosophy: they way a philosopher thinks is the way he in some sense views the world or it's arargement or organization. For "Arrangement", a more straightforward interpretation is needed. For "du regard", I like perspective or viewpoint but I think you could translate it as "thought" as this seems to express the same idea to me. So if translated literally, maybe the sentence could read something like "One becomes accustomed to, as one becomes accustomed to the clouds, to philopshy, to the arrangement of thought, to the surprise.". I'm pretty new here so I can't say for 100% certainity but from what I understand, this seems like a plausible translation.

Jason Holt (X)
United States
Local time: 13:13
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5
one's window on the world


Explanation:
this may be a stretch, but I think more "poetic." When I think of "one's window on the world" I am thinking: from what perspective we choose to look (LE REGARD) at the world, which also speaks to how we organize that world (L'ARRANGEMENT).

Timothy Rake
United States
Local time: 11:13
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 4
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
different ways of looking at things


Explanation:
I know it seems longer and yes, it is longer. As it is a waflly arty f***y piece, it may meander in there quite comfortably.

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 20:13
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 16
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
changes of perspective


Explanation:
another suggestion - I realise this uses a word chosen by Paul, but I wonder if there is not an "architectural" and emotional slant to the phrase.... and this phrase, I hope, can be taken intellectually (one changes one's way of looking at things) and 'architecturally' (the architect may seek to suggest different perspectives of his work)

katsy
Local time: 20:13
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 15
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
optical illusions


Explanation:
This is a bit of a long shot, but it might fit with the speaker/dreamer being an architect...?

I see a gentle irony in the speaker's comments, in which he laments the way in which we get used to phenomena/experiences which initially captured our attention and stoked our imagination; now, they've become ordinary and we take them for granted. Look at a couple of optical illusions, and you start to think you've seen them all.

The article doesn't mention mind-altering substances of any kind, does it :-) ?

Wolf Draeger
South Africa
Local time: 20:13
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 32
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5 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
shifting perspectives


Explanation:
yet another perspective

Laurette Tassin
France
Local time: 20:13
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish, Native in FrenchFrench
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5 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5
Illimunation systems


Explanation:
Regular human behaviour when thinking of something comprehensively to perceive it thoroughly.

Salih YILDIRIM
United States
Local time: 14:13
Works in field
Native speaker of: Native in TurkishTurkish
PRO pts in category: 4
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Reference comments


5 hrs
Reference: Deleuze / Guattari + agencements

Reference information:
I think this fits with the text , the idea of a jumble that can produce many effects (like in quantum physics / daydream). Core idea of these philosophers.

For Deleuze / Guattari 'agencements' = assemblage (sometime also translated as Rhizome):

An assemblage is any number of "things" or pieces of "things" gathered into a single context. An assemblage can bring about any number of "effects"—aesthetic, machinic, productive, destructive, consumptive, informatic, etc. Deleuze and Guattari's discussion of the book provides a number of insights into this loosely defined term:

In a book, as in all things, there are lines of articulation or segmentarity, strata and territories; but also lines of flight, movements of deterritorialization and destratification. Comparative rates of flow on these lines produce phenomena of relative slowness and viscosity, or, on the contrary, of acceleration and rupture. All this, lines and measurable speeds constitutes an assemblage. A book is an assemblage of this kind, and as such is unattributable. It is a multiplicity—but we don't know yet what the multiple entails when it is no longer attributed, that is, after it has been elevated to the status of the substantive. On side of a machinic assemblage faces the strata, which doubtless make it a kind of organism, or signifying totality, or determination attributable to a subject; it also has a side facing a body without organs, which is continually dismantling the organism, causing asignifying particles or pure intensities or circulate, and attributing to itself subjects what it leaves with nothing more than a name as the trace of an intensity... Literature is an assemblage. It has nothing to do with ideology. There is no ideology and never has been. (3-4)

The book, as described above, is a jumbling together of discrete parts or pieces that is capable of producing any number effects, rather than a tightly organized and coherent whole producing one dominant reading.

The beauty of the assemblage is that, since it lacks organization, it can draw into its body any number of disparate elements. The book itself can be an assemblage, but its status as an assemblage does not prevent it from containing assemblages within itself or entering into new assemblages with readers, libraries, bonfires, bookstores, etc. "


    Reference: http://www.rhizomes.net/issue5/poke/glossary.html
    Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Plateaus
Just Opera
Belgium
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: Native in EnglishEnglish
PRO pts in category: 4
Note to reference poster
Asker: Many thanks for that reference. Interesting! I don't think the word fits here though, but I will definitely find a use for it in the future!

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