Translating constraints

ABSTRACT This article considers the work that goes into the emergence of social-cultural reality. It uses the notion of constraints to think about the non-physical domain of ideas, which are usually studied in the humanities. Constraints on the release of energy are required in order to perform work, which means that work and constraints stand in a circular relation to one another. The article delves into “the absential” as a constraint, in other words, the ways in which that which does not exist or that which could have existed constrains the emergence of social cultural reality. It argues that creativity is linked to the imposition of constraints, and hence argues that it is constraints that get translated in processes of translation, whether interlingual, intralingual or intersemiotic. The article considers the interplay between reality and its adjacent possible for thinking about the role of translation in the emergence of society-culture.