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Synthetic Rigor Mortis, 2020

publishing, 210 x 210 mm, 103 pages

Thus is follow the journey of a text from being written, translated, and printed, and coming to audiences.

There are texts placed at the top of each page of this book. The end part of an essay published in 1967 by Robert Smithson is extracted and translated into 102 languages available in Google Translate, and reused at the top of each page. The original text by Robert Smithson was written for his exhibition Language to be looked at and/or things to be read. The exhibition suggested medialization of language converting signifier and signified in language for the first time in the history of art. It was publicized not by his name but the name of his typist Eton Corrasable. An idea of where the text sits, this heavy bound book in the old style, is taken from his view: that a text is a product of a machine. A text is treated as a product, its path is written again in order to make the act of translation the central activity of production, and it finally rests at the end of each page.

 © 2024 by Kim Jiyeon

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