Re-reading

Merav Shacham

This project uses AI image and animation generators to examine books as objects that store and convey messages and knowledge. Shacham seeks to investigate what meaning artificial intelligence attributes to books and how it "understands" text. She focuses on typography and the act of flipping through a book’s pages. In the virtual book, page turning is automatic and follows a set rhythm, thus taking on a life of its own. We no longer need to turn the page ourselves, let alone read all the text before doing so.
Irrevocably altered by the limitations of AI, the text loses its meaning as a conveyor of messages. Artificial intelligence perceives human writing as an image rather than a meaningful, functional sign system. The result is a kind of secret code, part cutting-edge technology, part foreign language. Was this text authored by ancient tribes or futuristic aliens? It is hard to tell. Perhaps it does not exist, or maybe the Rosetta Stone needed to decipher it has not yet been found.