Things Have Forgotten What the Shapes are For

Abstract

Things Have Forgotten What the Shapes are For, (2022) is an automated-art-sys- tem consisting of a CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled) laser-enabled1 machine, driven by custom-coded software that removes parts of any book in order to re- veal relationships between the images and texts across multiple pages. Each au- tomated ‘reading’, or burning, generates a unique artefact while destroying the original, producing new ‘portals’ through the book. An experiment in post-digital publishing that explores the differences between the deconstruction and the de- struction of knowledge in the age of the mass-digitisation of the book.