![A section of the 25 pages layered in the work Tehachapi I](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4cfb48_8214e9c02421466f830b4829faa5492f~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_979,h_342,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/4cfb48_8214e9c02421466f830b4829faa5492f~mv2.jpg)
Tehachapi I
2022
Project Description
Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology is a key text on Deconstruction. The work aims to destabilise our relationship with language as a written act - arguing against its objective or factual qualities.
In 2022, Joe Timothy Coleman used artificial intelligence, auto-correction and language translation software to mangle the text. In doing so, the original, cohesive meaning of the text has been lost, replaced by a seemingly random selection of words. The title "Tehachapi I" is the opening of the book - a total mistranslation of the title of the first chapter.
So far, a series of posters has been exhibited in an exciting audience-participitive format where visitors to the gallery could tear down and take-away a poster containing a line from the nonsense text- breathing human action back into the machinic text. A photogram of all 25 pages of the new work layered together mounted as a block further abstracts the text from itself.
The work is ongoing and a source of future pata-poetic deconstruction.