Architecture of Time and Silent Books

Kho, Chung-Hwan, Art Critic

Michel Tournier describes the moment of facing between a book and its audience as following. It is a dramatic experience undergone by the latter, one he likened to a bunch of tiny vampire bats flying up out of the book to suck his or her blood. The paper here is a cliff; the bats are the type. The moment we open the book, the bats emerge from the cliff where they lie sleeping, flying forth to pierce the reader’s heart, evoking the teacher’s tears and laughter, both exciting the reader and tearing at his or her chest. It is both an analogy for the interaction produced in the reader by the act of reading, as well as a symbolic expression of the signification process by which book takes hold of reader. On the other hand, Stephane Mallarme compared himself to a study smells mold, and Roland Barthes compared himself to a parchment worn out by overwritten. As it is commonly known, a parchment is the previous version of books, the manuscript. Plus, most of the masterpieces by Jorge Borges were created after he lost his sight. Librarians (typists in fact) dictated texts that the author spoke; the author’s brain filled with stories was already a book, books, and a library. …

As written above, the artist expresses composition of oldness containing a scent of time sometimes, and expresses modern and contemporary composition sometimes. Plus, the artist expresses and proposes different kinds of concept related to time by mixing books from different time periods in one composition. For example, straightly moving (from past to present) in-line time (connected with clear separation at the same time between past and present), physical time, and subjective time experiences or concepts different from objective time is proposed. In other words, it is similar to the flow of recognition by Marcel Proust (Time gets mixed in recognition. When recognition calls, past may come before present, present may pass after past.), and time concept as continuity by Henri Bergson (It is a flowing time concept that is differentiated from pausing concept such as momentary capture).

That probably is the reason why time is the true topic of the artist’s compositional work that used books. By using books, it is visualizing and putting into figure for time that originally does not have any shape, color, or texture. Furthermore, books themselves are the house and architecture of time. It is not simply about if they are used books or new books, but understanding about the artwork will be better if standing from the perspective of how stories are told through books.

As mentioned in the beginning part of this writing, books are the result of desire to keep, to preserve and to tell stories. If time is not based or used as its condition, it will be impossible (A story itself already has introduction, development, climax and resolution, and process, the concept of time.). Therefore, the time that the artist is visualizing into artwork should not be received simply under the context of compositional success or result. Maybe, the artwork should be understood from the viewpoint of time itself considered as the essence of a book, and the essence has been turned into the topic of the artwork. Levels of time in books are drawn (made?), and the footprints of time flowing in the books are composited. Therefore, the artist’s work is a representation of time. By dismantling the books that are house of time already, another house of time has been composited and re-constructed. Therefore, the artist’s work is architectural. As if stacking bricks, through the concentrated labor oriented process (book page reaping off, gluing, rolling, cutting into tiny pieces from its sides, planting like rice planting, grinding with sandpaper) of stacking units (monad or terminal or element), the similar to books and the different to books type of time architecture is structured and constructed.

It is when books are based upon, and in fact, the compositions of the artist is a re-composition of a number of different books, books of different levels, books of different characters, and books that do not seem to be related to each other. Again, what does it mean? The artwork can be understood as a mixed coincidental collection of different languages, different words, different races, and different interests. Therefore, compositions of the artist with books as their medium combine beyond the differences and separations, let them be united, and the chance of communication opportunity could be the theme of the artwork.
In fact, there are no books, no texts, or no sounds in the artist’s compositions. Still, the artist’s work is books. They are the representations of books, texts, and sounds. Mime Marcel Marceau said that words leave scars in hearts of people, but the language of silence let them think. Though it is his definition of mime, but it is applicable to the artist’s composition as it is. The artist’s work, so to speak, is a book of silence, potential text (or meaning) even before it was put into type, and a book that howls with silent sound and brings unity in thought. It is a silent book.