# De-semantising Semantics

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/de-semantising-semantics
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2024-04-04

## Summary

Prompted by the speech in Philippe Parreno's exhibition at Leeum, this 2024 note proposes de-semantising semantics as an escape from incessant demands for meaning, which language models multiply. A serious text, such as Descartes's path from doubt to 'I think, therefore I am', is read aloud while other screens divert individual words into associations: 'accordingly' becomes an accordion, 'senses' disperses across five screens. The result is an audiovisual collage in which a highly semantic text becomes a flood of digressions resembling associative, hypertext thinking.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 리움에서 본 필립 파레노 전시에서 출발해, 데카르트의 문장 같은 진지한 텍스트의 단어들이 여러 화면에서 엉뚱한 연상으로 흩어지는 '의미의 탈의미화' 작업을 구상한다.

## Concepts defined

- **De-semantising semantics**: Choi's strategy of loosening a text's semantic path by diverting its individual words into other audiovisual associations, turning meaning into an exuberant collage of digressions.

## Questions this answers

### What does 'de-semantising semantics' mean in Jeanyoon Choi's work?

It is Choi's proposal to escape the prison of interpretation by letting the words of a serious text escape into unrelated audiovisual associations across many screens, loosening the original semantic path instead of illustrating it.

### How would Descartes's 'I think, therefore I am' be used in a multi-screen artwork?

In 'De-semantising Semantics', Jeanyoon Choi imagines Descartes's passage read seriously while screens divert single words, 'accordingly' into an accordion, 'seeing' into eyes, 'sometimes' into a pop-song sample, so the argument dissolves into an audiovisual collage.

Topics: de-semantisation, multi-screen installation, audiovisual collage, hypertext, free association, large language models

References: [Philippe Parreno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Parreno), Leeum Museum of Art, [René Descartes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes), [Cogito, ergo sum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum), [Hito Steyerl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hito_Steyerl)

## Full text

This idea emerged while listening to the speech in Philippe Parreno’s exhibition at Leeum. The exhibition image accompanying the original note was a record of that encounter, not a direct illustration of the proposed work.

We live among incessant demands for meaning. Language models add still more apparently meaningful text to the world. I want to try de-semantising semantics: making an escape from this prison of interpretation.

Start with a serious text—an academic argument or a philosophical passage—read aloud with complete seriousness. At a particular word, another screen takes its signifier in a different direction. In a sentence about an ‘empty shell’, for example, the Korean word for shell or outer skin could divert into an image of grilled pork skin. The argument continues, but its words keep escaping into other associations.

Descartes’s movement from doubt to ‘I think, therefore I am’ offers a useful test. The original passage proceeds through the unreliability of the senses, errors in reasoning and the uncertainty of dreams before arriving at the existence of the thinking subject. Its structure depends on following that sequence. What if the audiovisual system refuses to follow?

‘Accordingly’ becomes an accordion. ‘Seeing’ becomes eyes. ‘That’ becomes a pointing arrow. ‘Our’ becomes a collective anthem. ‘Senses’ disperses across five screens. ‘Sometimes’ triggers a familiar pop-song sample. Each local association displaces the philosophical argument into another register.

This would require many channels. Some associations could be found automatically, but the purpose would be to loosen the original semantic path rather than illustrate it accurately. I recalled a possible hypertext-related work by Hito Steyerl while writing this note; I had not identified the reference and do not want to treat that recollection as a confirmed precedent.

Eventually the participant encounters an audiovisual collage without necessarily recognising the text that generated it. Something highly semantic has become an exuberant flood of digressions. There is an irony here, but also a resemblance to associative thought.

Hypertext thinking. Hyper, hyper, hyper! The repeated word in my original notes performs the very excess I am trying to describe.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.