2022

Title: Unerasable Characters I

Autor: Winnie Soon

Unerasable Characters I presents two components in relation to Machine Learning: First is the input data that was collected between 30 June 2021 and 30 June 2022, containing 54064 sample censored posts and presented in a stack of papers with more than 6000 pages. Second is the predictive/output data from each iteration of machine learning training processes, based on the censored input text, in the form of a DIY book with customized binding tools. Inspired by the community movements especially white paper protest and blank paper revolution, the book is meant to be generative yet unreadable to circumvent censorship. This also challenges the common use of machine learning with precise accuracy and effective production. The project asks: is this a forbidden book?

By using free and open source software and libraries, DIY book binding tools (developed and supported by rojal.se) and computational publishing (html to print), the project explores the commons: infrastructure of (generative) erasure, creating its own form of DO It Yourself approach as a way to rethink erasure beyond deletion. When text is no longer fixed and restricted but generative and malleable like water, what forms of meanings, relations, marks and traces have been altered and emerged?

 http://www.siusoon.net/projects/unerasablecharacters-i