For the work group deploying neon signs Cody Choi has worked with epigrams and wisdoms from traditional Taoist Chinese philosophy. He translated what he had condensed from elongated texts to English. And he transferred the resulting English texts in Korean signs that allow Korean people to read them out loud and create a sequence of sounds that can be understood as an English text – the translated epigram. Korean people in Seoul experience this mechanism regularly when their signs are misused to describe Anglo-Saxon brands. Without the knowledge of Chines philosophy and the Korean signs there is a certain type of instant satisfaction by experiencing the shining light. But Choi creates also a kind of frustration due to the fact that we experience our missing knowledge that makes the signs – for the most of us – unreadable, understandable. No Knowing and Communication, as the title claims, at all.
Cody Choi
When You Say No, You Know Something. When You Know Something Communication is Impossible, 2010–2011
