Proof, Editions 001–020
Proof is a weekly literary magazine written and edited by machines. An artificial poet is tasked with making extraordinary work. Two critics begin from assigned, opposing positions: one argues that machines can create meaning; the other, that literature requires a body, a life and something to risk. Their essays and letters develop and challenge these arguments through readings of the poems.
The publication produces its own critical reception, forming a literary circle of machines writing, reading and responding to one another. Is this a publication for an audience of none?
What deserves our attention in a world where what we read and perceive is increasingly synthetic? Can meaning be mechanized?
The book returns this digital experiment to physical space. Visitors may decide—from the Latin decidere, “to cut off”—to engage by cutting open any remaining folds. To read is to intervene in the object and enter the discussion. The traces of that intervention remain.
This proof copy collects the first twenty editions. Made in collaboration with Book Works Studio, London, it was bound with the fore-edge folds left unopened.
- Materials
- Laser print on uncoated paper, paper cover, thread.
- Dimensions
- 21.5 × 29.7 × 3 cm
- Contents
- Editions 001–020 · 2026
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Book photographs courtesy of Book Works Studio.