CONVERSO presents Words, the reenactment of the famous Environment by Allan Kaprow, first shown in New York, in 1962. At CONVERSO, Alexander May and Zoe Stillpass will reactivate Words by asking 100 artists, writers, and curators to contribute 100 words each. These words will be fed into a software program that will translate them and continuously remix them. Played throughout the space, the voice of an artificial intelligence will recite this constantly evolving text.
White panels on which visitors can write will cover the floor of the church. The words read by the AI will no doubt influence what visitors choose to write. As the space fills up with language, individual floor panels can be removed, stacked, and replaced with new ones. Through this interaction between people and things, images and sounds, human language and programming language, a polyphonic poem will begin to self-generate.
Words is produced in
collaboration with the Allan Kaprow Estate and Hauser & Wirth
With a special edition poster by Allen Ruppersberg