Artist’s note

Park Chanoo

Since my childhood there was a stack of philosophical texts and encyclopedias including the English version of 

Encyclopedia Britannica against one wall. Although there wasn't anyone to read them I was told that my father has 

bought and brought them home for the request of a friend.

When I was in my third year in middle school, my father's business went down. Items in my house were sold after 

being marked with red stickers. My family had to move to and from single rooms and rented rooms. Yet, those books 

managed to survive. Even after I majored in photography, assumed they would come to use at one point and kept 

them in the basement or veranda whenever I moved. In 2001, when I cleared out most of my selection of books, I 

could not throw them away.

In 2015, I came across those books again in the corner of the veranda while I was packing for another house-moving. 

I found them quite cool. I liked the smell of old books and the yellow tinted color of the bookmark. Encyclopedia 

Britannica has the longest tradition among the currently-existing modern encyclopedias. The definition of the word 

'encyclopedia' states: a compressed reference that consists of a comprehensive summary of information from all 

branches of knowledge related to nature and mankind, including literature, arts, culture, social studies, economy, and 

science. This series began with the thought of portraying the information of everything in the world through a single 

photographic work.

'Entry' can be defined as a unit of content classification or a subject of explanation in an encyclopedia. This work 

shoots an overlap of a number of pages containing the information of different entries. I intended to portray the blur 

and traces of each page and each letter and picture by randomly extracting them from the encyclopedia and 

overlapping them with differing shades of light. I noticed that the more complicated the explanation for an entry is 

(the more pages I shoot), the blurrier and emptier the image becomes.

'Engram' is a psychological and psychiatric term that refers to a trace of memories obtained through learning that is 

stored inside the brain. Roland Barthes mentioned 'Death of Author.' A permanent, non-changeable meaning does not 

exist within any text. A reader interprets the content of the text based on the subjective impression he or she receives 

from it.

It is said every language is a notion. And everything expressed through language is a notion as well. It remains in the 

memory of each and every individual in its own, different form and gradually empties out along with the flow of time.