BY REMOVING THE LANGUAGE, WE BECOME AWARE OF ITS LAYOUT AS WELL AS ITS PREVALENCE AND UBIQUITY, A FACT WE ARE BLIND TO IN OUR DAILY LIVES. MATT SIBER. THE UNTITLED PROJECT IS ROOTED IN AN UNDERLYING INTEREST IN THE NATURE OF POWER.  WITH THE REMOVAL OF ALL TRACES OF TEXT FROM THE PHOTOGRAPHS, THE PROJECT EXPLORES THE MANIFESTATION OF POWER BETWEEN LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE IN THE FORM OF PUBLIC AND SEMI-PUBLIC LANGUAGE. THE ABSENCE OF THE PRINTED WORD NOT ONLY DRAWS ATTENTION TO THE ROLE TEXT PLAYS IN THE MODERN LANDSCAPE BUT ALSO SIMULTANEOUSLY EMPHASIZES ALTERNATIVE FORMS OF COMMUNICATION SUCH AS SYMBOLS, COLORS, ARCHITECTURE AND CORPORATE BRANDING.  IN DOING THIS, IT SERVES TO POINT OUT THE GROWING NUMBER OF WAYS IN WHICH PUBLIC VOICES COMMUNICATE WITHOUT USING TRADITIONAL FORMS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
THE REINTRODUCTION OF THE TEXT TAKES WRITTEN LANGUAGE OUT OF THE CONTEXT OF ITS INTENDED VIEWING ENVIRONMENT.  THE COMPOSITION OF THE LAYOUTS REMAIN TRUE TO THE COMPOSITION OF THEIR CORRESPONDING PHOTOGRAPHS IN ORDER TO DRAW ATTENTION TO RELATIVE SIZE, LOCATION AND ORIENTATION.  THE ISOLATION OF THE TEXT FROM ITS ORIGINAL GRAPHIC DESIGN AND ACCOMPANYING LOGOS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND ICONS HELPS TO FURTHER EXPLORE THE NATURE OF COMMUNICATION IN THE URBAN LANDSCAPE AS A COMBINATION OF VISUAL AND LITERAL SIGNIFIERS.
TH E PHOTOG-RAPHER MATT SIBER DEMONSTRATES THIS BY SHOOTING MUNDANE SCENES OF STREETSCAPES AND INTERIORS—PARKING LOTS, DRUG STORES, SUBWAY STATIONS, FREEWAYS—THEN SYSTEMATICALLY ERADICATING EVERY TRACE OF LANGUAGE IN THEM. HE LIFTS ALL THE REMOVED TEXT INTACT FROM THE PHOTOGRAPH AND DROPS IT IN SITU—FONTS AND ALL—ONTO A BLANK WHITE PANEL NEXT TO THE PHOTOGRAPH. TH E TWO ARE PRESENTED AS ONE PIECE: A WORLD DEVOID OF LANGUAGE AND A MAP OF THE REMOVAL. BY REMOVING THE LANGUAGE, WE BECOME AWARE OF ITS LAYOUT AS WELL AS ITS PREVALENCE AND UBIQUITY, A FACT WE ARE BLIND TO IN OUR DAILY LIVES. WE SEE HOW LANGUAGE IN THE CITY IS RULED AS MUCH BY THE GRID OF ARCHI-TECTURE AS THE STREETS ARE: WHEN THE WORDS ARE DISPLACED ON TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER, THE GHOSTS OF ARCHITECTURE REMAIN VISIBLE, ENFORCING ITS STRUCTURE ONTO THE WORDS. ARCHITECTURE, GENERALLY FRONT AND CENTER, IS DEMOTED TO A SECONDARY ROLE AS A PAGE FOR WORDS; THE BUILDINGS FEEL EMPTY AND FORLORN WITHOUT THEM. IF WE EXAMINE THE TYPES OF LAN-GUAGE ON THE WHITE PANELS, WE BECOME AWARE OF ITS VARIETIES, TONALI-TIES, AND CLUSTERINGS. WE ALSO SEE HOW BLAND AND BANAL MOST OF THE PUBLIC LANGUAGE IS SURROUNDING US. ONE COULD EASILY IMAGINE LAYING SIBER’S MAPS OF WORDS OVER ANY NUMBER OF GRIDDED BUILDINGS IN ANY NUMBER OF CITIES WITH THE SAME EFF ECT. SURELY EVERY CITY HAS A BUILD-ING THAT IS INSCRIBED WITH THE WORDS “SELL BUY / LOANS CASH / SELL LOANS.” IN  UNTITLED 21  WE’RE PRESENTED WITH LANGUAGE AS BRANDING. FROM THE TEXT ADORNING THE CAR, TO THE DEALERSHIP, TO THE LOGOS ON THE SNEAK-ERS OF THE FI GURE, IT’S ALL COMMERCIAL, A VERITABLE LANDSCAPE OF CONSUM-ERISM. TH E GHOST PANEL IS A VISUAL POEM, A LINGUISTIC SCHEMA OF LOGOS DESCRIBING FORMS: A GHOST CAR, WITH THE FORMS OF ITS WHEELS DESCRIBED BY LOGOS. LOOKING AT THE TEXT PANEL, THE IMPERATIVES IN ADVERTISING ARE ABSURD WHEN DECONTEXTUALIZED: WHO IN AMERICA HASN’T SEEN A FORD LATELY? WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO LOOK AGAIN? IN FACT, THIS PHOTO-GRAPH IS NOTHING BUT FORD. IN THE DENSER URBAN ENVIRONMENT OF  UNTITLED 13,  THE AD LANGUAGE AND BRANDING IS JUST AS PRESENT, YET LESS HOMOGENEOUS. TH E TEXT PANEL LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE A MINIMALIST SPREAD FROM A FASHION MAGAZINE, WITH ITS ELEGANT FONTS STREWN ACROSS THE PAGE IN A DASHING MANNER. BUT ON CLOSER EXAMINATION, THERE’S AN INTERSECTION OF TONALITIES AND BRANDS THAT WOULD NEVER BE FOUND ON THE PAGES OF  VOGUE . TH ROUGH THE UNCANNY PLACEMENT OF THE DELIVERY VAN, THE COSMETIC BRAND BLISS DIALOGUES WITH LAY’S POTATO CHIPS. SIBER’S ACCOMPLISHMENT IS REMARK-ABLE SINCE, HAD WE BEEN WALKING DOWN THE STREET AND SEEN THE VAN PARKED IN FRONT OF THE BILLBOARD, IT IS UNLIKELY THAT WE WOULD HAVE SEEN THE INTERSECTION OF CHIPS AND MAKEUP THE SAME WAY. SIMILARLY, THE DIOR BILLBOARD TEXT IS NEATLY BISECTED BY A LINE OF WORDS TAKEN FROM THE BAR OF THE CHERRY PICKER. AND THE BLISS TEXT, BEGINNING WITH “WISE” (A SERENDIPITOUS COINCIDENCE WITH THE LAY’S BELOW IT) IS ITSELF TRUNCATED BY THE FOLD IN THE BILLBOARD BEING INSTALLED. TWO HOURS LATER, WITH THE DELIVERY TRUCK GONE AND THE BILLBOARD INSTALLATION FI NISHED, SIBER WOULD HAVE MAPPED A VERY DIFF ERENT LANDSCAPE. WORDS ARE TEMPORARY, MOVABLE, AND CHANGEABLE IN THE CITY’S COMMERCIAL MICROCLIMATES. MOVED INDOORS, BRANDING HAS ITS OWN PSYCHOGEOGRAPIC TOPOGRA-PHY.  UNTITLED 3  SHOWS A DRUG STORE DISPLAY, SCRUBBED OF ITS TEXTS. HERE PACKAGING, WITH A SLANT TOWARD NATURAL BEAUTY, SETS THE STRUCTURE AND TONE OF THE WORK. IT’S NO COINCIDENCE THAT THE TEXTUAL PLACEMENT MIR-RORS THE FORMS OF STEMS AND FL OWERS UPON WHICH THEY’RE PLACED. AND WHEN REMOVED TO THE BLANK PAGE, IN FACT, THE WORDS FORM A GARDEN OF LANGUAGE THAT COULD EASILY BE TITLED, “TH E HEALING GARDEN”—NOT UNLIKE MARY ELLEN SOLT’S WORD-FL OWER CONCRETE POEMS OF THE 1960S (FI GURE 2.6).  SIBER’S WORDS ARE DERIVED FROM CONSUMER NOTIONS OF “ORGANICS”: EVEN THE ROOTS OF THE FL OWERS ARE PRICE TAGS. IN 1985 ANDY WARHOL SAID, “WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, DEPARTMENT STORES ARE KIND OF LIKE MUSEUMS.” 13  WHILE WE MAY QUESTION THE SINCERITY OF THIS STATEMENT, WARHOL’S POINT IS BORNE OUT BY THE GENERATIONAL DIFF ERENCE IN APPROACHES FROM THE UNIRONIC SWEETNESS OF SOLT’S WORD GARDENS TO THE NEFARIOUS CONSUMER-DRIVEN LANGUAGE HOTHOUSE PRESENTED BY SIBER. SIBER’S DRUG-STORE BRINGS TO MIND PHOTOGRAPHER ANDREAS GURSKY’S MONUMENTAL CONSUMERIST LANDSCAPES, PARTICULARLY HIS WELL-KNOWN  99 CENT,  AN END-LESSLY MIRRORED DISCOUNT STORE SHOWING US AN INFI NITE LANDSCAPE OF CON-SUMPTION, A MODERN-DAY BUMPER CROP, A BOUNTY OF ABUNDANCE THAT, UPON CLOSER INSPECTION, REVEALS THE SAME FEW BRANDS AND ITEMS PHO-TOSHOPPED OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 
HTTPS://SIBERART.COM/THE-UNTITLED-PROJECT-1 LANGUAGE AS MATERIAL, UNCREATIVE WRITING (KENNETH GOLDSMITH)