Anicka Yi: 7,070,430K of Digital Spit, A Memoir

Anicka Yi: 7,070,430K of Digital Spit, A Memoir is the outcome of a renegade artistic gesture: Anicka Yi took the very first monograph on her oeuvre, the recently published 6,070,430K of Digital Spit, and reprinted its contents on handmade incense paper impregnated with an original fragrance devised by Yi in collaboration with the perfumer Barnabé Fillion to embody the smell of forgetting. It is produced for and the centerpiece of Yi’s exhibition 7,070,430K of Digital Spit at Kunsthalle Basel, which is similarly driven by loss and the warping of memory.

Purchasers of 7,070,430K of Digital Spit, A Memoir are invited to literally “burn after reading,” thereby releasing the embedded fragrance even as they destroy the contents of this lavishly illustrated overview of Yi’s production. Designed by Eric Wrenn with contributions by Johanna Burton, Caroline Jones, and Alise Upitis, the earlier publication is here both expanded and creatively reimagined. Now incorporating scent, chemical transformation, entropy, and combustion, this limited edition artwork-as-publication not only pictures but also actually performs the themes and operations that preoccupy Yi’s entire practice.

Published on the occassion of the exhibition Anicka Yi: 7,070,430K of Digital Spit at Kunsthalle Basel, June 12-August 16, 2015, curated by Elena Filipovic.