Pavel Büchler will talk about two overlapping interests in his recent work with language: the limitless semantic potential of language and the material and technological limitations and possibilities of working with letters and words. Taking as a starting point the historical links among cryptography, the morse code and letter frequencies, the presentation will explore the 'message' of such media as the letterpress or the current digital language technologies of synthetic speech and Google Translate.

Pavel Büchler (born 1952, Prague, lives in Manchester) describes what he does as 'making nothing happen. He has been exhibiting internationally for over 30 years and is well known for his pioneering work with language, conceptual art and the moving image, as well as his long career as a professor of art. His recent exhibitions include The National Gallery, Prague; Kunsthalle Bremen; IKON Gallery, Birmingham; the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; Broad Art Museum, Michigan; Power Plant, Toronto; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva; Museion, Bolzano; DOX, Prague; and Tinguely Museum, Basel.