A giant metal pop-up book is a celebration of humans even now discovering new ways to do simple things like bend and fold. And it is a celebration of the properties of metal; a material with strength and flexibility. Like paper but different.
The Tower of Babel gave it purpose. The myth is about ambition and language; humans building so high it threatened the divine. AI is our new tower, built from everything we’ve said, every image, every sound. It speaks fluently now but comprehension was never part of the deal.
We’re building a steel pop-up book about Babel with tools born of the same systems it critiques. A CNC will cut the pages. Code will draw the plans. Tech money will pay for it.
That’s the point. We keep reenacting Babel, building until the ground gives way. Our book opens by many hands, revealing both structure and metaphor: collective effort, lost alignment. In the absence of gods, we smite ourselves.
A plinth of brushed aluminum rises from the playa, etched with a patchwork of languages. On top rests a massive steel popup book. As participants open the book, a tower of stacked levels rises. Each level shows technological development: rusted surfaces meeting polished stainless, accents of color in acrylic and anodized aluminum. It looks both ancient and deliberate, like an artifact built by the future to remember us.
The book opens only by effort. A great wheel turns; the pages groan and shift their weight. From within an improbably tall tower unfolds; rough and rusted, gleaming and geometric. Warm white light washes the piece, catching every imperfection. From deep inside, an indistinct chorus murmurs in no known language, an ambient echo of comprehension lost.
The tower demands cooperation, rising only through the shared effort of participants working together to move the mechanism. The plinth’s geometry marks the boundary: close enough to feel the motion, far enough to stay safe. Even here, the simple magic of a pop-up remains: a page turning, a world unfolding. Text carved in many languages invites translation and misunderstanding, where meaning becomes a social problem.