To begin in the middle: “All Turns,” a sign reads. It seems to float against a black background. Several others appear in sequence—still images of street signs that compose a portion of Paul Chan’s 2002 video, RE: The Operation. These signs, for the most part, are illegible. Their reflective surfaces—the material that ordinarily allows them to be readable at night—are oversaturated. They act only as glowing white squares, as though the light projects from, rather than bounces off of, their surfaces. Occasionally words appear, but they are either blurred or cut by the screen’s edge. One large green-and-white sign, typical of highways in the United States, stands out. Black text in the bottom yellow band offers, “Exit Only.” The labyrinthian turns, it seems, have given way to an escape route. But where might this lead? The green upper portion of the sign is absent any text, and the surrounding black field of color fails to reveal even the slightest inkling of what it might contain. The preceding series of signs, one after the other, suggests a type of movement down an anonymous road. Though disturbed by inconsistent perspectives, a suggested, if odd, progression emerges. This time, however, the single image of the green sign is more disruptive than those previous irregularities. Oversaturation is not the cause; instead, the green and black areas are digitally drawn over. The green portion, as a result, fluctuates between a quadrilateral field of color (a flat abstraction akin to painting) and a perspectively receding extension of the yellow portion of the sign (a transparent image in the language of photography). In this sequence, and throughout the video, formal conventions, textual information, photographic transparency, and cinematic time are put under pressure. Moreover, Scott Rothkopf writes that the artist subjects the “present social Philip Kelleher

中文翻译：

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Paul Chan 的 RE：行动：移情肖像还是复仇幻想？

从中间开始：“All Turns”，一个牌子上写着。它似乎漂浮在黑色背景下。其他几个依次出现——街道标志的静止图像构成了 Paul Chan 2002 年视频的一部分，RE: The Operation。大多数情况下，这些标志是难以辨认的。它们的反射面——通常允许它们在夜间阅读的材料——过饱和。它们仅充当发光的白色方块，就好像光线从它们的表面投射而不是从它们的表面反射。偶尔会出现文字，但它们要么模糊不清，要么被屏幕边缘剪掉。一个巨大的绿白相间的标志是美国高速公路的典型标志，引人注目。底部黄色带中的黑色文本提供“仅退出”。迷宫般的转弯似乎已经让位于一条逃生路线。但这会导致什么？标志的绿色上部没有任何文字，周围的黑色颜色区域甚至无法显示它可能包含的内容。前面的一系列标志，一个接一个，暗示着一种在匿名道路上的运动。尽管被不一致的观点所困扰，但还是出现了一个建议的（如果奇怪的话）进展。然而，这一次，绿色标志的单一图像比以前的不规则更具破坏性。过饱和不是原因；相反，绿色和黑色区域以数字方式绘制。结果，绿色部分在四边形色域（类似于绘画的平面抽象）和标志的黄色部分的透视后退延伸（摄影语言中的透明图像）之间波动。在这个序列中，在整个视频中，正式约定、文本信息、摄影透明度和电影时间都受到压力。此外，斯科特·罗斯科普夫 (Scott Rothkopf) 写道，艺术家将“当前社会菲利普·凯莱赫 (Philip Kelleher