Transcendental Redactions Codex

In my codex statement for "The Book of Misshapen Forms," I credit Burroughs and Gysin for the project's inspiration. While this work, too, flows from the cut-up, the more appropriate references here may be Guy Debord, letterism, and détournement.

This text emerges from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance." I have redacted marks, phrases, and sentences, as a censor might with a sensitive government communication.  

The images capture the Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School in Pontiac, Michigan, before demolition. Special thanks to Louis Romska of the Micah 6 Community for allowing our cameras access to the structure.

Mobs, and sick spirits, believe nothing. 

April 2026

Materials: Cyanotype on fabric from contact prints.

Dimensions: 8"x11"x2"

Brian J. Schuth is, among other things, a musician and stage performer. For three decades, almost all his creative work has been realized in his remote Maine community, where he has specialized in live work unmediated by technology. His passion for Emerson was kindled in seminars with Stanley Cavell that he attended with Graham Cassano. This project is a continuation of that nearly forty year long conversation.