Introduction

012310399 - Meaningful or meaningless

Numbers are used to mark and to distinguish one thing or one individual/identity from anothers. People are born with different numbers - designated by the stars. People are given names by their parents, but they also need lots of different numbers to determine their place in society, i.e. at the bank, at school, or even at the police station...

Everything is numbered and everything has its own number. So, where do numbers come from?

The numbers that Loi uses in this work are the numbers from his ID, his date of birth, his own weight, his height, or the serial numbers of the spare parts of old motorcycles such as chains, rims, spokes...or the number of dolls he used to create this piece. These numbers are, for him, his explanation for this work, entitled “012310399".

It is a meaningless explanation.
And the work is actually a meaningless machine.
The life of this work is a combination of meaningless numbers.
The dolls are standing on wheel rims – spinning meaninglessly

So, is it possible to create meaninglessness? And if it is, this work without meaning is created to try to find the answer to the question: ‘what is the meaning of human life?’

Nguyen Minh Thanh - translated by Vu Bich Tram