Absolute zero is the temperature at which a thermodynamic system has the lowest energy. It corresponds to −273.15 °C on the Celsius temperature scale and 0°K on the Kelvin scale. It is the lowest possible theoretical temperature where particles have minimal motion. Composer John Cage is famous for his conceptual work on silence, 4’33”, [273 seconds] (1952), written for any instrument or combination of instruments with an instruction not to play. The piece is marked by silence but allows for ambient sound thereby passing conceptual comment on the concept of zero. 

The critic Roland Barthes also wrote on the concept of zero in his 1953 book Writing Degree Zero, in which he described a desire to “create a colourless writing, freed from all bondage to a pre-ordained state of language”. Returning to music another example of this desire to strip away the conventions of accepted forms of expression comes from Yves Klein, not least his monotone blue paintings but also his Monotone-Silence Symphony (1960) first conceived sometime between 1947 and 1954, in which an orchestra performs the note of D major for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence. 

This IPCRES experiment concerns a transmission/translation of a 25,000 word research document written by Dr Laura Jenkins on the concept of zero(graphy). Just as in the examples above an attempt to discover the absolute baseline for expression. These words were spoken by the computer they were written on over a period of 4 hours and subsequently collapsed digitally into a timeframe of absolute zero – 4’33” or 273 seconds. Press play and listen carefully, you are listening to a meticulously prepared written research thesis converted through compression. The sound is unintelligible as words or sense yet somehow it contains a repository of knowledge regarding a specific subject. What does it sound like to you?