Joel Swanson works at the intersection of language and perception, using text as both medium and subject. His practice spans blinking neon signs, interactive digital works, and meticulous works on paper — forms chosen not for their visual spectacle but for what they reveal about how language quietly structures our world. Swanson is drawn to the infrastructure of communication: spelling conventions, grammar, digital character encoding, alphabetization. He approaches erasers, highlighters, and correction fluid with the same curiosity he brings to typography, spell-check algorithms, and machine learning — all of them tools through which meaning is made, enforced, or undone. Through dimensionality, repetition, and decontextualization, his work renders the familiar strange. The words we move through without thinking become objects of scrutiny, even resistance. Swanson's aim is not to obscure language but to estrange it just enough that we begin to see it anew.