Tim Youd types John Williams' 'Augustus' inside Rome's Ara Pacis

American artist Tim Youd (b. 1967, Worcester, MA) performed the 50th iteration of his ongoing series '100 Romanzi' at the Museo dell'Ara Pacis in Rome from May 24 to June 2, 2017. For this performance, Youd retyped John Williams' novel 'Augustus' on a single sheet of paper using his signature Royal 10 typewriter, creating a dense, illegible palimpsest. The work is part of a decade-long project to retype 100 beloved novels in symbolic locations. Youd chose the Ara Pacis—an ancient altar dedicated to Pax, built to celebrate the stability brought by Augustus after Julius Caesar's assassination—for its resonance with themes of rediscovery and devotion. The final work consists of two sheets of paper displayed side by side like an open book, bearing the physical traces of the typing process: holes, tears, and ink-heavy accumulations. Youd describes his performances as 'active re-readings' that allow deeper connection with literary works, and the Ara Pacis as a site for 'digging into the past' and offering an 'act of devotion.' The project was conceived from a vision of reading as seeing a rectangle of black text within a white page, repeated; his retyping aims to present all words of a novel simultaneously yet illegibly, reflecting the deep impression a book leaves on the mind rather than a verbatim memory.