The Mechanism of Meaning is a series of cognitive visual exercises (like in a child's primer for adults) meant to disrupt a person's ability to make meaning.

In the First edition of the book, Arakawa and Gins describe their own goals for the project:

"This project is... an animated... cartoon for [nonsense and/or] meaning. The animation or the mechanism of meaning occurs through... the interaction of languages [visual-verbal-tactile etc.] by the viewer working out the exercises on his own terms (sense or nonsense)...

...to increase the effort required (and thus make it more apparent?) and to prolong the time necessary (to allow enough time for the setting of a trap?) for the viewer's mechanism of meaning to operate..."

"Of course you are the mechanism of meaning."

Later the artists deemed the descriptive sections above to be over-determining and removed them from all subsequent editions.

The entire series of exercises was shown in solo shows at several locations (initially hung on walls, and later placed on the floor as installations). The exercises are also published in 4 different book editions, each a revision of the last. All of this occured over a period of about 40 years.