pencil on paper wrapped over wood blocks,
sound composition, audio gear.
1999, podewil, berlin germany, 2000. the guardshack, bergamot station, santa monica
reading without reading/within was first exhibited at the podewil in berlin, and at the guardshack at bergamot station in santa monica.
the piece was inspired by hearing a recording of james joyce reading/speaking a fragment of finnegan’s wake. the sound was composed using fragments of joyce’s voice that were edited, looped and electronically transformed (via guitar pedals and other analog electronics). while the soundscape was made up of audible words, the processing allowed the words to disintegrate into a kind of pure sound or sound beyond words (and voice). the idea was to imbue an already difficult to undestand text to unfold into pure abstraction.
the drawings were also made in relation to finnegan’s wake, generally conversing with a specific characteristic of a page in an attempt to make a drawing for every page of the book (which i did not complete). basically a drawing would be made based on an agreement with a page – such as drawing circles on the paper in relation to the placement of every letter “O” was found on the page, or tracing the shapes of the paragraphs, or reading a page out loud while making a continuous mark/line on the paper.
it was an early approach to working with texts as scores, and trying to allow a source to ignite a kind of rigorous play (which seemed quite relevant to the text…)