Today I participated in the online reading session organised by Sönke Hallman and Falke Pisano, exploring the idea of a #collective textual performance#, approaching the text by #reading with the intention that the text becomes a place#.
After reading the excerpts, we all started to invest the ‘text-place’, straight onto the wiki, while we shared our impressions by chat. From straight Courier 11 laps-of-texts, we tried to turn them into inhabited decorated ‘text-places’. It is a good way to ‘live’ a text.
Some results:
on Robert Smithson
on Robert Smithson and Henri Michaux
on Italo Calvino and Balzac
on Brion Gysin, What is a dream machine
on Bruce Nauman, Cones Cojones
Some impressions of the chat:
[17:17:47] Sönke Hallmann: What I find very difficult is to avoid the urge to perform expressions from these excerpts directly and literally on the level of their visual appearance, but to make use of them in a different manner.
[17:28:25] karolinmeunier: could you say more about it?
[17:28:57] Falke Pisano: i somehow can still not determine what is actually performative, i do some things and there are some small moments in which i think ok this is not a representation orso
[17:29:45] anamertens: Changing text visually is adding a layer of interpretation
[17:30:36] … is ‘un interprete’ also a performer?
[17:33:14] … sonke, have you got ideas about a ‘different manner’?
[17:33:18] Sönke Hallmann: well, if I highlight #expansion into another#, it seems to suggest itself to expand the text into another, but then I think, it’s not about reading or being in the mode of reading anymore, in which you would edit something like a gesture to the text – so, what about an ^un interprete^ performance as a matter of reading?
[17:34:51] … no, not really other ideas, but rather trying to remind myself on the mode of reading – that is gestures of highlighting etc
[17:35:42] anamertens: but while you are highlighting, you can also give dramatic expressions to the text: joy, sublimity, danger, dispreciation…
[17:36:00] karolinmeunier: I was taken by the term “concentration” in the Nauman text, because I was thinking about it before in my work. It is a very strong term, dangerous at least. I am always interested in possible ways of creating a situation of concentration. Maybe it could only last for seconds, maybe for hours. And it’s such a great feeling. When one looks at all the different meanings, one realizes that it has much to do with space. And that thinking is related to movements in space. And that the act of gathering thoughts is related to the dynamic between gathered people.
[17:38:13] Sönke Hallmann: Karolin, would this comment include the parameter for a textual performance of Nauman’s text?
[17:38:41] karolinmeunier: ?
[17:38:52] Falke Pisano: but there is also a question if reading leaves traces in a text, there is the text and there is the text that is being read and somehow somewhere it would be nice if they could merge – for instance because it would be possible to read and not read at the same time, or maybe there is one movement possbile from not reading the text that is not being read to reading the text being read
[17:45:25] Sönke Hallmann: I like to keep these notes in mind, while going back to reading for a while
[17:48:06] Falke Pisano: yes will do that too
[18:07:11] anamertens: a few comments before I have to leave you:
[18:07:31] … I worked on the calvino-text (mainly)
[18:08:02] … I gave it a ‘feminist’ emphasis, in the large sense of the word (being femenine values)
[18:08:39] … I did this very intuitively, based on the way I used to interprete existing stories as a sotryteller
[18:08:43] … storyteller
[18:09:04] Sönke Hallmann: could you say a bit more about that ^feminist emphasis^?
[18:09:19] anamertens: (I think the lay-out has jumped in my case, using firefox)
[18:09:48] … I’ll try
[18:14:06] … in the grey zones of values and disvalues, masculine values are considered to be part of the semantic fields of ‘good/bad’, ‘universal/objective’, ‘true/false’, etc. whereas feminine values tend towards the complexity, the subjective interpretations, the doubt-margin, the openness for discussion. I do not take part for one or another, I like to see how they intermingle, how people make use of them, often inconsciously
[18:14:50] … especially in the second part (on words) I tried to put upon an extra layer
[18:15:12] … in the first part (on the painter) I played more a Van Ostaijen gaùe
[18:15:16] … game, sorry
[18:16:57] gon zifroni: I really like the methods you are putting afore here Anamertens!
[18:17:20] anamertens: thanx :-)
[18:17:51] Sönke Hallmann: And, if you like to answer another question, how is this ^feminist emphasis^ already implied – in a way – in the text? Or would you say, it is a kind of external layer introduced to the text?
[18:18:09] … just curious
[18:18:48] gon zifroni: this gives a direct hint towards a connotational system that should cross through the complete body of the text and even throughout different texts; that is to say that the tool you are using itself to correlate (by putting them on the same layer using a formatting trick) is the system to be shared throughout users
[18:18:51] anamertens: hm, to be more explicit: these methods are not mine; they are a distillation of a contemporary (cyber)feminist discourse
[18:18:52] Sönke Hallmann: ^introduced^as a kind of responce maybe?
[18:19:00] gon zifroni: right not a prob
[18:19:03] … very good!!
[18:19:22] … (have to drive dad to airport, out for an hour)
[18:19:33] Sönke Hallmann: Would you like to post a link – as for further reading?
[18:20:32] anamertens: I do not believe I put upon an extra layer that was not there, I think the magic of texts, is that they embed a complexity of interpretations/points of view
[18:20:51] … yeah, response
[18:21:07] … or ‘reading’ if you want
[18:22:52] Sönke Hallmann: yes – well, I won’t, though I’d like to, more questions on that for now – but I really like to thank you a lot for your participation today – I will take some time later to read #Mishima# and #Calvino# as read by you.
[18:23:27] Falke Pisano: yes thanks a lot ana!
[18:23:49] anamertens: you’re welcome, it was an interesting reading session!
[18:24:06] … where do you want the links?
[18:24:10] … under the text?
[18:24:18] Sönke Hallmann: just in the chat
[18:24:56] … and I hope, you will join another time
[18:25:00] … again
[18:28:06] anamertens: here you can surf around and get an idea: http://www.constantvzw.com/cyberf/main.html
[18:28:15] Sönke Hallmann: thanks
[18:28:36] anamertens: there is a very nice book: Michelle Coquillat, La Poétique du mâle
[18:28:58] … published by Gallimard, 1982
[18:31:30] … and if you want a good conversation about this, you can always contact Laurence Rassel (maybe it is too far out on this subject, but it is a remarkable show: http://www.comatonse.com/releases/c016/
[18:32:07] Falke Pisano: ah thanks nice
[18:32:26] anamertens: thanks for organising this. I’ll be onto the next.
[18:32:46] Falke Pisano: great, bye!
[18:32:49] Sönke Hallmann: bye then
[18:33:02] anamertens: enjoy the rest of the evening! bye
[18:57:57] Lengerer A.: hey I was and I am still stuck to the Michaux text.
