Reader
Performance
part of 'Slow Leak' at Between Bridges, Berlin
15th November 2023

Publication
Edition of 30, risograph single ink
Printed with Cover Crop (Kristina Stallvik).

Reader was a performance exploring the body of a reader as a site of conflicting desires and drifting attention, where multiple texts converge, and notions of individual selfhood dissolve. With text fragments from Tiqqun, Lisa Robertson, Julien Bismuth, David Antin, and Tan Lin, and punctuated by a Donna Summer synth, the script unfolds as a stream of borrowed, remixed and disembodied language, tracing questions of authorship and agency, submission and pleasure, plagiarism, boredom and ambient literature.

The script was collaboratively conceived and performed by members of ‘Non Productive Readers’ – a reading group initiated by Bryony Dawson in 2022.

The performance was part of Slow Leak, curated by Kristina Stallvik: "an expanded exhibition investigating the physical demands of books and the haptic qualities of reading" — and hosted by Viscose Journal during their Between Bridges residency in Berlin, 15th November 2023.

Performers: Bryony Dawson, Giulia Ottavia Frattini, Mathilde Heuliez, Jonathan Lubasch, George Macbeth, Kristina Stallvik.

Documentation by Asia Skupinska.