I am at home, reading.
I consider reading to be a physical and artistic practice. This piece has no beginning or end. No audience, performer, narrative or time-space composition is pre-determined. It is a work, constantly in process.
Since I joined the MA program in September 2016, reading has been the core of my daily practice. Having never been able to finish reading a book in English until then, it was a struggle to read in the beginning. To overcome this struggle, I just decided to make ‘slow reading’ as my practice. Sometimes, I can only read 4 to 5 pages per hour, and on those days I would just give myself whole day for reading. It is ok to read, and to be slow. It is a practice of resistance. Even on that day, when whole Stockholm was in shock by the tragic event, I wrote on my Facebook wall; “I am at home, reading” as if it means that I am fine. 123 people liked this post.
Here, I simply share a part of the books and articles I have read during the year, to initiate a conversation about the practice with me, and for the visitors to imagine the ‘dance’ that can emerge from these inputs. By opening up the possibility to access and intervene with my thinking process, visitors thoughts intra-act with the whole rhizome of texts, creating relational meshwork of a ‘work in process’. This simple yet generous exposure of what is at work proposes the question to the neoliberal scheme of production, and reveals what is at stake in the current discourse of art, through the stimulative communication mediated by the text materials presented.
I also brought books that are waiting to be read soon. They are piled up and beautifully functioning as a decor as they usually are in my apartment. But they might give you a hint of what I will be busy with, in the near future.
Welcome to my slow… reading… room…
May 2017, Hokuto Kodama
There were also two video works presented in the installation, also I have invited the visitors to give me a book recommendation. The books recommended are:
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
- Cinnamon Shops by Bruno Schulz
- For one more day by Mitch Albom
- Poetics of relations by Edouard Glissant
- Chaos, territory, art by Elizabeth Grosz
- Cinema 1: The Movement Image by Gilles Deleuze
- On Tarrying by Joseph Vogl
- How to do things with art by Dorothea von Hantelmann
- Introduction for Walter Benjamin’s Illumination by Hannah Arendt
- Orality and Literacy by Walter J Ong
- The infinite conversation by Maurice Blanchot
- Poetics of contemporary dance by Laurence Louppe
“Slow text” (video, 9 min.)
This is an idea for my future work, mediated in video format. Painfully slow presentation of words, unsuccessful in forming smooth sentences. “Slow text” provokes a gestalt breakdown, destabilising signifier/signified bond.
“This is not…” (video, 10 min.)
An idea inspired by Michel Foucault’s book “This is not a pipe.” Negation presupposes affirmation, so ‘This is not…’ can be a gateway for countless other possibilities including the possibility of ‘actually, this is!.’ Again, this practice aims to dislocate signification and representationism, which are strong pre-condition of modernistic problems in our time.