Reading Gestures, 2007
(3 hour performance installation)
Site Unseen Performance Festival, Chicago, IL
In the Yates gallery at the Chicago Cultural, Chicago Public Library's original reading room, 7 performers enacted the activity of reading.
Projected onto blank books at tables throughout the space were groupings of images (diagrams, maps, and archival photographs) representing a cross-section of topics found in a library. The projection mechanism was hidden within the tables in such a way that most viewers could not locate the image source. The books seemed magically animated, illustrating the captivating power of their content while slightly formalized gestures framed the privacy needed to lose oneself in reading.
Delicate gestures were charged by their contrast in scale to the enormous room. A live feed camera at a reading station projected a performer's image at a station at the other end of the room, amplifying this contrast.
Performers rotated regularly between stations for reading and a few for writing, periodically writing poetic responses to the imagery they were taking in (a gesture to note taking, to distillation and translation of knowledge). The writing also gave voice to the performers' in-progress experience of the piece.
The audience could view the piece from any empty reading or writing station (there were always 3 unoccupied) which they did. Some also contributed writing to the books. Their contributions blended with the writings of the performers as their presence at the reading stations blended their gestures into the performance.
Performers:
Sebastian Alvarez
Aimee Brown
Matthew Hunter Griffith
Kate Lindholm
Caleb Rexford
Robyn Sarvis
Rachel Thorne Germond
Photo Credit: John Sisson