Thursday, October 6, 2011

Read-in Manual (magazine insert), C Magazine (Libraries issue), Autumn 2011, Toronto, Canada



  


An accordion insert in the 'libraries' issue of C Magazine that's a manual for a fascinating project that involves initiating reading sessions in stranger's homes. On the back of the insert is information about this project and an outline of how the collective initiates their read-in actions. The text below has been taken from their website http://www.read-in.info/index.html

"Read-in is the collective effort of instigating instant reading sessions in other people's homes. Initiated in February 2010 in Utrecht, NL by artist Annette Krauss and theatre maker Hilde Tuinstra, this evolving experiment in group reading delves into a process of unusual social activity involving ringing neighbours' doorbells with the request to host the collective reading. Through conceptualising the permeation of private space and communalising a typically solitary activity, the Read-in practice calls attention to the relationship between the content of a book and the reading of a place, opening up new understandings of the material, affective, and political dimensions of ‘reading together.’ 

After a year of monthly actions, a few members of the current 'Read-iners' have formed a research team to contextualize the reading practice and expand it towards other ends, as well as to grapple with ideas of representation of this practice for various contexts. How to communicate and effectuate "the material, affective, and political dimensions" of Read-in? 

Read-in is developed in collaboration with The Grand Domestic Revolution—User’s Manual’ (GDR) a long-term collective research project initiated by Casco - Office for Art, Design and Theory."