Benjamin Forster: Reading (deappel.nl)

Reading (deappel.nl) (2015) unravels through a recurring fade in and fade out of words. Based on an algorithm which randomly selects snippets of text, the work emphasises the speed of online movement, forging us to slow down. Through its tacit pace, it draws attention to aspects of hypertextuality, amassing to a form of poetry innate to the online environment. The work is accessible via the Stedelijk Museum website and will travel to the website of de Appel arts centre (www.deappel.nl), expanding the ideas of (the museum)space. The notion of time is challenged, not only through the pace of the appearing words, but also due to the fact that the performance starts at 8pm in different time zones, allowing an intercontinental audience witness the intervention on the website, either accidentally or on purpose.

The performance takes place in the context of the exhibition Your Time Is Not My Time, which is part of the Curatorial Programme Final Project, on view at de Appel arts centre from May 23 until June 28. This show revolves around the radical change of the conditions of visuality. How images have shifted from the personal realm to a currency in cybernetic participation, where the value or/and power resides in being seen. This new visual economy has blurred the lines between producers and audience, enlarging the concept of authorship. A version of Benjamin Forster’s work will be on view at the website of de Appel arts centre for the duration of the exhibition.

About the artist

Benjamin Forster (1985, Australia) is a media artist who has brought together digital technologies, drawing, installation and print to trace the boundaries of logic, economy and language. Forster was the winner of the 2010 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award Non-Acquisitive prize in Australia. He received a Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours from the Australian National University in 2008 and has participated in residencies at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney and HIAP in Helsinki.

Credits
Benjamin Forster
Reading (stedelijk.nl).
online performance, website Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, May 21, 8pm-10pm
Reading (deappel.nl).
online durational performance, website de Appel arts centre, May 22 – June 28

This performance is co-curated by Barbara Cueto, Bas Hendrikx, LIan Ladia, who are participants of the Curatorial Programme 2014-15 of de Appel arts centre, in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum Public Program.

The Curatorial Programme is a 10-month long training programme for young, international curators, which has been organized by de Appel arts centre since 1994. This year, de final project of the Curatorial Programme consists of two exhibitions: Spell to Spelling ** Spelling to Spell and Your Time Is Not My Time, on view from 23 May until 28 June, 2015.

Read the full poem here:

Lees hier het hele gedicht:

slow down
this work is
about reading
reading through
how text proliferates
multiplies
everything we understand
through an other
it is citation
it is a network
lines drawn through time
a non - linear history
this collective fiction
we write together
my dreams overflow
with intoxicating liquor
at odds with this
hyper functional mode
suspicious of
the simplicity
a circle that encloses
this is fiction
this is fact
this is criticism
this is the artwork
it is about
it is it is
about - ness
explanations overflow
active verbs dominate
click click click
in the imperative
do do do
there is no rush
slow down
this text
it stands between us
a material
transmission
viscous virus
relaying pulses
i am here
amp up this broadcast
scream to the
meat of language
you are here
echoing out assertions
the signal lost to the noise
a diffuse haze
noise becomes the signal
between the words
written and set
point point point
a reading through
with meter
these words crack
dust accumulates
and blurs the surface
i feel unsure
this i that is
always made of many
a cluster of
i i i i i i i’s
we are defined
by our reading
thick letters to friends
mirroring this process
this text reading a text
read through
each letter selects a word
the next in the series
that matches the letter
it expands
becoming a new sentence
as the original sentence
becomes a paragraph
of filtered economic sentences
cut and rearranged
the words already present
always already here
re - presented
the precision of words
carefully constructed
becomes - f r a c t u r e d
in this process
meaning is set free
from the economic
it reads as random
it is not
it is rather
a process of reading
as it always is
words in relation to words
bodies pressed together
sweat and bad breath
remember
the line between literature
and press release
this membrane
is porous
it’s not a hard line
we can punch through
history has no origin
in this sea of words
in and out of the ebb
through around the flow
cited - noted
pinned down surely
knowledge is constructed
little islands
named
nouns strung together
into archipelagos
merchant ships
waving the flags of
i i i i i
i want to swim
out until the shore
is no longer visible
tire and drown
in the unowned
useless words
the text you read is
derived from
the words on this page
using this text
one phrase at a time
to read through the website
a letter becomes a word
a word a sentence
a phrase into a paragraph
the source text is highlighted
it takes turns
first the derived paragraph
and then
the source phrase
first the fragments
and then their key
one phrase at a time
and repeat
this continues
reading and rereading anew