Reading Club et al. (Annie Abrahams, Emmanuel Guez)

Reading Club, 2017

Reading Club sees itself as an online venue for collaborative reading and writing, both of which occur within a precisely defined framework: Abrahams and Guez invite «readers» to read an existing text and to comment on and rewrite it within a set number of characters. The public also can get involved, reading and commenting in a chat field. Performances already have been held in various languages (sometimes simultaneously), including code. All are documented on the website, recorded over time. What makes this real-time language game so attractive are its interweaving of reading and writing on the net; the questions it raises about notions of authorship; and last but not least its humorously competitive character. Reading Club takes its place among the oeuvre of Abrahams, a pioneer in network performance who continues to explore aspects of communication under the Internet’s telematic conditions. She continues this exploration in a multitude of locations and with changing participants, using the tools of physical (tele-)presence, objects or - as in ReadingClub – text.

Artwork: https://readingclub.fr
Artists: https://aabrahams.wordpress.com