READING ROOM #42 - reading and repairing with Varia
https://page-not-found.nl/2021/11/24/reading-room-41-reading-and-repairing-with-varia/
11.12.2021 (14:30-16:30 & 17:00-19:00)

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       (_V_) (_A_)(_R_) (_I_)(_A_) ("_)(__) (__) (__)  (_P_)(_A_)_D_)  (__)  (__)

  Welcome to the etherpad-lite instance hosted by Varia! 
  You are most welcome to use it but please take note of the following things: 
  j
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  If you wish to publish a pad to the Varia etherdump <https://etherdump.vvvvvvaria.org/> add the magic word __ PUBLISH __ (remove the spaces between the word and __) to your pad.

*・゜゚・*:.。..。.:*・*:.。. ☀️ Warming-up ☀️  *・*:.。. .。.:*・゜゚・*
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            interstice                                                                                                                            
                     ]                            [                           

Where                                 Did                                i                     leave               my             glasses
                   a friend once asked ...                                                                                                                         
                                                inter                                                                                             
                 w  here do            we      g                                  from here              here here here ?  
                 echo o    o     o     o    o    o                o             o             o                     o       
                     stay  in    the  margins                                                                                              

                              S   u   c   h    a    w   i   d   e   b   r   e   a   t   h   i   n   g    s   p   a   c   e   !                            
                                                                                                                                           avocado



pickles (she/her) many screens of different sizes and compatibilities. warm tea.
jojojojojojon (we/whem) coffee shop (pretty good internet, not so good background noise)
sam (she/they) my room, sitting in bed, it's foggy outside, i like the colors of this collective note taking
Sebastien (he/him): everything's quiet here, my daughter is asleep, in my window people pass by in front of me unknowingly
v (*) : i am sitting in a room haha that resonates ;)
joana (she/her) I hear the washing machine (for clother) and a few birds singing too
sissel (she/her)looking at a plant that comes from a cut that used to be my aunt's. It's not growing! Would like to be a better plant mom
annie  (she/her) likes reariting, is in the basement atelier, can see the stems of a few plants out(s)ide
shailoh (she or they, both are fine) just back in my studio, returned from the veggie market. I'm living in my studio at the moment in Amsterdam, with my library and plants. very decadent - safe place to recover after a few rough years. reading  is my primary relationship.
cristina (she/her), sitting in my bedroom, realising that i need to water my plants soon. quiet environment, only the cars outside passing through
haha a theme
hahahha we could exchange cuts! i also have a few :)
Sounds good! (although cutting this one might be the final blow... it seems to be hanging on for dear life...
hahhaahahah! let's spare it then, but i do have some cuts to give away *wink wink* no exchange needed
yay!

a bit lonely but also excited, like collective play. how relaxed this is compared to zoom(bies)
makes me feel con nected
different  flows of energy, sometimes enthusiastic other times fatigued
> in a time and space warp... and a little disappointed that i didn't get to see you all irl. it's been so long! ah yes, indeed.<3 same feeling, but I'm glad we found a creative way to be together :-) yesss <<< 3
at least this is alive movement and colorful
as unusual - and its sooooo nice to see colors dancing (who else is missing dancing together? me! desperately!)I danced for the first time in what feels like years last friday! meeeee




Below here we will move onto a new exercise about ...

*    .  *      .        .  *   
  ..    *    .      *  .  ..  *
 *    *            .      *   *
.     *  Magic Words      *    
   .        .        .   *    .
 .      .        .            *
   .     *      *        *    .

Magic Words were brought into the software ecology of Etherpad by Michael Murtaugh, a member of the Brussels-based arts organisation Constant. Magic Words are used to enact certain commands; using __PUBLISH__ on this pad indexes it on this page: https://vvvvvvaria.org/etherpump/ (every hour, so at 16:00 it will be indexed)

They are little spells that can be used anywhere on the pad to indicate how we want to interact with the text. We would like to think together with you what kind of social incantations magic words can evoke. What kind of relations between text & reader, reader & reader, place & text, place & text & reader could the magic words provoke? If we see magic words like small instructions that can be activated during a collective reading experience, how would that affect our being together?

We will be adding, using and reusing new magic words during the reading time that will follow. 

..   -    * Spellbook for Reading through Magic Words .  -  * .. 

Here are a few examples of what the magic words could look like. Think of them as launching a specific kind of interaction with the text fragment that it sits next to. This will be our collective spellbook that everyone can add, edit or use at will, even while reading the text. 
We will take some time now to add our own magic words to the list below.




__IN:VISIBLE__ become a ghost(writer) =;) euhh what do you mean? well I was thinking of colour mimicry (works probably best with many windows on different devices connected via different IPs? (not so sure if this is really applicable for collaborative annotation but we might give it a try?

!!!!!!!! __CHECKIN__ remember your body (stretch legs, breathe deeply)
___DEFINITION___

Question ; are we allowed to erase? i'm not in charge, but i'd say why not?
mm what about strikethrough, so you can still see? Usually we ask not to erase one anothers writing here. ok, so no battles :)

Can we combine them?
__ALOUD__ __THRICE__ Beetlejuice __MAGIC__
Noooooo! and whoops everyone became a... (not able to write anymore....)



Below here I will post another exercise, we can keep adding magic words whenever we feel like it above here.

We're going to read excerpts from the book Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You're So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction is About You by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who worked in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, and critical theory. 
We will paste excerpts of this text intermittently on the pad, we will remove our colours so it's easier to read, and so we can see better our annotations.
As we go through the text, we will use the magic words to annotate our thoughts, feelings, considerations and reactions to what we read.
We will read in whatever pace feels good for us, and follow some kind of collective rhythm on our way.

The full text is available here - https://hcommons.org/?get_group_doc=1003678/1629909863-sedgwick-1997-paranoid-reading-and-reparative-reading.pdf




                __CHECKIN__ and __GET(ING)A GLASS OF WATER__ / (or a cup of tea/coffee to sit with me at my computer - ah, companionship)
 and those practices are reparative...


Moving away from the magic words, we're going to continue thinking about different modes of reading, of paranoia and repair with excerpts from the book Dear Science and Other Stories by Katherine McKittrick, who is a professor in Gender studies and whose work focuses on black studies, cultural geography, anti-colonial and diaspora studies.

Score for annotation: sonic annotations
Experimenting with another mode of note taking or commentary making
We can record your own sounds and share existing sounds that we feel connect with what we are reading.
To share them you can upload them here -  https://cloud.vvvvvvaria.org/s/PaFHqcN4YMqLcFa or share music links below here as we read;

Sound links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzfq7MlN5i8 I got a M&M commercial first :-P cool visuals @_@ 
Elza Soares - album: A Mulher do Fim do Mundo; first song: Coração do Mar   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXyXbyEW2YA

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 16h30 - 17h: [we are now having a break between our 2 sessions]* * * * * * * * * * * *


Sissel (She/Her) It is now dark outside, being in Scheveningen the silent muttering is sometimes ruptured by (illegal) fireworks
Joana (she/her) drinking tea
pickles (she/her) feeling very full from eating a snack too fast
annie (she/her) it's getting dark outside - will be returning to the Netherlands next year- yeahhh also has a new linux uubuntu andneeds to get used to that - will be slow
Sebastien (he/him) now at Page Not Found, surrounded by books! My back hurts, I might not be able to stay the whole session unfortunately
cristina (she/her) admiring the books behind Sebastien! ahaha THANK YOU! will try to visit very soon :) Yes! Do come :)



our first exercise for this evening is here:
Score01:
Close Reading of Nina Power: READING RIOTously

We will intermittently post parts of Nina Power: READING RIOTously, found in The Act of Reading, published by Torque 2 year of publishing please?2015 2015 https://torquetorque.net/publications/the-act-of-reading/ :)
As we read, we may wish to annotate or contextualise the writing in your own experience.
We would like to add our comments around or inside of the text as a way to bring it closer to us.

We will remove the colour of the paragraphs, so we can see our personal colours, and recognise that other voices are on the pad. We welcome discussion.


Another Score for annotation: parallel weaving of texts:

Close reading of Eleanor Rees: MARk-MAkING IN THE VIRTUAl 
(from the same publication by Torque)

As we read, we can return to the first text by Nina Power, copy and paste snippets or reflections and interweave with the text we will post below. 
We are learning from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Loom Book - https://evekosofskysedgwick.net/art/loom-book.html


fluid to continue the movement, the tag-game, the dance writing and reading
morphic paranoia I am other. Other is ‘I’.
liquid material into the water 
nervous system system system system  maintaining the systems 
the idea that reading could enable you to engage politically and socially
:letting go of systems "no less acute than a paranoid position"
    a conduit do not describe or report anything, and are not true or false as long as you stay around around
    a conductor immediately to disperse 
‘I refuse to acknowledge this’
away again into the river
streaming and looping
and then fading away
like tears in the rain, have this clearly binding effect, a material force: real transformation
Act riot
sharing the physical CAMP "I do" describes consent, no?One should hope so:)
so every uttering asks for a responsability (and repairanoia >> our tool for breaking up the solid aka normativity)!!!:) :) :)
__CANWEDISCUSS: i just asked myself about the entangements of norms, ethics, normativity, responsibility and the painful demand for solidifying all these in laws and ordners >> can we think of responsibility as fluid, as something other than ... so sometimes poetry can create problems as well?


+I am extended outside my brain,+ "It makes me think about affirmations, and wondering if they are materially changing something in the brain.. like chemically" + And so I am immersed within this liquid being, in an ethics of relation +
The material also speaks to me

ineed to get aglass ofwater
This is almost like a

Thank you all for assembling this river

Now we will return to ---> https://bbb.constantvzw.org/b/cri-hgz-jrl-aqp --- and listen to a score: 'Codified Mandarins under Clock', a score based performance by Julia Barrios de la Mora. 
    In the end we return to this pad and we will continue with another anotation experiment.
This was really fun

Describe below that same movement or gesture, in a few words or give it a name 'if it feels natural'.
Take this movement, gesture, or the perspective from the object your observed, return to the two texts we have read above and add an annotation;
Score for annotation:
Phan's paints are absorbed into the papers that told us a particular perspective of "journeys and missions of father A. de Rhodes" (who was a priest/missionary)

For this score, spend some time with the hand drawn imagery and the moments it connects with, distorts, covers or accompanies the typed, printed, bound latin alphabet.
Thinking about annotations as a commentary and method, the way McKittrick mentions, what text/image/sign/symbol/object would you encounter, inscribe yourself into, superimpose yourself on, immerse yourself in to engage in alienation?
turn it upside down
What would you annotate [something] in order to bring a different story to a dominant narrative? depends on who I think migh be reading, listening, watching, but in an academic context I would try to infiltrate it with art.
Use another language than English inside the English text try to have the reader deplaced elsewhere I feel like this annotation practice we've been doing here brings all the themes together in a very meta-way :) collective reading and  writing reariting :)in order to collectively understand (somethign that might be challenging or inaccessible on your own) yess
How would you annotate [something] in order to challenge a dominant mode of notemaking? using this methodology of reariting, but make it even more chaotic, to make it impossible to linearise anything and then go back to it a week after and try to finda knot, noeud, knoop in it that can be made into a tweet.
The term 'note making' makes me think of field notes, which makes me think of anthropology, and the business of doing science 'objectively', but as Michael Taussig shows in this beautiful book "I swear I saw This", there is always the subjective onlooker (often from a dominant narrative). The book is all about this drawing he made of something he wasn't sure he even saw.. 
We can contemplate these questions here on the pad together. We won't be adding to the book :)
I really appreciate this visual way to annotate, a beautiful and at the same time precise, rigid intervention. Almost a correction.
But I don't think it would be appropriate to add further annotations directly in the book (this is different from a talmudic text in so many ways). What I could imagine is to pick up visual and semantic threads, i.e. sugar/canes or stones or falling bodies and to continue elsewhere (i.e. here). And indeed one method could be weaving (thank you so much for hinting here to Kosovsky Sedgewick) - this also proved to be helpful earlier in order to avoid falling into nostalgic or other induced feeling and to move further. I really liked our 407ff session part. It sometimes really needs a tool, a strategy for the leap...To do this in a collective is very helpful as well =8)
for a long time now I have tried to imagine what I would put on the currency of my nation as alternative imagery. (as a passage towards no money) I would like different stories to be passed on in currency.
When I see the painted text "the impossibility of agriculture" I think about how to subvert all the signs on fruit and vegetables in the supermarket.
omg - i had one happy fortunate misreading here - i read "all the signs of fruit and vegetable". the stickers on fruit and vegetables are a nuisance indeed. but i was thinking of the false 'healthy' fruit and veggies, either raised in industrial agriculture and/or in post-post-still-colonial-structures. the images of fresh, oh-so-natural these toxic structures are hinding behind. in a way this would be one of the images i could imagine to work with (similar to the sugar cane watercolours) yes! and something to express how far the fuirt or vegetable has travelled
(Perhaps it helps to say that the invitation is not to add annotations to the pdf we looked at, but instead imagine what we would want to write/draw on following the method of Thao Nguyen Phan)
The first thought coming to mind, perhaps contaminated by Nina Power's text, are legal documents. The Riot Act, for one. *only read God save the king in your head*
Annotation in the interstices, the gaps, spaces in between, annotation as juxtapotion, imposition, 
oh yes - there is always space for something to grow =;)
Observing annotating: take this time to scroll up the pad and skim through the first part of our session. We will play our sounds submitted earlier through BBB, so you can listen through that window on your laptop while your gaze and curiosity guides you through our earlier notes and traces. 

After this oblique reading, return to this section and think through any thoughts and reflection you would like to bring to the final discussion that will follow on a video and call in BBB. We'll return to BBB at 18:40 CET, where we will wrap up with a conversation together.
 Thanks, such an impressively structured session! Very wonderful