Reading as a practice of making flesh and meat / 血肉を作る実践としての読書
2024Performance, tsundoku books, oblate, food dyeing, fermented food
Video (Color, Sound)
2160 pi. x 3840 pi., single channel, 14 min., 51 sec.
In Japan, there is a word called “tsundoku”, which is literally translated as stuck and read. It means that someone gets books and stuck them and never read. I am also the one who does tsundoku, and I gradually lose an interest to those books as I stuck them for a long time; however, when I leave those books for more time, I become interested in reading it again.
The process of having tsundoku and starting to read them is metaphorized as expiration dates and its fermentation in this work. I traced my tsundoku book titles and put them on fermented food and let the participants eat them. Japanese readers often say that reading makes flesh and blood of your brain. I juxtaposed these ideas surrounding reading books, and held this performance.
日本には「積読」という言葉がある。本を手に入れた人が、それを積んだまま読まないという意味だ。私もよく積読をする。長い間本を放っておくうちに、だんだんとその本への興味が薄れていくのだが、またしばらく経つとまた読みたくなる。
積読をし、読み始めるまでの過程を、この作品では消費期限とその発酵に喩えている。私は自分の積読本のタイトルをトレースし、発酵食品に貼り付け参加者に食べてもらった。日本の読書家はよく「読書は脳の血となり肉となる」と言う。このような読書にまつわる考えを重ね合わせ、今回のパフォーマンスを行った。