My current project, Read Me extends my investigation of the loss of self-identity as a result of personal passivity. It takes an interest in the process of automatic writing as a psychological state of inspiration moving between activity and passivity.

There are two parts to the video performance, Read Me (Once) and Read Me (Twice). 

Read Me (Once) is principally concerned with the production of text as the unraveling of knowledge. In writing through the body, the state of psychological and physical exhaustion is induced by the writing process. In using repetition and the collapsing of words to the point of erasure, the ritual attacks the formality and narrative of text.

In Read Me (Twice), the body physically represents the artist’s reclamation of the gesture, regaining control, and an understanding of questions and anxieties of the self.

The video physically traces and moves with the immediacy of the body and writing. This creates a form of ‘choreographed writing’, further invigilating the representation and illegibility of text. By using 150 x 180cm rolls of paper, the surface documents the evidence of the artist’s interaction with the material – both intentional and accidental marks. The accidental marks made by the active body serve as glyphs of the fatiguing body in this process.

Brooke Carlson, Read Me, 2015, digital video, audio, 3:55 min