LOTLab: Embodied Reading

The human brain evolved heavily with the evolution of the upright walk – but what is left from it? We are sitting at our laptops, in offices, in university, thinking hard and immobile. This is especially true for reading. Even though it is practiced by so many people in contemporary societies, even those for whom reading is one of their main job activities rarely think about how they read. Almost always it is only considered “mental work”. Thus, we tend to forget that reading is actually a physical practice. It involves the whole body, from capturing the text with our eyes to the distraction of an uncomfortable sitting position or a painful back. It triggers physical reactions such as an accelerated pulse rate reading exciting novels or pulling out hair over difficult theory. Some texts also change our physical perception through their formulated thoughts. And we all experience that our thinking processes need movement to digest the reading, as the best ideas come after sitting in front of our texts, while taking a walk or shower.

In this Lot Lab, we will therefore try out an experimental thinking practice, combining reading and movement. To have a shared starting point, we will not disclose the text before the Lab, but it will be some nice portion of classic humanities. Sounds heavy and horrible? Come closer and be surprised!

No previous knowledge needed. Language: german/english
Gunnar Grandel is an urbanist and researcher at MOVE (Institute for urban planning, TU Wien), writing his PhD about transformation processes of public space. Sarah Zelt is a theatre actress and interdisciplinary artist interested in participation and inter-species relations. They are both part of Kollektiv Raumstation and passionate readers.