Julia Moore - Psychometry of Texts: the limits of reading

In this workshop you are invited to explore the sometimes overlooked aspects of reading. Drawing upon the conventions of the reading group and the practices of psychic development, participants will attempt to blind read academic texts sealed inside envelopes.
Blind reading, or reading information from objects or photographs (psychometry), as it is taught in mediumship or psychic development classes, widens the definition of ‘reading’. In psychometry, the information ‘read’ is not verbally or linguistically codified, is obtained from non-textual sources, and usually concerns the emotional or personal history of an individual rather than an abstract meaning. By drawing upon this alternative convention of reading and applying it to ‘difficult’ academic texts, we will think about the different forms reading can take.
This experiential workshop – based, seemingly, on the nonsensical, irrational and arbitrary – references Dadaist curiosity about the workings of the unconscious, and generates reflexive rumination about reading’s processes.