A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open. A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence — the book was screaming! Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, earsplitting note. – J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
TRUMP: Is that a dog?
CROWD MEMBER: Hillary!
TRUMP: Its Hillary [laughter]
CROWD: [Applause]
No Philosopher King, we often find ourselves wondering what it will sound like? We don’t mean that there will be an audio-book version (although you never know!) but instead we are attuned to the questions of tone and voice of books, especially when contemporary visual artists who bridge the literary and aural arts are involved. Simply put: will the book deliver a violent scream of protest against Trump and his regime? Or will it offer a subtle whisper to undo the misogynistic and racist discipline of Classics as an institution of male white nationalism that support him? Looking back over our scheduled two week period from last year (Aug 11-25) we demonstrate a range of sounds for our book to come to make, amid some general reflections on the book beyond its words. During this time, we mused on books as sites (Aug 11) (and non-sites, as in the pile that accumulated during our exhibition Perictione & Sons – Aug 17 and Aug 24), as portable objects (Aug 12) and as part of networks, from the fonts of VIER5 (Aug. 18) and Hito Steyerl’s use of Lorem Ipsum (Aug 19), to the use of textbooks in course syllabi (Aug 24). But here are some of the sounds of No Philosopher King:
The Whispering Book – discussing Pope. L’s whispering campaign at documenta 14 in terms of the books that were part of his earlier project The Black Factory – the Blank Books and the Yoda Bible – (Aug 13)
The Siren-Call Book – connecting Irena Haiduk’s Seductive Exacting Realism and the figure of the mythical Sirens to her performances at documenta 14 (Aug 14, Aug 15, Aug 16):
The Soundwalk Book – reflecting on how encountering Soundwalk Collective’s Transmissions at documenta 14 reframed their earlier soundwork Medea (Aug 20, Aug 21, Aug 22)
The Air Guitar Book – wondering what Dave Hickey, author of Air Guitar: Essays on Art & Democracy would have made of Airistotle (Aug 25)