0:00:00.309,0:00:03.309
(suspenseful music)

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- I think so, but what does done mean?

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(laughs)[br]- Yeah.

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- Text has this illusion[br]of comprehensiveness.

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(paper flipping)

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Even if you've read something once,

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it doesn't mean that you understand it.

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So I sort of like to play with language

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and making something[br]either very, very legible

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or making something very, very opaque.

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And encouraging people to do[br]the work of understanding it,

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it's really an invitation,

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come think with me.

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(paper rustling)[br]- Oh yeah.

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Of all the family members,

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I'm the most organizationally inclined.

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So I have taken, whenever I go home,

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steal a few more photos each time.

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So my dad was converted to[br]Islam in the early 1980s.

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He basically was learning Islam[br]by typewriting these notes.

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(typewriter keyboard thumping)

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He would photocopy pieces[br]of religious texts,

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and he would then paste[br]them on a sheet of paper,

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and they he would annotate them.

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He came to make sense[br]of things through this

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repeated reading and rereading process.

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I thought this was so lovely[br]because I was thinking

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about this idea of talking back to a text.

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A text itself is never finished,

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each time we read something new,

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we're either annotating on the page

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or annotating in our brain,

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and we're creating what[br]literally are new texts.

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This active collaboration between[br]the reader and the writer,

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the text is there not to[br]offer us a final meaning,

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but it's actually there as an invitation

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for us to actively engage with it.

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(papers rustling)

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If you look at (laughs)[br]my dad and I's notes,

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what he did as a study tool[br]is basically my art practice.

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(suspenseful music building)

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(papers rustling)

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Huh, that's literally exactly what I do[br]now, I read a lot and do arts. (laughs)

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Feel like our young selves[br]know exactly what we wanna do.

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(bright electronic music)

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There's nothing that I've done in my life

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that hasn't been focused on text.

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I'm really interested[br]in what words convey,

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but also how they appear on the page,

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on walls,

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and public space.

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What might it mean to see this

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every Tuesday when you walk by?

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What it means to sort[br]of engage with the text

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over and over and over?

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Rereading as this ritual.

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I'm really interested in[br]the concept of the word

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and what it carries,

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as well it's actually trying to say or do.

0:05:06.870,0:05:09.703
(papers rustling)

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When I'm looking for texts,

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I'm usually not looking[br]for a particular sentence.

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I'm looking for a[br]particular shape of a letter

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or a shape of a word.

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So I'll flip through any[br]texts on my bookshelf

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looking for the perfect[br]A or the perfect B.

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In a lot of ways I'm trying to figure out

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the individual letter and[br]then start piecing letters

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and words together from there.

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(suspenseful music)

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So the one that I'm writing[br]now from all these pieces

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is "Should they be circling the echo mouth

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that's sloped upward?"

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Do I know what that means[br]at this particular moment?

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No, but there is something[br]interesting to me

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about the idea of circling an echo.

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How do I take something that could be said

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very, very plainly, and[br]code it or use cryptography

0:06:06.410,0:06:09.420
to make it harder to understand?

0:06:09.420,0:06:13.003
We circle ambulate the[br]affiliate's solution.

0:06:14.020,0:06:15.860
Sort of inviting people to go slow

0:06:17.430,0:06:19.580
instead of trying to[br]rush to understanding.

0:06:22.450,0:06:24.660
If you read a sentence that[br]immediately doesn't make sense,

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you have two options, right?

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You can ignore the sentence and move on,

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or you can spend a bit[br]of time unpacking it.

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(gentle music)

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It's almost a proxy for thinking

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about how we can move through other ways

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of reading the world with a[br]bit more care and slowness.

0:06:56.320,0:06:59.210
Would ask that we spend a[br]bit more time with things

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that are confusing instead[br]of writing them off.

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I think a lot about what it actually means

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to make myself legible, invisible.

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When am I being intentionally opaque

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and ensuring that not everyone can get in,

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and when am I being very open and wanting

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for more people to have access?

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How you present yourself[br]to the world that's legible

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and appeasing to people,

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versus I'm not gonna make[br]myself known until I'm ready?

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(gentle music)