SCORE FOR THE PRACTICE OF READING (NOTICING ATTRACTION)*
- Take the printed text in your hands, holding it lightly. This practice is also possible to do if the text is screen-based.
- Allow your attention to roam the page(s), moving freely, or gliding line by line.
- Soft attention, not grasping for meaning, rather, letting it come.
- Identify single words that call your attention or that stir your interest.
- Read the word aloud as it calls you attention, exploring the quality of sense-making that emerges only by attending to these fragments.
* The Practice of Reading (Noticing Attraction) was brought to the project by Emma Cocker. Engage more with Cocker's reading practices in other contexts here.
SCORE FOR THE PRACTICE OF READING (DISTILLATION)*
- Take time to become aware of your own body, even engaging in a Practice of Attunement prior to beginning the process of transcription.
- Throughout this practice cultivate the act of distillation in an aesthetic mode. Try to remain in touch with the object/focus or exploration, the direct experience of one’s own body, the felt materiality of the text, and the experiential presence of others as a sensory-perceptual event. When this quality of attention fades, pause or stop the process. Begin again when refreshed.
- The practice can be activated as a private solo activity or as a collective activity.
- Take a few moments to scan your chosen text.
- Select a sentence or a short line of the text or even a couple of words.
- One person begins by reading their chosen fragment out loud.
- Going in a clockwise direction, the next person in the circle reads their chosen fragment out loud.
- Continuing in a clockwise direction, the next person in the circle reads their chosen fragment out loud. And so on.
- Periodically switch direction, reading in an anticlockwise direction.
- Experiment with different speeds and slowness. Experiment with different volumes, loud to quiet and the gradations in between. Experiment by reading all or just a part of your chosen line. Establish some fluidity or flow. When the time feels right, stop.
Variation
- Repeat the experiment as above, but now make the selection of your sentence or line of text as a live act. Rather than sticking with the same fragment, choose new sentences or lines of text to read in the moment.
- You could begin at the start of your text – simply stopping and then starting again at the point at which you left off. Or shift from page to page, reading a discontinuous selection of fragments.
- One person begins. Choose a sentence or line of text and read it out loud. Going in a clockwise direction, the next person in the circle reads their chosen fragment out loud. And so on.
- Explore reading all or just a part of your chosen line. Experiment by leaving your sentence open, unfinished. Experiment by starting to read your sentence half way through. Consider the cuts and segues – where to begin and where to end.
- Establish some fluidity or flow. Rather than ‘taking turns’ attend to the call of the situation, alert to the emergent possibilities of the unfolding process. Speak the chosen fragment aloud when the time feels right.
* The Practice of Reading (Distillation) brought to the project by Emma Cocker. (Engage more with this practice in other contexts here)