The Fold “Littéra|time”: In the search of a space of intimate resonance between the reader and a text

Keywords: Resonance pedagogy, literary awareness, the psychological posture of the reader, appropriation of a text, artistic-interdisciplinary techniques of storytelling.

In his current project The Fold “Littéra|time”, Roman Kroke explores the relationship between the reader and the text through a multimedia approach (drawings, photos, videos, installations, poetry). Guiding questions of his research (work in progress):

How to create and deepen a connection between the reader and a text?

How to promote a psychological posture of reader that is not limited to the role of passive consumer but where the text resonates with one’s personal reference system, questions and emotions, beyond any scholarly or analytical considerations?

How to reflect on one’s own reading habits?

How to “travel” through a text? How to pause along a reading trajectory to create spaces of resonance?

Folding the page of a book and diving into this enclave is the artist’s metaphorical starting point for venturing into the intimate encounter with a text as a living organism. In order to broaden and refine the gaze towards the metaphorical potential of the fold, Roman Kroke is exploring anchor points in other fields, such as: origami, biology (the fleecy fold of belly plumage, called the “brood pouch”, which the emperor penguins are using to protect eggs during incubation), architecture, the oriental dance of the whirling dervishes, philosophy (Gilles Deleuze), the digital world (the fold as a “space of reflection” for interactive data visualisation).

The first book on which Roman Kroke is applying this experimental approach is The Scorpion-Fish (1981) by the Swiss writer and traveller Nicolas Bouvier.