Plummeting Appliances, Dying Verbs, Enslaved Automatons, and Other Objects

Photograph by Diego Sierralto

This reading, which included Joshua Cohen, Louis Chude-Sokei, Jim Krusoe, Joanna Ruocco, and Matthew Derby, was held at 601 Artspace and coincided with their exhibit The Unspecific Index, which contained largely photographic works dealing with post-human ontology. There were works by John Baldessari, love letters from Buckminster Fuller, and a photographic piece by George Christoph Lichtnberg that Louis and I are examining in the photo above. Louis read a great piece on Joice Heth, a sometimes slave owned/employed by P.T. Barnum and exhibited variously as George Washington’s 100+ year-old wet nurse or as an android, depending on Barnum’s interpretation of the audience’s whims. The piece will appear in a forthcoming issue of McSweeney’s The Believer. All five writers’ talks can be watched here. Additional information about the event and photographs can be viewed here.