LUX @ Hackney Picturehouse: The Joycean Society

LUX and the London Bookshop Map proudly present the UK premiere of Dora García’s The Joycean Society (2013) following its exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2013. The Joycean Society follows the Finnegans Wake reading group in Zurich, who have been reading James Joyce’s famously difficult text for thirty years, each reading taking eleven years: “The text appears inexhaustible, its interpretation endless, the inconclusive nature of the reading exciting. The world seems to cease existing outside this reading room or, perhaps, it exists because of it”. 
Followed by John Cage’s Interview Performance (1978) in which the act of reading shifts into writing as Cage speaks with Richard Kostelanetz about complex composition and structure of his works “Writing Through Finnegans Wake” (1977) and “Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake” (1977). This special screening marks the launch of Twenty-three million, five hundred eighty-six thousand, four hundred and ninety stories (2013 – ongoing) the new work Dora Garcia has developed with Henry Cooke for the London Bookshop Map iPhone app. http://twentythreemillionstories.tumblr.com
Dora Garcia (1965 Valladolid, Spain. Lives in Barcelona, Spain) Her work has been shown in major contemporary art institutions, including the MACBA in Barcelona (2003), the SMAK in Gent (2006), the GfZK in Leipzig (2007), the Kunsthalle in Bern (2010), the Spanish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (2011). She has also taken part in several biennales, for instance in Istanbul (2003), Sydney (2008), Lyon (2009), São Paulo (2010) and DOCUMENTA 13 (2012). In her conceptual work, Dora Garcia uses photography, installations, drawing, video, sound and the web to experiment with the boundaries between reality and fiction. Marginality becomes central in the artist’s work, unsettling the viewer. In Garcia’s work, reality is shown to be multiple and the truth within each of her scenarios becomes debatable.
 
The London Bookshop Map is a not-for-profit project to promote independent bookshops and commission and distribute new text-based work by contemporary artists.