THE QUIET VOLUME
Enter the strange magic at the heart of the reading experience. The latest of Ant Hampton’s autoteatro works, a self-generated and “automatic” performance places the audience as performer and spectator. During regular hours at the Free Library of Philadelphia, two audience members sit side-by-side with headphones on. Cues some from words written and whispered, guiding an unlikely path through a pile of books. The slightest sounds from the headphones become intensely clear—or perhaps that sound came from an actual library patron shifting chair or closing a book. The Quiet Volume exploits the particular tension common to libraries worldwide; a combination of silence and concentration within which different peoples’ experiences of reading unfold. Audience members delve into a deeply internal world, transporting from one reader’s sphere into another’s. MORE