Art Metropole

11 Oct. 2008

Edition launch for Derek Liddington's Reading Machine for Dr. No

Artist

Derek Liddington

Time

1 pm - 3 pm

Art Metropole is delighted to present Derek Liddington’s Reading Machine for Dr. No. Please join us on the afternoon of Saturday, October 11, 2008 from 1-3 p.m. for a reading from the machine and to meet the artist.

The Reading Machine for Dr. No evolved from the artist’s examination of Rodney Graham’s textual works lenz and Dr. No. In these two works Graham exploits the malleable nature of text; Graham deconstructs selected portions from the original novels which are then reconstructed into narrative loops. In an analogous effort, Liddington reconstructs Ian Fleming’s novel Dr. No to only include a singular moment of torture and menace for James Bond: a high speed car chase through a mountainside, in the shape of a figure eight. Further, Liddington’s re-compiled Dr. No text has been merged with sentences, paragraphs and phrases excised from Alain Robbe-Grillet’s novel Jealousy. In Liddington’s version, Bond’s daring escape is thwarted. Instead Bond is subjected to a continuous moment of sexual and psychological suspension as he continues to circle the mountainside, trapped in the looped pattern of the figure eight. Liddington’s end result is a 7 page novel containing a 4-page loop as its ending. Liddington’s text is framed in a “reading machine”, like Rodney Graham’s lenz, featuring two swivel panels that physically mimic the circular pattern of Bond’s torturous figure eight car chase.