Gravity And Grace

In the book “Gravity and Grace”, French philosopher Simone Weil coined the term Decreation, describing a desire to empty the self in order to make room for something beyond our perception. Decreation is a spiritual tool, a kind of technology which enables us to contain the un-understandable and the unknown, wonder and awe; it allows for a sensitive, sensible empathic experience of the self and its surroundings.

The work was created by Johanna Markert and Ana Wild, following a joint close reading of Simone Weil, and it consists of a book and a performance. It is intended to be read outdoors. Each audience member receives a book and follows the reading, read by four performers.

The text is a kind of a play; it indicates two types of reading: reading out loud, and reading silently. This proposition evokes a cognitive phenomenon called Subvocalization: the act of inaudibly articulating the words that we read, “hear” them in our minds. This phenomenon is recognized as an important factor in the faculty of understanding and interpreting.