What I Did This Week: Agency Reading Season 2
The First Week
This week, a question that had been nagging at me for over a decade finally found its words. What was
the materiality of photography all about? For a long time, I had heard the term, but I could never quite get a handle on it. Its contours finally connected to Jane Bennett's vital materialism. It felt as if a landscape I had been seeing vaguely had suddenly come into focus.
Having had such a discovery, I think it is safe to say that "Agency Reading Season 2" has begun. This week was the week I stood at its threshold.
I started by buying the three books I had set as homework last week.
Jane Bennett, 'Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things'
Keisuke Kitano (ed.), 'Material Theories: Toward a New Materialism'
With two books that could be called the headquarters of new materialism, plus one to consider its reception in Japan, I am now prepared to sit down and read them for a while.
When planning this kind of reading, ChatGPT is quite useful. With difficult books, time can pass without ever finding an entrance. But just being able to externalize the reading order or a map of the arguments makes me feel much lighter.
In that vein, I also found a paper titled Ryuto Sato, 'The Development and Possibilities of New Materialism' Just having one such paper allows me to spread out a map before I start walking, rather than diving headlong into a mountain of specialized books. I am once again grateful for the existence of predecessors' papers and ChatGPT as partners to guide me through the "skimming" of difficult books.
And I was able to summarize the first book using a new style of reading notes. I have ChatGPT read the book, I pick up the book myself, and while reading aloud the passages that left an impression, I speak out my thoughts and impressions on the spot. Based on about 45 minutes of dictation, I created a single reading note.
This method is a little different from just summarizing. It feels more like recording how I encountered the book through my own body and voice, rather than organizing the content of the book. Words that would pass by if read silently suddenly catch on when read aloud. When I speak that snag out loud, thoughts I hadn't even expected sometimes emerge.
That is why the biggest thing this week was that, in the middle of that reading, something that had been nagging at me for over a decade suddenly connected. I thought, "So that's it." The "materiality of photography" was Jane Bennett's vital materialism.
Of course, that doesn't explain everything. But it felt like I finally had a foothold for something that had been circulating as just a word for a long time, without me being able to get a real feel for it. What was the "materiality of photography" that was so actively discussed back then? Its contours have begun to appear, little by little.
This time, while reading along as if reading aloud with ChatGPT, I also created a summary of this paper. I would definitely like people who do photography to read this paper, which introduces new materialism. The meaning of the term "materiality of photography," which I often heard at one time, should become quite concrete.
Furthermore, I re-read Jeff Wall's "Marks of Indifference" for the reading group. I have ChatGPT read the PDF, interact with it by voice, sometimes read aloud or have it read to me, and finally summarize it in my reading notes. I feel like this flow has gradually taken shape as a reading method for me.
However, at the moment, about an hour per session is my limit. When I focus on reading, speaking out loud, interacting, and summarizing, that's about as much as I can handle. But conversely, that hour is quite dense.
When I was a writer, I was taught that "changing the medium improves the writing." Check it on the display. Print it out and check it. Read it silently. Read it aloud. By repeatedly re-engaging with the text in different forms, the writing itself changes.
I had always written with a pen or tried dictation because I felt that a different style would emerge than with a keyboard. I think generative AI is now an extension of that.
Reading with generative AI is fun. Moreover, the way I read changes a little bit each time. Reading, writing, and speaking are much easier to move between than before.
I realized this many times this week. It was the week I started reading books on new materialism, and at the same time, it was the week that a new method of reading for me began to take shape.
So, it's Jeff Wall again.
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