The start of October also marked the start of the CON_TEXT project. At Lettrétage, Mathias Traxler and Denis Abrahams met to put together “transfer-balades”, a “speech-installation”, combining visual, audio and spatial stimuli. Going out from the boat as a symbol for writing poetry and crossing-over, different poses/positions of meaning/ballads/transformative images were arranged in the composed ramblings. Just how a text steps in the room from the page of a book and can show and present itself as heard, stable, balanced, which holds together a house, a path. The page therein takes the role/question of a membrane, as protection and the boat’s canvas.

A booth was set up for the visitors of the installation, where the different forms can be taken in without fear. Distributed throughout the room one could find fleshed out phrases. Combined with the audio part of the installation visual stimulations were also projected on the walls, so that the focus of the “reading” was bouncing around the room, in a way forcing the audience to follow and take in the whole room.

Through their installation, the crowd that filled the Lettrétage was presented with a  teaser of what is to follow in 2017 – two events, focusing on bringing together literature and other art forms, in an attempt to reimagine the way how we think of, construct and also take in literary readings.

Denis Abrahams, born 1973 in Wiesbaden, studied acting at the College for music and depicting arts in Frankfurt/Main. He starred in various roles at different city and national theaters. Since 2004 Denis Abrahams has been living  and working as a freelance speaker and reader in Berlin. Besides his readings, audio books and radio plays he also directed the dialogue in several radio plays. Amongst other things he is part of the regular reading ansamble of the Internationaler Literaturfestival Berlin (ilb). Abrahams is a founding member of Lettrétage and has prepared over hundred literary evenings as a speaker and curator.