I propose a variable duration performance in which I will read excerpts of novels to the audience, one-to-one.

The novels, borrowed from Senate House library collection, will be drawn from the nineteenth century, to accompany the development of psychology. The choice of novels will be based on those that have been termed by literary critics as narrated from the point of view of an unreliable character. The audience will not have access to the text itself, only through the words as spoken by me, with my mispronounced English and my Spanish accent. At times, I may embellish the author’s words with my own (as I am an artist) and it will be the task of the audience to chose to trust, enjoy the additions or leave in horror of the mutilated text. The title itself is a give away, so the audience should be prepared for a little creativity. A matter of consideration will also be the body language between reader and the audience. What will I need to do to win the audience’s trust? How does a reader get her authority? This performance links into the theme of psychology as unreliable narrators have been often labeled as psychologically disturbed.

The piece will require a relatively quiet and intimate space but reading, really, can occur anywhere.

The novels chosen include:
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance (1852)
Jane Austen, Emma (1815)
George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890)
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)