A blind date in a labyrinth; a kaleidoscope of dreams; a diary of unanticipated encounters; Dream-mine might be a novel of some sort, yet a type of fragmental novel, rejecting narrative linearity and following a dream “logic” instead, while it deals with the act of reading as performance and ritual.

Dream-mine is Andriana Minou’s second book by Strange Days Publications (part of it also translated in English and published in Verbivoracious Press’ Festschrift about the Oulipo movement). The book revolves around the triptych of dream – labyrinth – encounter and consists of three different writing “voices” that alternate, while each writing style is printed in its own layout, portrait, landscape and upside-down. This way the feeling of a dreamlike walk through a labyrinth, which permeates the entire book, also affects the act of reading itself, as the reader may read it in many different ways; either holding the book the same way and skipping pages or – if they decide to read the book cover to cover – rotating the book depending on the way the pages are printed. Two of those pages can only be read through a mirror. Through its dreamlike texture, its open shape and its fragmentation, Dream-mine acknowledges and grants each reader the freedom to assemble the book in their mind, while it also claims – in spite of its dreamlike nature – a space in the reader’s “reality”, as if the book is struggling for its incarnation through the ritual process of its reading.

Tonight’s incarnation of Dream-mine in Atopos will be performed by Coocoolili, a music performance group based in London, desperately searching for the legendary “half in earnest, half in jest”. The spaces of Atopos transform into a dream-labyrinth, inhabited by fragments of the book, which may be explored by the audience within an installation/ritual game of speech, images and sounds leading to an encounter with a (perhaps) unexpected question; is it me reading the book or the book reading me? The route culminates in a 45 minute music performance comprising of excerpts from the book accompanied with great hits that the audience is (more than) welcome to sing along to.

19:30 Installation of Dream-Mine within Fluffy Library
21:00 Performance by Coocoolili

Coocoolili: Artemis Ignatidou, Αndriana Minou, Haris Saslis, Kristin Sofroniou, Maria Xypaki
Video: Evi Minou
Installation: Andriana Minou