TH_READ
A downloadable book
'Wetware. An orphaned light flickers across the concrete grimace of a woman, head set in place with a surgical neckbrace. A strobing xray, seeking its calcium twin beneath greying flesh. A red light holds the image in place, unnaturally prolonging the moment until it becomes just another cold flicker in a flickering city.'
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The origin of TH_READ lies in the personal history of Cuxirimay Ocllo, the last empress of the Inca civilisation. Married at the age of ten to the emperor Atahualpa, she was witness to the end of her people. Her testimony was translated by the diplomat Juan de Betanzos as The Narrative of The Incas, forming the only written history of her culture.
Around this history TH_READ forms two parallel narratives where speech and data represent the lone expressions of language. These two condensed novels lie side by side, to be read in pieces or as complete texts. Interspersed between them are pieces of procedural writing, generated from the language of both cyberpunk literature and Inca histories.
Placing the street speak and pure data of cyberpunk alongside the storytelling practices and numerical quipus of Inca culture, TH_READ unearths connections and structures that build a networked narrative of history and memory.
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TH_READ is a work by Gareth Damian Martin, an experimental writer and artist.
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