Two Halves Make a Whole is a piece of participative performance art, a creative investigation into how tech facilitates connection, between people, between ideas, across space and across time.

It’s also like speed dating for found poetry, or chatroulette but with clothes on and a book in hand.

It takes place simultaneously at a secondhand bookstore in Auckland and another in Toronto. At the end of the event we will have created a new set of poems that exists somewhere between the two venues, a resonant whole made of two halves.

What are you talking about?

At each venue readers assemble with a book they care about (can be found in the shop or bring one with you).

The two venues are linked by Skype and by an open Google Doc. There is a scribe at each end.

The first pair of readers opens their books and the Auckland reader reads a line. The scribe types the line into the Google Doc. The Toronto reader opens their book and reads a line. The scribe types the line into the Google Doc. The two readers take turn and turn about reading lines for two minutes. At the end of two minutes a new work, a shared found poem, has been created. Another pair of readers takes their place.

By the end of the event the poems are a new artefact that exists somewhere between the two venues, in the mysterious land of cyberspace. We publish the results on our website, and put them on the wall.

Venues:

Auckland: The Open Book, 201 Ponsonby Road. 1pm, Saturday May 19.

Toronto: The Monkeys Paw, 1267 Bloor St. West, Toronto. 9pm, Friday May 18.