Is this the end of the age of the book?
On Friday 28 April, between 2pm and 5pm, a group of people will congregate in Birmingham's Victoria Square to recite their chosen song, play or novel while wandering together, as a conscious re-creation of the final scenes of Truffaut's adaptation of Bradbury’s novel, 'Fahrenheit 451'.
Charade is a work by artist Simon Pope which mirrors the futuristic 1950s novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ where Ray Bradbury writes of an age when books are illegal and screen based media dominates society. The role of the fire service is no longer to extinguish but to start fires and to burn the books it finds.
Since January 2006 Charade has recruited participants from the West Midlands to save their most cherished piece of media history. Through a series of open workshops and online communities the volunteers have been assisted through a process of memorising and internalising their chosen item, working towards a final event in Birmingham’s city centre.
It's not too late for you to join in. Register online at Charade or tell us on the day.
Charade has been jointly commissioned by BBC and ACE as part of ‘Private View’ a programme to demonstrate “outstanding innovation and vision from visual artists experimenting with live technologies in the public realm”.
You can visit Charade to follow new developments online.
I will be taking part this Friday afternoon in Birmingham's Victoria Square, having memorised some scenes from King Lear - rather imperfectly, I'm afraid, but perhaps that's part of the project, how each person must reinterpret memorised works of literature or art because of their different ways of remembering them.
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