In (Part I) of Listening to “How to Catalogue a Crisis: An Afterward to Lost and Found: Dance, HIV/AIDS, New York, Then and Now (2016)” : Jaime Shearn Coan, iele paloumpis, and Samantha the robot screen reader , Jaime Shearn Coan and iele paloumpis invited you to listen to iele’s screen reader, Samantha the robot, read an essay Jaime wrote for On Curating, for a special issue on curating HIV/AIDS, edited by Ted Kerr. The essay is about the practice of care that emerged for Jaime through the process of editing the catalogue for the Danspace Project Platform 2016: Lost and Found.

After Jaime shared the link and the PDF of the essay with the Kin and Care research group, iele (a visually impaired artist) listened to it on their screen reader. iele talked to the group about their experience listening, particularly when it came to negotiating the frequent interruptions caused by the inclusion of the links, which the screen reader labored over, letter by letter. iele developed a practice of self-care during those interruptions, checking in with a part of their body.

In Part I, iele and Jaime invited you to listen and engage in a prompt, based on iele’s practice, that asked you to check in with your body as Samantha the robot read links or experienced glitches in the reading of the essay.

In this Part II, iele and Jaime continue their dialogue over voice messages that they sent to each other. iele has edited these messages down into an even more dialogic state, including more escerpts from the essay. The recording is 23 minutes long, and you are invited to engage in the original prompt as you listen.

Prompt:

As you listen, every time the screen reader begins to read out a link, or experiences a glitch, we invite you to check in with your body. Is there any part of you that’s holding tension? Is there any part of you that’s holding an emotion? Where? What is it like? Be with it for a moment, breathe into it. Return to listening.