Reader is the first anthology to gather Constance DeJong’s diverse body of writing. Spanning from the 1980s to the present, the publication features eighteen works by DeJong, including out-of-print and previously unpublished fiction, as well as texts emanating from her new media sculptures, sound works, video works, and public art commissions.

An influential figure of the 1970s and ’80s downtown New York writing and performance scene, Constance DeJong has channeled time and language as mediums in her work for the last four decades, expanding the possibilities of narrative form and literary genre. From the earliest work collected here—a manuscript of DeJong’s 1982 prose text I.T.I.L.O.E.—to the digital project Nightwriters (2017-18), Reader assembles a range of experimental texts by the artist. The volume includes such works as the 2013 publication and performance, SpeakChamber and the script for Relatives (1988), a duet between a television and a performer made in collaboration with artist Tony Oursler. Never-before-published works including texts created for re-engineered vintage radios, aphorisms commissioned for a Times Square digital billboard, and transcripts for sound works originally installed along the Thames and Hudson rivers are also featured in the book.

Taken together, these works showcase how DeJong has helped define and push the boundaries of language in the visual and performing arts. The artist’s sustained exploration of language blurs the lines between many fields, and DeJong’s work has also had a long life in the literary world. In the late 1970s, she self-published the critically acclaimed novel Modern Love on her short-lived Standard Editions imprint. On the 40th anniversary of the novel’s original publication, the book was published in facsimile form by Primary Information and Ugly Duckling Presse, and has gone on to sell over 10,000 copies since its release in 2017.

Constance DeJong is a New York-based artist who has exhibited and performed internationally. Her work has been presented at the Renaissance Society, Chicago; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and in New York at the Dia Art Foundation; The Kitchen, Thread Waxing Space, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1983 she composed the libretto for Satyagraha, the Philip Glass opera, which has been staged at opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York; the Netherlands National Opera, Rotterdam; and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. She has permanent audio-text installations in Beacon, New York; London; and Seattle. DeJong has published several books of fiction, including her celebrated Modern Love (Standard Editions, 1977; Primary Information/Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017), I.T.I.L.O.E. (Top Stories, 1983), and SpeakChamber (Bureau, 2013), and her work is included in the anthologies Up is Up, But So is Down: New York’s Downtown Literary Science, 1974-1991 (NYU Press, 2006); Blasted Allegories (New Museum/MIT, 1987), and Wild History (Tanam Press, 1985).

《Reader》是第一本收集 Constance DeJong 各种写作的选集。该出版物收录了 DeJong 的18部作品，包括绝版的和以前未发表的小说，以及来自她的新媒体雕塑、声音作品、视频作品和公共艺术委托的文本，时间跨度从1980年代到现在。

作为20世纪70年代和80年代纽约市中心写作和表演场景的一个有影响力的人物，Constance DeJong在过去40年里将时间和语言作为她作品的媒介，扩大了叙事形式和文学流派的可能性。从这里收集的最早的作品–DeJong的1982年散文文本I.T.I.L.O.E.的手稿–到数字项目Nightwriters（2017-18），Reader集合了艺术家的一系列实验性文本。该卷包括2013年的出版物和表演，SpeakChamber和亲属（1988）的剧本等作品，这是一个电视和表演者之间的二重奏，与艺术家Tony Oursler合作制作。书中还收录了从未发表过的作品，包括为重新设计的老式收音机创作的文本、为时代广场数字广告牌委托创作的箴言，以及最初沿泰晤士河和哈德逊河安装的声音作品的记录。

总的来说，这些作品展示了DeJong是如何帮助定义和推动视觉和表演艺术中的语言界限的。这位艺术家对语言的持续探索模糊了许多领域之间的界限，DeJong的作品在文学界也有很长的生命。在20世纪70年代末，她在其短暂的Standard Editions印记上自行出版了广受好评的小说《 Modern Love》。在小说最初出版40周年之际，该书由Primary Information和Ugly Duckling Presse以传真形式出版，自2017年发行以来，销量超过1万册。

Constance DeJong 是一位驻纽约的艺术家，在国际上进行过展览和表演。她的作品曾在芝加哥的文艺复兴协会、明尼阿波利斯的沃克艺术中心、哥伦布的韦克斯纳艺术中心、费城艺术博物馆展出，并在纽约的迪亚艺术基金会、The Kitchen、Thread Waxing Space和惠特尼美国艺术博物馆展出。1983年，她为菲利普-格拉斯的歌剧《Satyagraha》创作了剧本，该剧在世界各地的歌剧院上演，包括纽约大都会歌剧院、鹿特丹的荷兰国家歌剧院和纽约的布鲁克林音乐学院。她在纽约的灯塔、伦敦和西雅图都有永久性的音频文本装置。 DeJong 已经出版了几本小说，包括她著名的《 Modern Love 》（Standard Editions，1977；Primary Information/Ugly Duckling Presse，2017）、《I.T.I.L.O.E.》（Top Stories，1983）和《SpeakChamber》（Bureau，2013），她的作品被收录在《Up is Up, But So is Down: 纽约市中心的文学科学，1974-1991（纽约大学出版社，2006）；Blasted Allegories（新博物馆/麻省理工学院，1987），以及Wild History（Tanam Press，1985）。