The intro blurb in Against Expression for Fiona Banner’s The Nam states, “The Nam (London: Frith Street Books, 1997), which she wrote as she watched several fictional films about the Vietnam War: Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, and The Deer Hunter. Banner was literally writing through (to use John Cage’s term) pop culture and media. The text makes no distinction between films or scenes, instead creating an epic, nonstop onslaught of language.”  Published book version of The Nam looks like this:

Part of her gallery installation piece on this text includes wall sized installations with manuscript renditions of the same text (as seen below):

Close up:

Then, in Trance, she makes audio books of the same text The Nam by recording her own oral reading of the text:

http://www.fionabanner.com/performance/trance/index.htm?i03

Oral-reading-of-the-novel-Trance-at-a-quickened-pace-induces-a-trance-of-its-own-on-the-listener,much-as-the-written-word-induces-its-own-trance-for-the-reader.But-the-trances-are-not-the-same.The-outer-world’s-silence-as-the-reader-gazes-on-the-page’s-words-is-undermined-by-the-internalized-voice-in-the-reader’s-mind-as-it-reads-the-narrator’s-words-conflating-the-two-voices-into-one,rendering-for-a-time-the-two-selves(the-biologically-real-reader-and-the-fictionally-unreal-narrator)into-one-identity-in-such-a-way-that-the-reader’s-mindscreen-hazes-over-in-a-trance-even-as-it-continues-to-register-the-words-on-the-page-coming-in-through-the-eyes-even-as-the-mind’s-screen-begins-to-project-the-inner-motion-picture-of-the-narrator’s-own-experience.The-trance-here-is-based-on-the-written-word-and-takes-the-reader-visually-to-another-place.The narrator-sees-it-as-the-reader-sees-it-because-the-reader-sees-it-through-the-narrator’s-eyes-so-to-speak.The-trance-of-an-oral-reading,however,retains-its-externality-as-it-remains-the-voice-of-another-whom-you-hear-from-the-outside-and-separate,but-a-trance-is-induced-much-as-that-induced-by-certain-types-of-music-or-litanies,creating-sonic-rhythms-that-synchopathically-control-the-listener’s-breathing,heart-rate,and-thoughts-in-such-a-way-that-one-hears-as-if-one-were-there-in-that-place-described-much-more-prominently,whereas-in-reading-silently-the-visual-experience-of-elsewhere-was-the-more-pronounced.Language,oral-and-written,induces-trance;it-seduces-and-shapes-consciousness,thereby-shaping-worlds.And-yet-the-standing-before-the-wall-sized-manuscript-versions-of-the-text-creates-a-trance-of-a-third-type:the-visually-hypnotic-trance-of-the-optical-illusion-with-its-wavy-lines-swirling-the-gaze-like-rolling-fields-of-swaying-grass-on-a-meadowed-hill-stretching-before-the-eyes.

To illustrate the idea – we could have the class read the paragraph silently first, take a moment, then stare at the wall installation piece, then listen to the mp3 to see if there’s anything to this.

The rapid fire reading mimics the rapid fire machine gun shooting and the quickness of a firefight and the split second actions-reactions that call for the difference between life and death.