Over the period of four consecutive days, La Vie mode d’emploi by French author Georges Perec was read aloud, in its entirety, in French, German and English in three different (empty) rooms simultaneously at Strauhof, Zurich's literary museum. A Perecian polyphony with 1467 protagonists, 713 pages (in the German version), 99 chapters, read by 48 readers in 30 hours over a 4-day period in 3 languages. Everyone was welcome to attend the four days of reading, coming and going, listening and moving through Strauhof’s empty rooms, temporarily filled with the words of Perec.

La Vie mode d’emploi (Life A User’s Manual / Das Leben Gebrauchsanweisung) is Perec’s most lengthy and well‐known novel, published in 1978 and based on the lives of the inhabitants of a fictitious Parisian apartment block (11, Rue Simon-Crubellier), frozen in a specific moment in time: June 23, 1975, shortly before 8pm. La Vie mode d’emploi was chosen because of it's length, architectural / room-to-room narrational movement and puzzle-like complexity, matching the historical site of Strauhof and brief time frame of the "Wild Card" series. In brief, the empty rooms of Strauhof were the perfect site to read Perec's Life A User's Manual and a challenge if it could be done in the four-days alloted, in three languages simultaneously. 

Miraculously, all three versions of La Vie mode d’emploi finished within 3 minutes of each other, shortly after 5pm on Sunday, January 27, 2019. This, after a daily, 1-hour time lag between the three versions. The 48 readers were all volunteers who read for one to four hours, as part of the polyphony. Perec Polyphony was the seventh “Wild Card” event, which includes performances and happenings, taking place between exhibitions at Strauhof.


READING SCHEDULE
Thursday, January 24
12:00 – 20:00
Preamble, Chapters 1 – 27

Friday, January 25
12:00 – 20:00
Chapters 28 – 54

Saturday, January 26
12:00 – 20:00
Chapters 55 – 79

Sunday, January 27
12:00 – 17:11, 17:12, 17:13
Chapters 80 – 99, Epilogue


READERS
  Tonjaschja Adler, Annette Amberg, Mirjam Bayerdörfer, Donatella Bernardi, Olivier de Perrot, Kathrin Egolf, Gabriel Flückiger, Charlotte Garraway, Melanie Grütter, Colin Guillemet, Michael Günzburger, Valérie Hashimoto, Hélène Helfgott, Elena Hohl, Cathérine Hug, Rémi Jaccard, San Keller, Esther Kempf, Michel Kiener, Yasmin Kiss, Anouk Koch, Claudia Kübler, Vivienne Kuster, Maxie Lankalingam, Philip Matesic, Tine Melzer, Peter Metz, Daniel Morgenthaler, Leila Peacock, Andrea Raemy, Aoife Rosenmeyer, Margit Säde, Gabrielle Schaad, Julia Schwartz, Patricia Simon, Philip Sippel, Olga Stefan, Nathalie Stirnimann, Aurélie Strumans, Andreas Thierstein, Kathleen Vitor, Laura von Niederhäusern, Elisabeth Wandeler-Deck, Olivia Wiederkehr, Etienne Wismer, Laura Zachmann, Max Zeckau, Stefan Zweifel