The misreading methodology was developed initially through a purposeful misreading of Arjun Appadurai´s 2006 paper ‘The Right to Research, Globalisation, Societies and Education’, where over a number of reading sessions, we reworked and elaborated on the original text as a consequence of replacing the word “research” with the word “design” as fields and areas of expertise where applicable.

We proposed a public misreading for the 2019 PARSE conference with the intention of acknowledging Appadurai’s original contribution and foregrounding our own mutated version of his paper. To do this we developed a performative setup, including two tables where the two of us would sit facing the audience. Behind us there were two flat screen TV’s. One connected to a laptop on the right table and one connected to a camera on the left table. The performance was based on a script which included sections of the original text, read by Henric, and our misreading, read by Onkar. The camera on the left would live-feed the print of the original paper which Henric was reading from, tracing word by word with a highlighter pen, on the screen behind. The other screen featured timed visuals, texts and images accompanying the sections read by Onkar. Please see The Critical Potential of Purposeful Misreading as a Spatial Practice (2020) by Monica Sand for further insights on the spatial organisation of the performance.

The following video was subsequently recorded and first published for PARSE Journal 12, Human (2020). The intention of the recording was to translate and capture the original tone and spirit of the public misreading.