“… The dream we were talking about concerns what it is in the work which produces its reader, a reader who doesn't yet exist, whose competence cannot be identified, a reader who would be ‘formed,’ ‘trained,’ instructed, constructed, even engendered, let's say invented by the work. Invented, which is to say both found by chance and produced by research. The work then becomes an institution forming its own readers, giving them a competence which they did not possess before: a university, a seminar, a colloquium, a curriculum, a course. If we trusted the current distinction between competence and performance, we would say that the work's performance produces or institutes, forms or invents, a new competence for the reader or the addressee who thereby becomes a countersignatory. It teaches him or her, if s/he is willing, to countersign.…” - Jacques Derrida[1]
… Or, rewritten along the lines of the current project:
“… The dream we were talking about concerns what it is in the concert which produces its listener, a listener who doesn’t yet exist, whose competence cannot be identified, a listener who would be ‘formed,’ ‘trained,’ instructed, constructed, even engendered, let’s say invented by the concert. Invented, which is to say both found by chance and produced by research. The concert then becomes an institution forming its own listener, giving them a competence which they did not possess before: a university, a seminar, a colloquium, a curriculum, a course. If we trusted the current distinction between competence and performance, we would say that the concert’s performance produces or institutes, forms or invents, a new competence for the listener or the addressee who thereby becomes a countersignatory. It teaches him or her, if s/he is willing, to countersign.…”
[1] Jacques Derrida, interviewed, in Acts of Literature, ed. by Derek Attridge (New York: Routledge, 1992), 74–75.