Notes and Instructions On How to Use the Bookcatalogtest

For her new project, artist Trinn Tamm investigates the “Bücher- katalogtest” (bookcatalogtest), a personality test developed by swiss psychologist Moritz Tramer in the middle of the last cen- tury. In his book “Der Bücherkatalogtest als charakteristisches Prüfmittel - Theorie und Praxis” (Zürich, 1953), Tramer proposes to establish a library catalog consisting of 430 titles which base the foundation of his test. He elaborates a key according to which these books need to be chosen. The books thereby become representatives of certain fields (moral- ity, religion, adventure, sexuality, etc.). contestants need to choose 10 books from the catalog and make remarks about the importance of the work. The resulting values are processed according to given parameters. This formula produces spider diagrams, outlining the contestants personality. By re-appropriating this historical document, Triin Tamm follows a line that she started with “a stack of Books”, a calvino-ish col- lection of excerpts, ranging from existing and semi-existing books to non-at-all-existing or soon-to-be-existing ones. The play with potentialities and make-belief has been a prominent part of her practice, since she started her career with a book called “Retro- spective” back in 2009.