How many technology books do you read in a single year? Twenty or thirty? Perhaps a book a week? When it comes to reading geeky volumes, Charles Broskoski, a student of NYC’s Parsons School of Design, thinks big. In fact, he read 356 O’Reilly books in 400 days.

In an email to Tim O’Reilly earlier last month, Charles, 25, described an intriguing (and yes, flattering) performing art project. “I am reading over 300 O’Reilly e-books on the computer, sometimes two or three a day,” he wrote. “To document this process, I take notes (also on the computer) and various photographs and screen shots.”

Charles had only one request. He wrote that his art project—now called “Computer Skills”—would be on display at Manhattan’s Chelsea Art Gallery. He hoped we’d help him communicate his artistic intentions by supplying physical copies of the books he’d read in time for the May 14 opening.

Well, how could we resist putting the books we love into an art piece? Folks at O’Reilly Media located 250 of the books in a hurry, got them packed into 13 boxes, and sent them on their way. I also used the opportunity to talk to Charles and learn more about his motivations for what must be the geekiest performance art book piece on record.

You’ll find more information about the art show at the end of the interview. Now, here’s Charles…

SP: So Charles, what made you decide to go on a diet of 356 O’Reilly books? And how did you come to choose O’Reilly books as opposed to other publishers.

To be honest, and without trying to fawn, O’Reilly books strike me as the only ones taken seriously by the computer community.

As for the idea, I have always been interested in the idea of spending an extended period of time perfecting one skill (similar to training sequences in kung-fu movies). Of course, it didn’t exactly turn out that way, but I did spend a large amount of my weekends staying home and catching up on my reading.

SP: What are you studying at Parsons?

I am in the Design and Technology program, which is centered on technology and design (obviously) but also tends to be a bit looser than the other programs at the school. Some students end up working in traditional graphic design, some do computer animation, and some students practice varieties of new media art.

SP: Tell us more about your art project?

Essentially, I considered my reading the books a performance, and the items presented at the show will be documentation of that performance. Before I started reading, I printed out the file list, and every time I finished a book I crossed it off the list, wrote the date and time, and took a picture. So, I have as many photos as the amount of books I read as well as the actual crossed off lists. Additionally, while I read, I typed notes on the computer about what I was reading. These notes varied throughout the project, in the beginning they were standard school-style notes, but they evolved into something different by the end. These notes will be printed and bound into a book for the show and will also be available online. (You can view it here: http://cs.supercentral.org/)

Approaching work this way isn’t a new idea; plenty of artists have done it before (Chris Burden, “On Kawara,” etc.) but I liked the idea of a conceptual art piece that computer nerds would understand.