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This is the virtual site of laboratory research and play at the Institute of Cultural inquiry (ICI). Click on a theme in RHIZOMES to see how disparate parts of the ICI archive are joined together around a fleeting thought or by a slip of the eye or the shutter. Click on a subject in ICI CONNECTIONS to see how recurring concerns coalesce around recurring themes or click on a place in the ICI ARCHIVES to see the raw material of our collections. TAGs below each post reveal hidden relationships between objects, thoughts, and interpretations.RHIZOMES
ICI Connections
AIDS/ Behind the Curtain Technologies/ Body as Model/ Body as Sign/ Building as Sign Camarón que se duerme.../ Collective Camouflage/ Dead/ Digital Book Dirt/ Dust/ Epistemophilia/ Esoterica/ Firsts/ Hidden in Plain Sight/ Hidden in Plain Site/ ICI Methods and Techniques Image-text gaps/ Lasts/ Liber Creature/ Man's History of Photography/ Manual of Lost Ideas/ Marginalia/ Masonry/ Monkey Head Nature as Model/ Out/ Phobias/ Photography's History of Us/ Plagues/ Re-membering/ Sebaldiana/ Seen in Plain Site/ Sexual identity/ Signs/ Slips of the Ear/ Slips of the Eye/ Slips of the Tongue/ Still Lies Quiet Truth/ That was Now/ Thin End of the Wedge/ Things that Glisten/ This Could be a Place of Historical Significance/ This is Then/ We are the ICI/ We Did This All While You Were Watching TV/ Who Decides/
Category Archives: First and Last Lines
LIBRARY SHELF: Lolita
Nabokov, Vladimir Lolita (1955) ICI Shelf: Fiction First Line: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” Last Line: “And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita.” ICI History: First Line,Today at the ICI-Twitter … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: Stitching A Revolution
Jones, Cleves Stitching A Revolution (2000) ICI Shelf: AIDS First Line: “Thousands of people stand on a grid of canvas walkways.” Last Line: “Please don’t make us come back.” ICI History: Last line, Today at the ICI-Twitter Feed (11-10-11); First … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: Art in Latin America
Ades, Dawn; Art in Latin America: The Modern Era, 1820-1980 (1989) ICI Shelf: Americas First Line: “The exhibition that this book accompanies was conceived with the aim of presenting to a European audience the relatively unknown art of Latin America … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: Machine Project
Alle, Mark; Jason Bown and Liz Glynn, eds.; MACHINE PROJECT: A Field Guide to the Los Angeles Museum of Art (2009) ICI Shelf: Museums First Line: “Etymologically speaking, “machine” is any means of doing something.” Last Line: “Please give me an Ambient Haircut.” … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: The Museum at Purgatory
Bantock, Nick; The Museum at Purgatory (1999) ICI Shelf: Museums First Line: “I met Marie Louise Gornier the other day, she’d only been dead for a week or so.” Last Line:“Here, at this mid point, each of us dismantles our past and … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge
Bataille, George (translated by Michelle Kendall and Stuart Kendall); The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge (2001) ICI Shelf: Monkey Head First Line: “It is a banality to claim that there is a fundamental difficulty in human communication.” Last Line: “ready to pray” ICI History: First … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: The Artificial Kingdom
Olalquiaga, Celeste; The Artificial Kingdom: A Treasury of the Kitsch Experience (1998) ICI Shelf: Museology First Line: “Meet Rodney, king of the hermit crabs.” Last Line: “In Rodney’s eyes I have been able to gaze into myself as never before, and in this … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: Hoaxes and Deceptions
Flaherty, Thomas H., ed.; Library of Curious and Unusual Facts: Hoaxes and Deceptions (1991) ICI Shelf: Ptolemy First Line: “Like an echo in the song of civilization, fakes have attended every great artistic achievement” Last Line: “Evidence of this, according to Washington University … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: What Heaven Looks Like
Elkins, James; What Heaven Looks Like: Comments on a Strange Wordless Books (2017) ICI Shelf: Books to Inspire First Line: “A woman sits down to her secret work.” Last Line: “And it is especially wonderful that even when her book is seen again, … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: Homosexuality and the Bible
Barnett, Walter; Homosexuality and the Bible: An Interpretation (1979) ICI Shelf: Religion First Line: “Most Christians are still uneasy about homosexuality.” Last Line: “As long as heterosexual Christians keep on asserting that they know all there is to know about God’s will on … Continue reading