We began to create projects to bring focus to the AIDS pandemic over 20 years ago. Born out of feelings of loss and rage, these projects challenged us to abandon our long held beliefs about art. Rejecting notions of artist personality and artwork as commodity, … Continue readingICI Technic: The Gift
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Artistic abstraction, which came into public view circa 1911, is currently undergoing a broad reassessment. At mid-century, Clement Greenberg argued that modernist painting’s exploration of line, color, and gesture — each a turn away from figurative representation and from the other plastic arts– constituted a search … Continue readingAbstraction
In 1902, Max Verworn began the Zeitschrift für allgemeine Physiologie (Journal of General Physiology). In 21 years, the Zeitschrift amounted to 20 volumes full of pictures, diagrams, graphs, and photographs — companions to extensive articles on the inner-workings of all sorts of bodily systems. The Institute holds volumes … Continue readingZeitschrift Physiologie
Over the last decade, many thinkers have attempted to diagram the interlocking processes of studio-based research in an attempt to clarify the need for a PhD degree in studio art (http://thinkingpractices.wordpress.com/theories-of-art-practices-as-research/). We have been inspired by these attempts to chart what we do fairly naturally … Continue readingDiagram of Visual Research at the ICI
Discovery is the cornerstone of all we do here at the ICI but is especially important to our processes of visual research. Almost all our projects have emerged from a small disruption or an accumulation of slips – in vision, in speech, in word, thought, … Continue readingICI Technic: Discovery
The Searching for Sebald project was a landmark event for the ICI because it opened the door to a whole new toolbox for doing creative research. Sebald’s bricolage gave us permission to “play” more than we usually do. In this case, we transcribed an interview … Continue readingInterviewing the Dead: Sebald’s Words
In a memorial service for one of our founding associates, cigars, food, money, and a healthy shot of whiskey were used to conjure up Papa Legba, the spirit guardian of the Crossroads. Incantation derives from Middle English, from the Anglo-French enchanter, reminding us that the casting of spells … Continue readingICI Technic: Incantation
As Susan Stewart has proposed, the miniature operates at the place of origin—the childhood of the self—creating an “interior temporality of the subject,” a place for private contemplation. When the physical dimensions of material ideas are decreased, so too are the roles of hierarchy and narrative. Miniaturization … Continue readingICI Technic: Miniaturization