How to use this site:
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 ICI 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. This is the place of laboratory research and play. -MORE-RHIZOMES
ICI Connections
AIDS AIDS Book Bataille's Eye Behind the Curtain Technologies Body as Model Body as Sign Books to inspire Building as Sign Buttons Camarón que se duerme... Collective Camouflage Dead Dirt Documents Dust DWA Epistemophilia Firsts Galt Hidden in Plain Sight Hidden in Plain Site Image-text gaps Lasts Liber Creature Lists Man's History of Photography Manual of Lost Ideas Marginalia Masonry Nature as Model Out Phobias Photography's History of Us Plagues Playing cards Raw Material Re-membering roundness Sebaldiana Seen in Plain Site Sexual identity Signs Slips of the Ear Slips of the Eye Slips of the Tongue Still Lies Quiet Truth Strangers and Fools That was Now Thin End of the Wedge Things that Glisten This Could be a Place of Historical Significance This is Then Uncategorized volvelle We are the ICI We Did This All While You Were Watching TV Who Decides
Category Archives: Marginalia
LIBRARY SHELF: Books, Boxes and Portfolios
Zeier, Franz Books, Boxes and Portfolios: Binding, Construction, and Design Step-by-Step (1983) FIRST LINE: “The steps described under this heading are not meant to be followed one by one.” ICI SHELF: Bookmaking ICI HISTORY: Today at the ICI-Twitter Feed (04-14-12)
LIBRARY SHELF: A Mapmaker’s Dream
Cowan, James A Mapmaker’s Dream: The Meditations of Fra Mauro, Cartographer to the Court of Venice (1996) FIRST LINE: “For some time I have wanted to relate a circumstance that has been happening to me in recent years.” ICI SHELF: … Continue reading
LIBRARY SHELF: The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
LIBRARY SHELF: The Politics of Vision
Nochlin, Linda The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (1989) FIRST LINE: “Art Changes only through strong convictions, convictions strong enough to change society at the same time.” ICI SHELF: Art History ICI HISTORY: Today at the … Continue reading
Changed Priorities
Saussure tells us that no sign makes sense on its own but only in relation to other signs. The value of a sign is determined by the relationship between signs in the system as a whole. He notes the French … Continue reading
To the Temple
This is a nondescript sign on a back road of East Anglia, England. But to anyone who has read W. G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, this sign might (and it does) announce the site of Alec Girrard’s model of … Continue reading
This Could Be a Place of Historical Significance
In 1980, Braco Dimitrijević built an engraved slab into the pavement outside the Cathedral in Cologne, Germany. This photo was taken in January of 1992. Dimitrijević’s critique of history relies not only on language, the usual fodder of sign systems, … Continue reading
Flowers at Chimayo
This permanent memorial at Chimayo, New Mexico evokes the language of the temporary roadside shrine. The permanence of the ceramic calla lilies is undermined by a thin sheet of cellophane wrapped around the bouquet. Its haphazard embrace borrows the language … Continue reading
This is Bedlam
A small plaque on the side of the Great Eastern Hotel in London marks the site of the old Bethlehem Hospital. The sign obscures the other name for the site. As W. G. Sebald schooled us in Austerlitz, at this … Continue reading
The Red Hand
A red palm print near an otherwise immaculately maintained doorway in Santa Monica. It resists inclusion in the visual marginalia that defines most urban sites. The red palm is the sign of the gypsy, of the palm reader, of the … Continue reading


