The ICI believes that thought is often jump-started by sight that is slightly distracted or disrupted. For this reason, many ICI Projects begin with an investigation in the field. The objects, images, and impressions collected through this field work or through Interpretive Field Projects (IFP) — journeys to foreign sites — form the basis for most of our ICI publications, projects, and/or displays.
IFP journeys have included: The Origins of Madness in 1992 (Vienna, Buttenhausen, Auschwitz); Cults in 1994 (Carlsbad Cavern, Graceland, Bibleland); Traüm(a) in 1999 (Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Auschwitz, Venice); Searching for Sebald in 2004 (East Anglia, London, The Hague) and An Inconvenient Camera in 2012 (Gränna, Sweden; London and Berkeley).Interpretive field work has contributed to projects such as Between Flesh and Blood: Visualizing Race in America and Forget Foucault, our latest tactical event meant to draw focus to the AIDS pandemic.
In January 2015, the ICI, in conjunction with the E of the We, will present an IFP project at Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences. In a Mere Full of Rime: a search for photography’s essence will explore the limits of photography in a month-long residency undertaken in a hand-built paper airstream.
