Fantasies of the Library

Fantasies of the Library inaugurates the intercalations: paginated exhibition series. Virtually stacked alongside Anna-Sophie Springer’s feature essay “Melancholies of the Paginated Mind” about unorthodox responses to the institutional ordering principles of book collections, the volume includes an interview with Rick Prelinger and Megan Shaw Prelinger of the Prelinger Library in San Francisco; reflections on the role of cultural memory and the archive by Hammad Nasar, Head of Research and Programmes at the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; a conversation with media theorist Joanna Zylinska about experiments on the intersections of curatorial practice and open source e-books; and a discussion between K’s co-director Charles Stankievech and platform developer Adam Hyde on new approaches to open source publishing in science and academia. The photo essay, “Reading Rooms Reading Machines,” presents views of unusual historical libraries next to works by artists such as Kader Attia, Andrew Beccone, Mark Dion, Rodney Graham, Katie Paterson, Veronika Spierenburg, Andrew Norman Wilson, and others.
The intercalations: paginated exhibition series was conceived and developed by Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin for the SYNAPSE – The International Curators’ Network. Produced in association with SYNAPSE co-founders Kirsten Einfeldt and Daniela Wolf, the series is co-published and distributed by K. Verlag and HKW as both paperbacks and web-based open access publications.