This course explores the library not only as a physical archive of books, but as a dynamic cultural, social, political, and technological space. It examines how libraries function across physical, digital, and post-digital contexts in relation to access to knowledge, curation, memory, archives, and networked culture. Through discussions on shadow libraries, decentralized archives, open-source tools, and collective knowledge production, students investigate how libraries can operate as spaces of invention, connection, and public engagement.
The course also approaches the library as a curatorial and artistic practice, exploring how books, collections, and archives can function as exhibition spaces within contemporary art and media culture. Students engage with concepts such as the fluid library, DIY library, people’s library, and distributed library, while developing practical skills in cataloguing, organizing, and collaborative research.
A central component of the course is a group project connected to Alessandro Ludovico’s Temporary Library initiative. Students research, acquire, catalogue, and design a Norwegian edition of the Temporary Library for the Meta.Morf Biennale, combining archival research, exhibition-making, publishing culture, curatorial practice, and public programming. The resulting collection functions both as a public exhibition during the biennale and as a lasting archive of Norwegian media art.
Reading List:
Anna-Sophie Springer, Melancholies of the Paginated Mind: The Library as Curatorial Space
Balázs Bodó, Libraries in the post-scarcity era
Lawrence Liang, Shadow Libraries
Alessandro Ludovico, The end of paper: can anything actually replace the printed page?
Alessandro Ludovico, Temporary and Distributed Libraries, breaking boundaries, creating new resources
Marcell Mars, Manar Zarroug and Tomislav Medak, Public library (an essay)
Walter Benjamin, Unpacking My Library
Michel Foucault, Fantasia of the Library
Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
George Perec, The Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books
Shannon Mattern, Marginalia: Little Libraries in the Urban Margin
Practices:
Alain Resnais, Toute la Mémoire du Monde
Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum
Aby Warburg, Denkraum
Lars von Trier, Melancholia
Alessandro Ludovico, The Temporary Library
The People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street
Asia Art Archive (AAA), Mobile Library
Cabinet Magazine, Cabinetlandia
Wafaa Bilal, One Hundred Sixty-Eight Hours and One Second
Kadar Attia, Continuum of Repair: The LIght of Jacob’s Ladder
Temporary Services, The Library Project
Andrew Norman Wilson, ScanOps
Krissy Wilson, The Art of Google Books
David Guez, Humanpédia
Marta Minujin, The Parthenon of Books
Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Library)
Annie Vigier & Franck Apertet, Library
Maria Eichhorn, Rose Valland Institute
Martha Rosler Library
Maru Calva, Biblioteca Aeromoto
Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell
Paul Purgas and Louis Moreno, Infrastructure of Feeling
Wendy’s Subway
Kenneth Goldsmith, Printing out the Internet
Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied, One Terabyte of Kilobyte Age
Daniel García Andújar, Postcapital. Archive 1989–2001
Marcell Mars & Tomislav Medak, Public Library
Library Genesis
Sean Dockray, Aaaaarg.org
Monoskop
Please note, we will not have sufficient time to read through and discuss all listed texts within the scheduled course times. We will make a selection of a few from the list for group readings. Participants in the course are also encouraged to make their suggestions and help crowd source the curriculum. The same applies to all non-literary references.
Target Group:
This course is geared towards MFA1 and MFA2 students.
Collaborative tools and pedagogical platforms for the course:
Dropbox- A shared Dropbox folder will be used as a shared online course repository for distributed readings, and other shared content.
Drop Box Paper (https://paper.dropbox.com/) – Will be used for curriculum updates, notes taken during sessions and group project planning.
We will also use a course blog to post references, and other useful sources related to the course topic.
