Intersections of ideas are infinite and often accidental we can never predict where they will appear, or what the outcome of their discovery will be. I have mapped intersections here in this library remarking on ideas that crossed my path as I thought about these marks; Vodou crossing cultures, science mixing with religion and philosophy, mythologies of madness, the politics of space, decay and memory, intuition and intellect, and the systems of all of these.
I brought them to this place where ideas are cataloged. With these markings spread throughout the library the participant / reader passes through these intersections physically. There is a system in place for cataloging the books here. Decisions and divisions are made about the proper location for a particular set of ideas; segregated domains are maintained, with little room for cross-fertilization. Symbols are deciphered according to systems. As a symbol, X is malleable, it travels between a multitude of systems. Recognition makes it resonate with meaning, meaning that shifts according to the system used to place it.
Cemeteries (the source of these images) and libraries are strikingly similar. Places of familiar devotion, they hover between public and private space. The rules for visitors are often contradictory free admittance is implied but often impinged upon for ambiguous reasons; controls for spaces where the uncontrollable (thought) happens. There are rows of resting places, the locations marked with numbers and letters. Ideas and people both age and die, and are reborn in those who remember them. Books are merely a trace of the ideas that created them. When students come here to study physics, will they understand how Einstein came to imagine the Theory of Relativity? When they read great literature, will they learn what drove the author to work on a single story for years?