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A fascination with archives often entails a longing to return to sources, stories, and their beginnings. It is associated with a meticulous attention to detail, the uncovering of exciting connections, the collection of testimonies and reliable traces, accounts that corroborate a story, and contribute to the (re)construction of histories from below. However, at a time when the notion of the 'archive' threatens to become a dead metaphor or a cheap replacement for 'canon' or 'corpus', the symposium suggests to take a particularly contentious example — that of the Yugoslav Partisan 'counter-archive' — as a starting-point for its reconsideration of archival politics. The Yugoslav, socialist, and Partisan past was both demonized by the resurgent Balkan nationalist projects of the 1990s and commodified by Yugonostalgic memorialization, stylized as either heroic or droll. Against these versions of a 'frozen' past, a multiplicity of projects, cultural, artistic, or political, have sought to document and aggregate past fragments, diverse snapshots, artworks, political events — a diverse archive to be retrieved in order to unsettle current narratives and mobilize emancipatory changes. The term 'Partisan counter-archive' in particular builds on two recent publications, Gal Kirn's Partisan Counter Archive and Davor Konjukušić's Red Light, which tackle the return to the Yugoslav Partisan struggle and its after-life, going beyond both revisionism and nostalgia. Seeking to connect this particular example to wider revolutionary and decolonial histories, the symposium will also draw on some of the most advanced considerations of archival practices in radical modernist traditions and contemporary art. How can counter-archives connect the testimonies and legacies of past struggles with the victims of today's oppression? What kind of power struggles are produced by counter-archives, and how do they manage to draw attention to what has been lost, overlooked, reduced, suppressed, or omitted from national archives and established ...

Nathan: 'My parents still call me, even today, asking "so, what about a boyfriend?" I tell them, "listen, I have a boyfriend every day! Every day I have a new boyfriend". And then the question is of course, "do you want to be alone?" And this is another reason why it is better to live in this country [Germany], where being alone is not the Mark of Cain.' Sexual orientation and left-wing political affiliation often play significant roles in decisions to leave Israel. Queer Israelis question nationalist and heteronormative expectations regarding army service, monogamy, and procreation. A general despair over the current political situation and the collapse of democracy further motivate their departures and leave many feeling that they don't belong to the Israeli national collective, while Berlin is frequently celebrated as a cosmopolitan and unassuming city where LGTB people can live in peace. Hila Amit argues that queer Israeli emigrants, in their decision to depart, undermine Zionist ideology as well as change the obvious paths of resistance to Zionism. In stepping out of the territory of Israel, they avoid the Zionist demand to perform as strong, masculine courageous citizens. But the left-wing resistance to the regime is just as committed to a heroic ideal – the willingness to take part in often violent demonstrations and risk imprisonment or injury. Amit recognizes the vulnerability of the emigrants, who can no longer bear the hardship of the life offered to them in Israel. To be explored, then, is the political potential of passivity and unheroic conduct. As Adi, one of the participants of the study, puts it: 'I've been an activist for 10 years. I can't live there anymore. People come to Berlin to heal, that's why some people call it the Berlin Sanatorium.' The discussion builds on the contributions to A Queer Way Out: The Politics of Israeli Emigration (2018), an award-winning study by Hila Amit. The evening presents an opportunity to hear both from the author and the participants of the study and hence the ...

I am hungry to be interrupted / For ever and ever amen / O Person from Porlock come quickly / And bring my thoughts to an end. Stevie SmithThree stanzas into writing his poem Kubla Kahn, Coleridge tells us, he was interrupted by the now infamous 'Person from Porlock', bringing him irrecoverably out of the zone. A century and a half later, the poet Stevie Smith hungers for the 'Person from Porlock' to come back quickly, and bring her thoughts to an end. Today, we are said to be living through a crisis of attention, constantly diverted by notifications, multiple tabs, sensationalist headlines, clickbait, 24/7 multitasking, and a spiralling number of distracted-driving fatalities. Within the context of the ongoing ICI Focus ERRANS environ(s), 'Where was I?' will explore questions of zoning in and zoning out, attending to attention and its social, political, and aesthetic implicationsin everyday experience. What does it mean to be 'in the zone' and what happens when we 'zone out'? What is the role of interruption in the creative process? What escapes are afforded by absorption, and who has been historically excluded from distraction-free zones? Please join us in the ICI Library for a performance, drinks, and… where was I? ; …Where Was I? , ici library event, ICI Berlin, 22 January 2019

Waiting at the border, the government office, the hospital. Waiting one's turn, holding the line. Waiting for the end of the play, for a diagnosis, for sleep. Waiting for an answer, a visa, or a loved one. Waiting for something that will never come. Waiting is often conceived of as pointless void, idle or 'stolen' time, provoking shapeless boredom, or as ritualized demonstration of power, exercise of passivity – rarely, however, as deferral, productive break, an interstitial moment of contemplation and reflection. Nobody likes to wait, nobody likes to be kept waiting. Yet waiting is also understood to provide the most immediate, emblematic, albeit infuriating experience of time. Is it possible to say, conversely, that, as long as there is time, experience is marked, at least in part, by the curious suspension of waiting? 'Waiting' will explore the enervating and exhilarating aspects of waiting in the context of the ICI's current research focus ERRANS, in Time. In two parts, this year's ICI Library Event will explore the socio-political implications of the ways in which we are being kept waiting and the paradoxical fullness and intensification of time spent waiting. ; Waiting , ici library event, ICI Berlin, 7 December 2016

A digression, a not-coming-to-the-point opens the concrete to the unknown; simple shifts and interruptions lead to explorations of unforeseen realities. Digressions manifest themselves in many ways – as distraction, excursus, or detour – and are commonly deployed as a rhetorical, scientific, or literary device, but also as associative parlando or political strategy. Digressions are supposed to render narrative accounts more accessible, provide access to remote areas, divert from the topic or argumentation, disturb the flow of storytelling, increase suspense, or delay the result. The question therefore becomes: what do they distract from? Is there a current, path, red thread, or direction to lose sight of – or does the digression merely pretend to have lost sight of it? The ICI Library Event But I Digress will let the mind wander and explore the enervating and reinvigorating aspects of digression in the context of the ICI's current research focus ERRANS. The event will consist of a staged reading delving into the manifold ways of literary digression and, in its second half, the opening of an exhibition of artworks by Jochen Flinzer, Jenny Keuter, Axel Malik, and Patrick Vernon. Faint pencil traces, scribbled messages, despairing lines, stitched contours, and stretching threads will continue the reflections on digression and present themselves in space or on paper, ranging from the elusive and emblematic to the raptures of minimalism. The works, mostly pen, thread, and print, reveal the polysemic play of wandering lines, contours, and forms. The artworks will be on display from 8 December 2015 – 14 January 2016 in the ICI Library. The exhibition is curated by Claudia Peppel.Welcome: Corinna Haas and Arnd WedemeyerIntroduction to the Exhibition: Claudia Peppel ; But I Digress , ici library event, ICI Berlin, 8 December 2015

Lines can evoke notions of form, contour, and trains of thought; they may indicate order or randomness, continuity or division, give rise to complex meanings or shapeless chaos. Their 'breadthless length' (Euclid) serves as a foundation for geometry, the basis of alphabets and writing, the elementary component of visual representation; it provides the frame for musical notation, the basic unit of poetry and literature, the possibility of political division and segregation, and a fundamental resource for philosophical and historical reflections on the nature of movement, temporality, (dis)continuity, and change. What is the red thread running through these different notions and manifestations of linearity? Or does their multiplicity point to the boundless variety of possible trajectories and discontinuities already present within the one-dimensionality of the single line? Is every line a wandering away from another, or an extension of the line's innate errant potential, its play of tangential forces? The ICI Library Event explored the creative and menacing potential of the notion of lines within the context of the core project, ERRANS. Part 1 A Nonlinear Panel With Rosa Barotsi, Pearl Brilmyer, James Burton, Antonio Castore, Maria José De Abreu, Preciosa Regina de Joya, Walid El-Houri, Ewa Majewska, and Zairong Xiang Part 2 To Draw a Line: Writing Performance with Axel Malik Over the course of the last 25 years, Axel Malik has explored, in his daily writing practice, varied potentials of the scriptural line freed from all signification. He will demonstrate his 'scriptural method' and present a single canvas on which he wrote for an entire year. Malik will be introduced by Claire Nioche-Sibony. ; Errant Lines , ici library event, ICI Berlin, 10 December 2014

Weathering is atmospheric, geological, temporal, transformative. It implies exposure to the elements and processes of wearing down, disintegration, or accrued patina. Weathering can also denote the ways in which subjects and objects resist and pass through storms and adversity. This volume contemplates weathering across many fields and disciplines; its contributions examine various surfaces, environments, scales, temporalities, and vulnerabilities. What does it mean to weather or withstand? Who or what is able to pass through safely? What is lost or gained in the process?