...useless, incorruptible, secret
The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species -- the unique species -- is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.
Excerpt from the Library of Babel
Jorge Luis Borges
installation for cooley gallery, caseworks 14 at the reed college library. this is the second manifestation of the library catalog cards which were later installed at marylurst in strands 8 feet high. the bottom two were a spontaneous formation that I called "henry miller has a dream about two horses".