'Search Engine' – of which this book is a reproduction – is a series of ‘catalogue cards’ featuring photographs sourced from the London Library, one of the world’s largest independent lending libraries. These images are ordered as the London-based artist, Louis Porter, encountered them – alphabetically by subject – on shelves that make neighbours of Sleep and Smuggling and bring together Pleasure, Poaching, and Poisons. The result forms an archaeological exploration of the systems of knowledge that we often take for granted.
