Perimeter Editions x Louis Porter | London Book Launch
Perimeter is delighted to announce the London launch event of artist Louis Porter's newest publication, Search Engine, published by Perimeter Editions. Taking place at The Photographers' Gallery on Thursday May 28 at 6.30pm, Louis will be in conversation with Writer, Editor and Lecturer Diane Smyth in the Cafe bar. After the talk, Louis will be signing copies of the book in the Photographers' Gallery Bookshop.
EVENT DETAILS
The Photographers' Gallery
16–18 Ramillies Street
London W1F 7LW
Thursday May 28, 2026
6.30pm–8pm
ABOUT THE BOOK
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.
The construction of Search Engine took place between November 2021 and May 2022 amongst the stacks of the library’s Science & Miscellaneous section. Unlike most libraries, which use alphanumeric classification systems, the London Library is organised by sections and subject headings – primarily focusing on the humanities – with Science & Miscellaneous providing the overflow for an eclectic group of subjects, many of which echo the interests of the Victorian men of wealth who founded the library in 1841. For example, when entering the section, on the left-hand row one would encounter: Advertising, Aeronautics, Agriculture, Alchemy, Anatomy, Animal Lore, Arbitration, Archery, Arms & Armour, Artillery, Astrology, and Astronomy.
Whilst Search Engine presents disparate subjects – Cats, Famine, Rubber, and so on – the frame upon which they are tethered resonates with an optical authority born of a rationalist world order. This hold on us not only lingers, as the ‘photographic’ is consumed and stochastically regurgitated by black boxes, but seems to be intensifying; much like a coin as it spins on a table, moving faster and faster, approaching the point where, suddenly, it stops. Taken as a whole, this book – Porter’s first for Perimeter Editions – could be understood as an archaeological dream of the photographic spirit from which we are assembling many of the perceptual models of our future experience of reality.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
LOUIS PORTER is a London based artist, photographer and researcher. His work, often archival in its formulation looks at the circulation and recirculation of images, texts, ideas and the technologies of reproduction that enable this. His works are held in numerous collections including those of Tate Modern, The Victoria and Albert Museum and MACBA and he his represented by Chiquita Room Gallery of Barcelona.
DIANE SMYTH is Editor of the British Journal of Photography and the Photoworks Annual, and teaches History and Theory of Photography at the London College of Communications, University of the Arts London. She has given talks and workshops at institutions such as London School of Economics, King's College London, Bodleian Libraries, and Whitechapel Gallery, and written about photography for publications such as The Guardian, FOAM, Trigger, Apollo, and The Art Newspaper, and for photography catalogues and monographs. Diane has a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Birmingham an MA in Modern Literatures in English from Birkbeck College, University of London.