A growing encyclopaedia on ships, forests and pacemakers.

Reference Guide is a collection of entries, connected and fuelled by cross-references. These not only determine the characteristics of the encyclopaedia and its use, but they are also the mechanism behind its expansion. All* entries are transcripts of moments when objects and technologies challenge the strict boundaries that apply to them and emphasize their transitory nature.

Reference Guide allows each reader to construct his or her own path through the different entries. This movement is similar to the one you might make within l’Encyclopédie, The Winkler Prins, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, etc.; a movement that might take you from the entry on the aorta, to the heart, to surgeon, to scalpel, to knife, to axe, to forestry only to end up at silver birch or – with a different turn somewhere along the way – at windmill, oil painting, carbon monoxide, the moon or keel. The only thing connecting the AORTA to the SILVER BIRCH is the reader's trajectory within the encyclopaedic context.

* Although the main focus of Reference Guide lies within these moments of technological candour, the collection demonstrates a surprisingly high interest in characters and phenomena along the side-lines of these episodes and displays a severe tendency to digress.

Michiel De Cleene, Reference Guide, Roma Publication 345, 2019, ISBN: 9789492811400

Michiel De Cleene, Reference Guide – P.733.PTC – Plutonium 238 Pacemaker, display model [Tolochenaz]

Michiel De Cleene, Reference Guide – J.960.NAK – Transcript of an interview with Ms. Nakazawa

Michiel De Cleene, Reference Guide – A.133.CLP – Chemainus, where the Authenticity’s position was last received

Michiel De Cleene, Reference Guide – L.463.ESH – Mount Egaleo’s shadow

Michiel De Cleene, Transitory Nature, Three Selected Episodes from Reference Guide, A Growing Encyclopaedia on Ships, Forests and Pacemakers, Design Museum Gent, Museum Of Moving Practice, Gent, 01/09/2017 – 17/09/2017