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browsing process that opens up new perspectives on the initial question with each new
card. The secret, as Georg Simmel put it, or “the concealment of realities through nega-
tive or positive means, is one of the greatest accomplishments of humanity; . . . a tre-
mendous amplification of life [is] achieved through the secret, because much of its
contents simply cannot appear in full publicity. The secret offers the possibility of a
second world, so to speak, apart from the apparent one, and the former is influenced
by the latter in the strongest terms.”
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The open secret of the system of systems theory lies in the complexity of its equip-
ment. Accumulating and creating connections,
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a recording system led according to
simple, consistent rules—duration: thirty years—generates that complexity which is
then diminished by the ensemble of various questions in the form of essays and books.
The clandestine fosters above all the desire to look behind the opaque drawer fronts,
to tear through the cards in the search for truth, which always beckons as an exciting
temptation in the form of a drawer to be opened. A slight hesitation, and there is already
an irritation, whether the wood will endure another touch and allow us to trace a piece
of information needing to be understood. “And yet the hand fumbles once again for the
slip box—2 varieties sit inside, ready for notes: DIN A 9 (36.16x52.56) and DIN A 8
(74.33x52.56); and that is also nothing less than pedantry; rather, simply a question of
experience: it depends on the temperment, how long the series of keywords is that one
needs for the notation of an impression; in any case, a little DIN A 8 note, with short-
hand scribbled in tiny cursive on the front and back (hi! The many 'i'-signs!), corre-
sponds to a quarter page,”
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as Arno Schmidt wraps his own passion in words.
The beauty and elegance of the complex contents of Bielefeld 1951ff., its simple
internal organization and the convenient material encoding in wood, paint and cards
promise to continually follow each operational success with more searching questions.
Luhmann: “In a certain sense, then, the slip box is a reduction for the construction of
complexity. ”
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Which is why it is hardly a surprise how many others have succumbed
to the temptation of the model. “And so Fred picks himself up every evening from his
highly complex clerical work, stumbles, still somewhat confused, to his car and drives
straight across the city to reduce complexity at a pair of shapely breasts.”
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Notes
1. Karl Rosenkranz,
GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegels Leben
, 2nd unrevised reprographic ed. (Darm-
stadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1844/1969), 12f. For a historical justification for
Hegel's manuscript/typographical idiosyncrasy: “Hegel writes, as is common in Germany, in
