In history as in nature, the rotten is the laboratory of life. Karl Marx
The Institution of Rot (IOR) was founded by artist Richard Crow and writer Nick Couldry in 1992 as part of London's Secret Spaces. Situated in a Victorian House in North London, Richard Crow's working and living space, the IOR has been (from 1992 - 1996) an active artist-run space dedicated to performance, audio works and site-specific installations. Rooted in a mindset of do-it-yourself production and collaboration, the IOR significantly contributed to the extraordinary dynamism of London's artist-run spaces phenomenon of the 90's documented in the "Life/Live" anthology edited by Laurence Bossé and Hans-Ulrich Obrist (Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1996).
At present the IOR remains a 'living archive' - a kind of hauntology of recordings, objects, texts and images.