Founded in 1998 by the mercurial time traveler and shamanistic brigand, Anon of Ibid, the Leri Institute for Much Higher Learning quickly established a reputation as the only multidisciplinary research centre in the world to spike the cafeteria punch on purpose. The Leri Institute's primary campus, in the province of Leriland on the island of New Atlantis, is a virtual whirlwind of activity, producing volumes and volumes of arcane and mysterious information, its faculty and staff shrouded in the cloak of Melodrama...
School of Ontological Cartography
Department of Metaprogramming and Psychedelic Studies
The oldest department on campus and the one from which the Leri Institute itself eventually evolved, Metaprogramming and Psychedelic Studies is also the strangest department on campus. Using the work of various metaprogramming pioneers as a springboard, the continuing project of this department is to carve out a unique niche in the body of psychedelic literature, contributing angles and insights only possible from within the vector of the Leri memespace. Published results are few at present, due to the fact that the faculty in this department tends to be too "engrossed in research" to be able to handle a keyboard or pencil.
Department of Human Contextual Studies
Whether it was sheer genius or abject laziness, the fact remains that Human Contextual Studies, like the Leri mailing list itself, has thrown out traditional boundaries between such diverse arenas as philosophy, religion, and sociology, and has instead focused its attention on considering the entire framework in which we move -- the human context. In an Institute founded by metaprogrammers, it is fitting that this department takes such an inherently "meta" approach, whether starting at the memetic level and working "upward," or starting with the entire vast Omniverse and working "inward."
School of Poetry and the Ecstatic Arts
Department of Music and Synaesthesia
Some of the world's noisiest, weirdest, and longest jam sessions have taken place at Stage 23, the Department of Music and Synaesthesia's performance studio space. Weekly performances by the Sheep Fiends routinely get completely out of hand; Sunday night drum circles down by the beach consistently drop the whole island into the rhythm zone; weekly rave parties feature the latest and craziest creations by the students in the department's Throbbing Techno classes. The student radio station, KDMT ("Broadcasting LIVE from THE OTHER SIDE!"), features original student works of incredible complexity, insane jazziness, and maximum grooviness. And of course, there are classes in beginning, intermediate, and advanced kazoo.
The quest to make words on a page come alive (both figuratively and literally!) is relentlessly pursued by the students in the Department of FIXION, housed in the Scrytch Center on the south side of campus. These scrytchers are a strange bunch, and visitors to the Scrytch Center are often quite disturbed to hear talk of "iterations within iterations" and "punctuation is alive, and it's out to get us!" and "sure, post-modernism is dead, but that doesn't mean you aren't trapped inside your own damn novel!" The department publishes a quarterly journal of FIXION entitled "Gravity" -- a journal which has been known to give visitors the screaming willies and which manages to delight most Lerilanders, especially when they happen to read a page or two while dosed to the gills.
Department of Visuals and Visual Arts
The Department of Visuals and Visual Arts explores every possible avenue of creating "trippy shit to look at." Visitors to the Hoffman Building will encounter roaming bands of semi-nude fingerpainters, giant video screens featuring impossible video feedback displays, chalk and crayon murals all over the walls, serious and not-so-serious paintings and sculptures, and enormous computer monitors featuring 3D animations and fractal screen savers which very nearly induce the psychedelic state. It is thanks to the students in this department that most of the buildings on campus shimmer with color and incredible designs, making a walk across campus a nearly mind-blowing experience.
Department of Theatre and Melodrama
Housed in the Heath Rezabek Geodisic Dome on the north side of campus, Theatre and Melodrama delves into the art of transforming the imaginary into actuality by creating living, breathing alternate realities on stage (whatever the stage may be). Explorations into the physics of purely aesthetic spaces are the purview of this department, and the boundary between performers and audience is not simply pushed against or even dissolved, but often times dosed and tye-dyed. Performances are staged regularly in the laboratory theatre, the Void Auditorium ("where there's always an empty seat for you!") as well as in various locations around Leriland itself.
Located on the second floor of the Scrytch Center, the Department of Poetic License takes the deconstruction of language a level beyond FIXION, attempting to catch the exact moment of inspiration, as ethereal and ineffable as it is, on paper for the rest of Leriland to see. The most mysterious of the ecstatic art students, these poets draw inspiration from all avenues of life, and at any given moment, the classrooms may be completely empty, or nearly full, packed with people who simply needed to come that day and let a poem escape.
Leri Institute Social Center
The Leri Institute Student Union, also known as the Symposium, is a place for students to chill out, play a few video games, engage in spirited debates, and generally get to know each other outside the environment of the classroom. It is also, needless to say, a great place to get completely weird and just walk around.
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