A graphic mix and match
[ by Charles Cameron — the serious-minded can safely ignore this post, which is of mainly aesthetic interest, surely a matter of no importance in its own right ]
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Two graphics caught my eye today, one after another in my RSS feed.
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The upper image comes from DARPA, and is not really explained in any detail by the otherwise interesting Wired piece that it illustrated — but is easy and intriguing to the eye anyway, and somehow has to do with a return to analog computing:
Through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the DoD is funding a new program called UPSIDE, short for Unconventional Processing of Signals for Intelligent Data Exploitation. Basically, the program will investigate a brand-new way of doing computing without the digital processors that have come to define computing as we know it.
Well, new this time around the block, anyway.
The second (lower image), totally unrelated to the first but almost its twin to my mind’s eye, shows a “literary moonscape” by the artist Guy Laramée, created by sculpting it out of an old book, h/t The Paris Review, Saatchi Gallery and 3quarksdaily.
In my view, Laramée has an impressive understanding of books and how they serve as portals into other worlds:
