Apart from the interest of the classification systems used and presented by Dion in the plan for a proposed piece, one of the main things that intrigues me about this image is its own layout; separate from that which it represents. Although we see the area from above in the top illustration (a circular room, which according to the authors of Mark Dion, published by Phaidon, separates the viewers from inspecting the cabinets at close range by means of a 'protective railing') when presented like this, alongside a horizontal view of the cabinets the two vantagepoints combine to form the shape an observatory. I presume this was deliberate; it serves both to present the idea and function with its own connotations - especially when surrounded by the images of paintings and books from the Bodleian Library, and the first image, a photograph from an original Cabinet of Curiosities; a wunderkammer; a wonder-room.
This referencing of where it has come from reminds me a little of the repeated motifs in Pierre Huyghe's Billboards presented earlier. Also the presentations of art history by Andrew Lanyon and Cornelius Galle.
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