Many of the pieces I have placed on the blog display the qualities unique to one media or another, but are often from an alternative. Sometimes this is defined by the framing of such, whether in composition or the framework on which it is balanced. There are sequences of images which present like film frames, categorised drawings which, by their grouping, become like objects for collection; other pieces seem to reference other media by their very content; the use of words within drawings, or as drawings, applied narratives alongside but not separate from observed visuals, manipulations of scale and its illusion and malleability, or the sharing of responsibly between items which work together displaying two sides of the coin.

With this list the possible pieces are inexhaustible; these categories alone could never bring about this just this set. In the end the blog is a personal thing; what I have chosen to present are those things that I have found poignant; often because of the little histories they present, moments and temporary states. This means some of the content of the blog is not pieces at all, but quotes, stories and exerts.

Four points to start

These cards are an example of a myriorama; a set of interchangable pieces depicting a landscape. Constant and repeated features in the foreground and/or the horizon support different pastural scenes in the middleground. From myriad, an indefinately great number, and 'entertainments' such as panoramas and dioramas, the holder of the cards is able to change around the pieces, creating their own landscape. The designer would start with one landscape, which would then be cut into 16, 24, or 36 individual slices.

Interactive myriorama at http://billdouglas.ex.ac.uk/eve/di/69238.htm

Curiosity Cabinet for the Wexner Center for the Arts - Mark Dion

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.

Details.

Dion's cabinets, organized according to Aristotle's classifications of species, when presented like this: each bookshelf encased in its own white box, remind me of the different playing cards of the myriorama, able to be rearranged at will, and still almost make sense visually. To these however, although change would visually acceptable, the entirely concept would be corrupted.