In 2007, McSweeney’s came out with a book of essays by Lawrence Weschler entitled Everything that Rises: A Book of Convergences. The collection focused on the potential insights to be gained by placing two images of widely disparate origins side by side and exploring the deeper resonances evoked by their shared visual imagery. McSweeney’s then hosted a contest where readers could submit their own striking pairs of images, in order for Weschler to comment on the winning pairs. A couple of my favorites: 1) a grain of Coney Island sand next to a NASA image of one of the moons of Mars; 2) a Piet Mondrian painting next to a Chicago wage map; and, of course, 3) papal fire. Here, I attempt my own juxtaposition.
First, a visual depiction of “the size of the [iPhone] screen that could be made if the displays were ripped out of every iPhone ever sold and combined into a single colossus”––depicted, naturally, “looming above the Manhattan skyline” (read the detailed explanation here).
Second, since it’s been on my mind the past couple weeks, an aerial shot of the NSA headquarters in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland:
Thoughts? Reflections? Observed convergences? Discuss!
