reptiles

'Reptilien' by M. C. Escher, 1943
Once upon a time, when I was a kid, as a present I received a thick catalogue of the works of M. C. Escher—since back then I am hooked. In reply to my telling Weird Tales—see also visual phenomena—, today I received a nice e-mail which rubbed my nose upon one of Escher’s famous lithographs: Reptilien (1943). Again wondering at the picture I cherish since decades, suddenly it came to my mind: It’s the perfect metaphor for my cyberanthropological research-project maxmod. A twodimensional representation of the li’l beasts crawling out of 2D-space, into 3D-space, and back again … meaning those spaces are one—not worlds apart. The 2D-picture on the page of the sketchbook in the picture, is mathematically constructed, just like everything we see on a computer screen is. Books are there, too—even in the digital age all the time in the anthropologists’ hands. Plus, there are the indispensable paraphernalia, or better: companions, of every upright anthropologist—cigarettes and alcohol. Furthermore, everything in the picture, just as it is the case with online fieldwork, happens on a desktop—pun wholeheartedly intended.

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