Culture Making Articles items tagged convergences

Descending like a dove

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

Nate
: ?WIRED and artist Aaron Koblin created a Google map representing air traffic across the United States over a 24-hour period. It's fascinating how all the major flight hubs have such unique and geometric approach and departure patterns. In a weird visual convergence, the flights over Atlanta trace a symmetrical figure that reminded me of the standard stained-glass iconography for the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus after his baptism. Insert Bible Belt / Giant Face Found on Mars joke here.?

montage from "Interact: Watch 24 Brilliant Hours of U.S. Flights," WIRED, 23 February 2009, and The Stained Glass of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Cincinnati, Ohio :: via Google Maps Mania

Visualizing the Bible

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

Nate
: ?This diagram arose from a collaboration between a Carnegie-Mellon Ph.D student and a Lutheran pastor to create a grand map of Biblical cross-references: "We wanted something that honored and revealed the complexity of the data at every level –- as one leans in, smaller details should become visible. This ultimately led us to the multi-colored arc diagram... The bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. Books alternate in color between white and light gray. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Each of the 63,779 cross references found in the Bible is depicted by a single arc - the color corresponds to the distance between the two chapters, creating a rainbow-like effect."?

Visualizing the Bible, by Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild :: via National Geographic

G. SALE

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

Nate
: ?This is a sign one of my neighbors set out up the street earlier this summer. I was impressed by its somewhat manic brevity—and how, in the context, the first letter is really all that's needed. (At the time I also happened to be reading John Berger's novel G., whose cover in the paperback I had was in the same burgundy-and-golden-brown range—a lovely random convergance of cultural artifacts, of life and lit).?

"G. SALE," Beaverton, Oregon (2008), photo by the blogger