STREET SCHEMA (4)
By:
April 6, 2024
One in a miniseries of posts — within SCHEMATIZING — via which Josh Glenn will share photos of manhole covers, the diagrammatic design of which he sometimes finds useful to his thinking — in his role as a consulting semiotician — about how to diagram a “semiosphere.” (Here’s an example of Josh’s proprietary “G-schema”; it appeared in his 2021 book The Adventurer’s Glossary, from McGill-Queen’s University Press). Josh is grateful to Rob Walker’s Art of Noticing provocations.
Spotted in Providence on a day when I’d taken the train from Boston to act as a guest critic for the final presentations from Kate Dannessa’s RISD Industrial Design class SPECIAL TOPIC DESIGN STUDIO.
I’m enthralled by this one, though I don’t think it’s useful as a schema — since a diagram must by necessity oversimplify things in the name of comprehension. But one gets the sense here of catching a glimpse of how a magician’s illusion works. It’s as though a simplified circular schema can be seen emerging from the more complex — though not exactly chaotic — reality. It’s a poststructuralist schema, then, perhaps.
PS: A reverse-image search on this extraordinary manhole cover suggests that Disney World’s Magic Kingdom park in Florida also favors this design. This exercise also led me to the Ultimate Manhole Covers Site — featuring 10,000 manhole covers. Yes, there’s mobile phone app for it.
MORE FURSHLUGGINER THEORIES BY JOSH GLENN: SCHEMATIZING | IN CAHOOTS | JOSH’S MIDJOURNEY | POPSZTÁR SAMIZDAT | VIRUS VIGILANTE | TAKING THE MICKEY | WE ARE IRON MAN | AND WE LIVED BENEATH THE WAVES | IS IT A CHAMBER POT? | I’D LIKE TO FORCE THE WORLD TO SING | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY | THE PERFECT FLANEUR | THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JANUARY | THE REAL THING | THE YHWH VIRUS | THE SWEETEST HANGOVER | THE ORIGINAL STOOGE | BACK TO UTOPIA | FAKE AUTHENTICITY | CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | THE UNCLE HYPOTHESIS | MEET THE SEMIONAUTS | THE ABDUCTIVE METHOD | ORIGIN OF THE POGO | THE BLACK IRON PRISON | BLUE KRISHMA | BIG MAL LIVES | SCHMOOZITSU | YOU DOWN WITH VCP? | CALVIN PEEING MEME | DANIEL CLOWES: AGAINST GROOVY | DEBATING IN A VACUUM | PLUPERFECT PDA | SHOCKING BLOCKING.