By: Peggy Nelson

Alchemy has long since made the transition from practice to metaphor. And while this may have disturbed Sir Isaac, it’s fine with the artists: metaphors are our practice. For contrast, look at this elegant equation. […]

By: Matthew Battles

Preliterate, primordial, the doodle is at once the most common and the most ignored art form. And yet for all its primitivity, and despite its surely universal occurrence among the literate peoples of the world, […]

By: Joshua Glenn

An abridged version of this essay appeared in the journal n+1 (Winter 2007). PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE I set out to commemorate the heroes of old who sailed the good ship […]

By: Matthew Battles

The catalogue of the MIT Press arrived in the mail today. One of my favorite university presses, MIT publishes books that are terrifyingly smart, but often audacious and surprising as well. (last year’s Digital Apollo […]