Exactitude Emblem

Dot Matrix. A dot matrix printer is fed directions from a print server or computer and then composes an image (whether pictorial, graphical, or textual) line by line. This feat is accomplished by the print head laying dots down on a single line and then moving up to the next line similar to how an old school typewriter writes one line at a time. The dots then create the image which is perceived as a single whole but is really created from hundreds or possibly thousands of precisely laid dots.

Much like a crystal which creates a final form from intricate inner workings that layer upon one another, so too does a dot matrix printer create a refined image from a collection of plotted points aligned.

A close up

Quickness Elit

Strings by Dan Waber is a site that explores the elasticity of a single string to fight with itself both literally and figuratively through the creation of opposing words. Argument in particular starts with a straight line that coils and uncoils itself into the words yes and no. The string appears to be moving but in reality it is the illusion of motion caused by frame rates that refresh quickly enough to simulate motion. 

On another level Strings represents the quickness of spoken rapport in that the yes and no fluctuate backwards and forwards rapidly. Furthermore, mental wit must be employed to understand that the metaphor created by naming the animation ‘Argument’ as the jump from the sign of ‘yes’ to what it signifies (a particular point in an argument) is not grasped without a certain level of intelligence.

Quickness Analogy

Frame Rates. Undoubtedly over the last few years you have watched a computer animated film. Perhaps it was a Disney-Pixar Movie (or just Pixar, if it was long enough ago). There is a great possibility that the movie Toy Story has passed through your life. You saw how fluidly the motion was, but were you aware that you were staring at still frames? Did you know that the motion you perceived was created by entirely static images?

‘Whoa Now!’ you gasp, ‘How can that be?’ Simply put it is the illusion of motion. A screen will never move, but simply project whatever image it is fed, and so a static page like the one this text is on appears stationary, but when things are sped up, things become interesting.
A digital movie is really a massive amount of frames quickly shown one after another. The human eye can sense up to 70 different shifts in those picture per second, but beyond that and the mind eye connection begins to falter. Toy Story for example runs at 24 frames per second, that is 24 different pictures are displayed within a second to give the illusion of speed. Cartoons are often only 15 frames per second which is barely above the 12 fps that humans can perceive as laggy. Video games generally run around 30 fps.

Thus frame rates are an analogy for Calvino’s memo on quickness as they create motion through a process that is too fast for the human eye to catch using still images.