Since these inscriptions are mobile, flat, reproducible, still and of varying scales, they can be reshuffled and recombined.
One aspect of these recombinations is that it is possible to superimpose several images of totally different origins and scales. To link geology and economics seems an impossible task, but to superimpose a geological map with the printout of the commodity market at the New York Stock Exchange, requires good documentation and takes a few inches. Most of what we call “structure”, “pattern”, “theory”, and “abstraction” are consequences of these superimpositions (Bertin, 1973).
