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Craig Dworkin begins with Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty and asks what happens when the spiral is considered at radically different scales. The book develops a sequence of thought experiments in which the dimensions of one object are exchanged with those of another, drawing connections between a particular earthwork and patterns found throughout natural and manufactured environments.
Its comparisons bring together whirlpools, hurricanes, galaxies, shells, musical instruments and recording media. Dworkin follows these transformations beyond straightforward visual resemblance, considering how a change in scale alters the physical behaviour, historical associations and interpretive possibilities of a form. The essay's movement depends on surprising transitions between close observation and speculative analogy.
The result combines art criticism, experimental narrative and the tradition of imaginary solutions associated with Alfred Jarry. References and a selected bibliography support its excursions into other disciplines. Readers interested in conceptual art, unusual literary structures or the ways that measurement shapes description will find a work in which the method of investigation is also an important part of the experience of reading.