A conceit: the thoroughly modern chop

I've been fascinated by the Chinese art of the chop

ever since I first saw them. I love the colour, and the format. I think

it's something about its squareness that suggests to me a great density

of communication. My first headshot on Multiply was a chop I

lifted from a museum exhibition years ago. I don't remember much about

it now, except that it translated to something like "In vain do I try

to stir the senses."

But this density of communication is kind of wasted on me, as I can't
read Chinese and probably wouldn't be able to decode it even if I did.
So here's a thoroughly modern, machine-readable version.

It's a QR code. It's a little less friendly than the human one, admittedly, and too
impersonal to be used as a headshot. But I have found other uses for
it, as a graphical device. In its defence, I think it has another sort of interest for our
monkey-brains... the property
that all deeply complicated, abstract shapes have: that of almost, but
not quite,
coalescing into something familiar.