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explorations in iphone notes

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2023/07/24

July 24, 2023
A strange, mask-like object. It has an arrangement of details that suggest a face, but a weird and mechanical one: a perfectly round eye in the top right, a semicircular indentation in the middle left, a nose that looks more like a metal spike or machine part. The right side of the face has several carved, curving indentations, like a wooden mask. There are a few tendrils of something hanging off the bottom of the mask, suggesting attempts at facial hair.

2023/07/23

July 23, 2023
A faceless white figure sits in front of a glowing computer terminal. The terminal sits on a desk, which is inset into a vast, bulky structure that dominates most of the drawing, and appears to be made of flimsy cardboard or metal. The structure is a huge, featureless thing that, if it was more detailed, might be furniture or a machine. As it is, it's not clear at all what this thing is. It looms over both the computer and the person sitting in front of it, serving no obvious purpose. On the wall next to the person hangs an analog clock.

2023/07/17

July 17, 2023
Someone who is either shirtless or wearing a skin-tight outfit, viewed from the waist up, their back to the viewer. The person has a shiny domed helmet with a black visor that looks like some sort of heads-up display or augmented-reality headpiece. There is a headphone visible in one ear. On their lower back are striations that imply cables. Under one arm is a small boxy device with a screen and buttons on it.

2023/07/09

July 9, 2023
A smartphone rises up from a layer of dense fog. The base of the phone and the ground can't be seen; just an amorphous carpet of clouds. The screen of the phone is very blurry, as though obscured by a layer of vapor. The screen shows glowing colored squares, arranged haphazardly, not in the usual grid of app icons. Silhouettes are visible in the squares, like people looking out of windows. Above the phone, a blurry moon is in the sky. The moonlight reflects off the top of the phone.

2023/07/03

July 3, 2023
A very tall, complex facility stands in the middle of a grassy space. It's about as tall as a narrow tenement building—maybe three to four stories high—but it isn't a building; it's a collection of pipes, wires, and metal scaffolding. It looks like a cross between an electrical substation and some sort of pump. There's a box with a high-voltage symbol on it, and a small set of steps leading up to the concrete base. It looks like something related to energy or infrastructure. On the ground, a person is walking away from it. In the sky, the sun shines.

2023/07/01

July 1, 2023
A rectangular shape that looks like a boxy human head without ears, similar to a mask. The face has tired eyes with bags under them, craggy features, and a prominent nose. Set into the person's forehead is a small, roundish cathode ray tube display, like something you would have seen on an early personal computer (to be specific, any Mac made between 1984 and 1986). Nothing is being displayed on the screen, however. The person's mouth is a disk drive: the kind designed for those 3.5-inch Sony diskettes, to be specific. The steam engine that powered these very early computing devices is not shown.

2023/06/20

June 20, 2023
A tall, narrow, houselike building made of brick and concrete. The roof has various antennas. The house has a large circular window, right under the roof, and a smaller, arched window to the lower right. There is an arched overhang directly under the house; sort of an open porch. A person paces on the porch, staring at a phone. On a platform in front of it—an extension that looks like a large front porch—stands a small rocket ship.

2023/06/19

June 19, 2023
A two legged creature with horns and/or pointed ears stands in the grass. It seems as though the interior of the creature is visible, perhaps a cutaway view, like a biological diagram. This cutaway view obscures the creatures face. Inside the creature are various beakers and tubes containing glowing green liquid, connected by piping. The creature holds a test tube with the same glowing liquid in one of its hands. The overall effect is of a furry, walking chemistry set.

2023/06/17

June 17, 2023
Imagine a mountain-shaped boulder mixed with a house: a rough chunk of rock with arched windows and roof-points sticking out of it. At the top is a small cupola with a bell; atop the cupola is a vaguely cross-shaped lightning rod. Now imagine that this entire thing has four wheels and a large, spacious windshield up front, like a cargo van. The effect is of a mobile home that's also a mountain, with various architectural enhancements. Visible in the windshield is a driver, shadowy, and indeterminate.

2023/06/11

June 11, 2023
A face in profile, with a blur of short, dark hair. The face is sterile, minimalist, and expressionless, like that of a mannequin. It appears to be a mask, but other lines and seams make it look as though the entire head is assembled of multiple parts, as if the entire figure in the drawing is a machine or robot of some sort.

2023/05/30

May 30, 2023
On the left of the drawing, a stark, perfectly vertical cliff wall, interrupted only by a doorway set in the wall, a small deck with a railing jutting out from it. It's night; stars on a slate gray sky. Above the doorway is a glowing spherical lamp, similar to a streetlamp. Next to the doorway is a red train signal. Pulled up to the deck is what looks like a subway car, except it is floating in space and doesn't have wheels.

2023/05/27

May 27, 2023
A giant pair of what roughly resemble legs and a torso. It looks like a cross between something carved from stone and a giant machine: craggy, cracked, with strange contours and bolts and pipes sticking out of it. On top of this sits a person playing a tuba-like musical instrument. This is placed in the middle of nowhere, with weeds around and on it, and the vague suggestion of clouds above.

2023/05/20

May 20, 2023
A large, high-ceilinged room with an old-style mainframe computer in it. The room is somewhat dismal, containing a wall clock, bucket, and mop. The computer has a data cassette on the front, and a steel-framed door and window below it. The computer has many large pipes coming out of it, as though it is a furnace. Below the computer room, in a basement area, the base of the computer extends into a large concrete fireplace with a fire burning brightly inside. The basement is dark; there's no light except for that cast by the fire. A figure stands next to the fireplace holding a shovel. The effect is of a large computer with a door that opens into a coal burning furnace below.

2023/05/18

May 18, 2023
A person sitting in a car seat and holding a steering wheel. Both the seat and the steering column are fused into the earth, not part of any vehicle. Above the person is a traffic light dangling down from the sky, not fixed to any visible source. The light is green, but nobody seems to be going anywhere.

2023/05/11

May 11, 2023
A large, shadowy figure with huge eyes and a head that doesn't look quite human stands in the moonlight. The silhouette of a person is visible in one of its eyes, as though someone is standing inside the head, looking out. From one of its hands dangles an overhead light, like something you'd find in a kitchen. The light illuminates a person sitting at a table, using a laptop. The light is white, and inhumanly bright; more like a spotlight than a house lamp.

2023/05/08

May 8, 2023
A humanoid figure with its back facing us. The profile of its face is visible; one eye glows white. The figure is strangely sinewed, almost as though it is a machine. In the center of its back is a round, green window, through which a shadowy figure looks. Blurry silhouettes in the background suggest numerous similar figures, also with glowing windows on them.

2023/04/30

April 30, 2023
A person whose face seems to have been replaced by a camera lens sits on the back of a large, two-legged creature which looks sort of like a cross between a horse and a two-legged giraffe. The creature's eye is also a camera lens, and its tail is an antenna.

2023/04/28

April 28, 2023
A mask with glowing green eyes and an unsettling smile, surrounded by bits of debris and rocks. The mask is illuminated by an iridescent greenish light, the source unseen. The light is also reflecting off the rocks and debris.

2023/04/24

April 24, 2023
A fellow wearing a top hat rides in an odd conveyance with only one truck wheel on either side. It's a dismal night: no stars, no moon. The only light comes from the phosphor-green lantern held by the rider, whose face is eerily lit. There is also a red taillight. There's a suggestion of clouds overhead, but the general environment is barren and featureless.

2023/04/17

April 17, 2023
A large, black, furry creature with a giant head. Where the face would be is a large radar screen instead, depicting several glowing blobs. The figure is holding a walking stick; several complex antennas bristle from its head. Inside its belly sits a person looking at a phone.

2023/04/12

April 12, 2023
A bleak, featureless setting: no scenery or landscape, nothing except for a dark, staticky background. A gray figure who looks sort of like an early all-in-one Macintosh with legs and an antenna wanders forward. Where the figure's face would be is a glowing white screen, showing nothing except blazing white light that illuminates the area in front of it, as though the air is slightly foggy. The figure has a disk drive for a mouth and knobs on the side. In the immortal words of Gary Larson, "it was late and I was tired."

2023/04/10

April 10, 2023
Someone wearing a very unique diving suit walks on the ocean floor. The suit has furry pant legs, a giant blue glass sphere for a faceplate, and a fedora, because one doesn't relinquish one's fashion sensibilities simply because one is at the bottom of the sea. The suit is connected to something by a black hose extending off the top of the screen. There are fish swimming near the figure.

2023/03/30

March 30, 2023
A tall horned devil-figure, seen from the back. The figure is wearing a hat and a large, furry coat. Smoke is coming from the hat. In the back of the figure is a red window in which sits a person with a coffee mug. Also on the back of the figure are crimson neon signs that say "Diner open 24"

2023/03/19

March 19, 2023
A sinister figure in a trench coat and hat stands alone on a dark night, the suggestion of an aurora in the sky behind it. On the figure's coat is a set of glowing buttons and dials. Where the figure's face would be is an arched lit window, eerie green, with a cat sitting in it.

2023/03/15

March 15, 2023
A night scene, with a starry sky. A van, seen from the front, sits in an open area, not moving, lights out. On top of the van is a giant satellite dish, pointed skyward towards a full moon. No one is visible in the van, but there is a lit window at the rear of the van, suggesting someone is home and maybe controlling the dish.

2023/03/11

March 11, 2023
A robotic figure with two mechanical arms and humanoid legs that seem to be wearing slacks and shoes. The torso of the figure has a window, in which is viable the profile of a person, as though sitting in a stagecoach. The robot is carrying a suitcase and paper shopping bag by the handles. Placed on top of the robot, where a head would be, is an empty wire birdcage. Perched on the round shoulder of one of the robot's arms is a crimson bird with a long tail.

2023/03/06

March 6, 2023
A black and white sketch of the immortal Happy Mac icon: a simple line drawing of a 1980s-era all-in-one Mac, with a happy face displayed on its screen.

2023/03/05

March 5, 2023
An old-style, monochrome television—you know, the kind with knobs and a cathode ray tube—stands on furry, spindly legs. It is standing on a grassy hill at night: behind it is the suggestion of a city seen from a great height, the streets defined by lights. There's a moon partially hidden behind fog. It is, altogether, a distinctly eerie scene; one made all the more unsettling by the fact that the television screen is on and glowing, displaying a monstrous staring face.

2023/03/03

March 3, 2023
An electrical outlet where the two receptacles look like little demon faces

2023/03/02

March 2, 2023
A furry creature stands on top of a tire in the middle of a desert, skillfully rolling it along. But the creature's head contains a circular window, through which we see that another furry creature sits inside it, holding a steering wheel. But that creature's head has a circular window too, in which the tiny silhouette of a person is visible. That person's head is intact.

2023/02/24

February 24, 2023
A giant observatory with two furry legs stands astride a rocky landscape at either dawn or dusk. The horizon is crimson, with pink clouds. The observatory's dome doors are open, telescope fixed on a blazing white object in the sky.

2023/02/23

February 23, 2023
A robotic humanoid contraption comprised of a boxy head, with a round window where the face would be, and a boxy torso with a tall window in the middle. A cat sits in the top window; a person with a top hat is silhouetted in the lower one. The robot has multiple arms, one of which holds a lantern and another of which holds a coffee cup and hiking stick.

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    All work © Chris Silverman