These mediums are perhaps the simplest to manipulate. It is because of this ease that these mediums can be used to create structures that precisely, or nearly precisely, mirror what one conceives of in his/her imagination. The manipulation of paper is the manipulation of surfaces, sheets that divide space along two dimensions, bent into the third. These membranes provide a fleshiness that counteracts the skeletal nature of the wire, which provides the one dimensional substrate upon which the sheet could be placed. What’s fascinating is the mimicry of a sheet using wire and the mimicry of a wire using sheet. Both forms of mimicry require the usage of the concept of infinity. The infinite bounded by finite regions of space. It is incredible how we managed to conceive of such a concept as infinity or zero. Perhaps they were words that captured the “unknowable”, that which exceeds the sphere of possible human understanding. The usage of sheets and wire greatly reminds me of string theory, which includes both one dimensional strings and higher dimensional “branes” that act as surfaces.
