Pieces incorporating this line of thinking include overt ʻscale shiftsʼ. These are components that are intended to imply a ʻcloser lookʼ at a portion of the larger ʻsampleʼ.

This emerges emerges from two main sources. One is related to recent dramatic advances in scientific computer visualization and analytical techniques. Scientists of many disciplines utilize these to zoom in on an area of special interest, or alternatively zoom out to obtain a more general picture. It is only the vast increases in computing power that enable these to occur with a meaningful resolution, and thus analytical result.

The other source relates to the human animalʼs manner of seeing. Among biology we are extraordinarily visual; it is sometimes said that 90% of what we know comes from a visual source. As we examine the world around us, we constantly alternate from a general overview (scanning for threats?) to intensive examination of a detail (assessing one?). Generally, when we encounter visual art we unconsciously perform this duality of analysis, but art usually provides us no assistance in the process.