2 JUN 2026

Day 153

The seeing eye is the organ of tradition.

E. H. Gombrich · Art and Illusion

A long iron single-edged knife blade, decorated with fine contrasting metal inlay and a line of runic characters along one side.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Seax of Beagnoth

British Museum collection · 11th century · Iron, silver, copper, copper-based alloy

Found at Battersea in 1857, this iron seax combines a cutting blade, contrasting metal inlay and runic writing whose personal meaning remains unsettled.

Enter lesson 4 MIN

II · THE IDEA · ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Unified Embedding Space for All Modalities

multimodality · shared embedding space · diffusion video; traffic SSL

Text, images and audio need not live in separate numerical worlds. A single encoder can place them in one space where nearness itself becomes the retrieval mechanism.

Enter lesson 6 MIN

A dark basalt stele with a rounded top, its face filled with dense horizontal lines of ancient Semitic script and crossed by pale seams where fragments have been rejoined.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

Mesha Stele

Basalt · c. 840 BC · Dhiban

King Mesha of Moab had his revolt against Israel cut into black basalt. The stone was smashed in 1869; a squeeze taken beforehand allowed its text to survive.

Enter lesson 6 MIN