(Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

From the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress, a scene from a “camouflage class in New York University, where men and women are preparing for jobs in the Army or in industry.” The assignments sound rather intensive: “make models from aerial photographs, re-photograph them, then work out a camouflage scheme and make a final photograph.”

But what would happen if you repeat the same process, only this time you make the model not from aerial photographs but from that final photograph of the camouflage scheme? And the same process gets repeated again. And again and again. Over and over until you've produced a township of simulated simulacra, a camouflage of a camouflage of a camouflage that actually gets built.

And then you go for a visit...