The Diptych

The Two Kings

Two women. A child. A king.

Draw one story across the other.

Rubens's Judgment of Solomon: two women appeal before the king. A generated counterpart places the figures in the siege of Samaria.

The picture has a place for you.

Take the seat Half a turn between two stories. Your perspective performs this slider. Headphones recommended.

Two books,
one practice.

Read alongside
From Carmen et Error: Manual for Navigating Multiplicity
Two appeals to royal judgment expose different conditions for justice. A half-turn changes the world in which the judge must answer.
  • 12. Interdimensional SelfhoodIII. The First Build
    The chapter moves from the Solomon position to the siege of Samaria. The question is what shared ground a judgment needs, and what happens when that ground fails.
  • 3. The Chronotope of the VirtualIV. Bakhtin: Where Time Takes on Flesh
    Court and siege give action different possibilities. Space and historical circumstance are part of the meaning of the appeal.

The paintings

The first image reproduces Rubens’s Judgment of Solomon. The second is an existing machine-generated interpretation of the siege of Samaria, derived from that composition. Their visual correspondence is an authored construction.

The biblical passages are 1 Kings 3:16–28 and 2 Kings 6:24–30. The spatial room uses modeled figures, generated environments, and recorded voices.