(via Edge.org)  Katinka Matson has produced a hauntingly beautiful series of "scanner photographs" of flora

George Dyson's theory for why I find myself mindlessly staring at Katinka's flowers:

"One of the reasons—besides sheer artistry—that Katinka Matson's work resonates so strongly with us is that is that the insect-like vision that results from scanning direct-to-CCD runs so much deeper in us than vision as processed through a lens. By removing the lens, Katinka's work bypasses an entire stack of added layers and takes us back to when we saw more by looking at less." 

My interpretation is a little different.  FIRST, by taking the pictures with a scanner, we're playing interesting games with depth perception.   Instead of the normal field of vision with it's linear-to-infinity depth, we're presented with something that's both photographic yet utterly artificial in perspective.   We have absolute sharpness of the parts that directly contact the flatbed, some sharpness of objects an inch or 2 above the glass and then infinity immediately afterwards.  

Second, unlike a standard photograph where the eye & the lense impose one image center with a reduction in clarity & intensity as you radiate away from the center, the scanner's moving camera creates an artificially consistent detail and color reproduction from corner to corner of the image.  You can look at this as either multiple, simultaneous, & continuous focii or a massive focus that spans the entire image.  All with lucid detail and perfect (as well as artistically) rendered color.

Perhaps this "compression of depth" and "multiple focii" is the root of Dyson's observation that we're reverting to a vestigal, insect-like image processing facility.  Well, check out the site and see if the picts help you commune with your inner beetle.