I remember seeing a Connection Machine (CM) with its guts open. You couldn't help but marvel at its internal complexity and yet, at the same time, glory in its simplicity of architecture.

Hovering over boxes and boxes of ceramic parts to go on display for a student's art installation at an upcoming RISD exhibition, I can't help but be reminded of the same feeling of peering into a CM. And yet instead of staring at millions of wires, I am looking at thousands of pieces of clay. Talented, driven humans can do the darnedest things.