Cryptic Sculpture (Hirshhorn)

This mysterious sculpture is entitled "Antipodes" (Sam Sanborn, 1997) and it stands the garden outside the Hirshhorn Museum. This Arts Observer article provides a good description of the piece with nice images of the work.

A detail of part of the sculpture reveals of pattern of letters. Reading across the top row of this photograph you can just make out the word KRYPTOS; this word is repeated in every line in a slightly different position, surrounded by what appears to be the other letters of the Roman alphabet: ABCDEFG ... etc.

I took at look at the other half of the sculpture (left-hand side in this photo), which looks like the letters of some Cyrillic script in reverse. I have no idea what's going on here. But -- as it turns out -- someone else has devoted years studying this artwork and has finally (as of September 2003) cracked parts of the code.

The English part of the sculpture, by the way, apparently repeats the code in another sculpture by Sanborn entitled (appropriately enough) "Kryptos," and this artwork stands on the grounds of CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA.

The Language of Flags (Navy Memorial)

Signal flags adorning a ship mast at the US Navy Memorial (across from the National Archives), September 2010. The International Code of Signals designates a flag for each letter in the Roman alphabet, plus each Arabic numeral (see here for more). Ships use such flags to communicate important messages to one another on the sea.

P.S. You can see some earlier posts for other takes on "the language of flags" - i.e., the special language that is used in order to describe flags, and the ways flags themselves can communicate symbolic meanings.

P.P.S. No, I don't know what these flags say! If anyone knows the code, let me know...