The forward-and-backward-oriented theme of the Institute’s upcoming tenth annual symposium–The Future of Communication: Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been–captures the peculiar way nostalgia for old forms often gets integrated into and re-imagined in the most current technological creations. Moveable Type, artist Ben Rubin and statistician Mark Hansen’s permanent installation in the lobby of Renzo Piano’s New York Times building on Eighth Avenue, hearkens back to the earliest wood and metal typographical and printing systems in order to focus attention on the expanded language field of a 21st century newspaper. A grid of 560 small fluorescent screens displays fragments of text that have appeared in the newspaper from its 1851 founding until today, and that includes reader-generated remarks and search terms from the paper’s online home. Algorithms search, sift and sort the vast database of words in a variety of ways–looking for first sentences, for instance, or phrases that contain a particular word. In this way the installation becomes an ever-pulsing hybrid of historical and contemporary discourses and technologies.