A hose by any other name ...

The other day I was thinking about the role of hoses in the visual history of science fiction. Compositionally, (I don't think that's a word) they can be slapped on anywhere for no reason other than to serve the needs of the picture plain. (Was that a sentence?) Just ask Wallace Wood, well, you can't, but if you could and he was in a good mood, he'd point to any of his beautiful EC Comics work from the 50's. Corrugated hoses plunging here and there from panels, helmets, consoles, etc. Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" certainly would lack visual punch without them. I think about important things.