borderline thoughts

it seems like a lot of artists/geographers jump at the opportunity to include the '4th dimension', time, into their work, which in a map or picture's case is the presentation of a particular reality.

having conquered both the infinite horizontals (exploration of the earth's landscape) and the 'infinite' verticals (notwithstanding a trip to mars, apparently), time seems like the next obvious place to go.

(the distinction between horizontal and vertical is important, i'll add. one means 'the world' and the other means 'planet earth')

so a map of time would be one that involved live updating or a warping of space so the time it takes to get between two locations is represented as a distance itself, rather than the true physical distance (an obvious application is public transit).

here's a proposal for a theoretical project in-between time. that is, maybe there are some steps between 2/3dimension maps and 4th dimension maps. one of the things i've been rolling around in my head (especially in relation to the garbage patch) is the meaning of the border. on the majority of political maps, the border is simply represented as a dark line, with opposing colors to mark off territory.

but the variety of 'borders' is astounding. where is the border that runs through a mountain range or a desert? in a relatively blank space, the borders blend together... on a map a blue country and a red country should have a border that blurs and at some point becomes green.

or how about the DMZ between north and south korea? how could one represent that border? as a bold black line? an indent in the paper, or just ripped away completely?

the fence between mexico and the us was a topic of conversation this weekend. the pedestrian/vehicle fence totals about 350 miles out of around 2,000. that's less than 20%, but holds a big a political middle finger from the US to mexico. maybe we could scratch 'fuck off' onto where the fence occupies.

And... buckminster fuller's dymaxion map