On Borders
By Thom Walker
Some messy ponderings revolving around the idea of borders, community, and presence under the conditions of lockdown.
Whilst doing some research, I found myself looking at the work of Rael San Fratello, the design team behind the teeter-totter placed at the US-Mexico border, which won the 2019 design award. Before electing upon the teeter-totter, they drew up designs to turn the wall into a burrito bar, a volleyball court, and even a giant xylophone. These designs are all about the border becoming a point of connection, a playful reimagining of an architecture designed for division and segregation. Proximity to the barrier joins those on either side. It’s a pleasant and poetic idea drawn up against the backdrop of increasing nationalism and attempts to divide. Apart, but together. This year, that condition has moved away from the realms of global politics, and into our everyday lives. In a world where one is not to leave their home, isn’t every wall, every door, a border?
Unlike the case of Rael San Fratello, proximity isn’t a connecting point. In the past year, a friend in Durham is the same distance away as one in Australia, as well as one two doors down. For the first time ever, being 100 miles away isn’t a reason you can’t go to the pub, or a friend's birthday party. An exhibition in Berlin is just as in/accessible as one in Peckham. What happens to our idea of distance, of absence, when it’s harder to see a neighbour than a far-away friend? What becomes of an international community when distance is no barrier? Or at least, no more than for anyone else? As the community separations have been replaced by the isolation of individuals or small groups, we have, in a funny way, become free to connect anywhere and everywhere else. Has our forced removal from the outside world opened up the world more than it ever has been? Is that freedom a good thing? How do the politics of these borders differ from those of location?
The internet is, without doubt, the home of some of the most tightly knit communities there can be. I’ve never much liked social media. Understanding people in real conversation is hard enough. Yet take away all those forced interactions, the community of the workplace, the cohort, the housemates, and you’re left with a choice. Alone, or alternatively, with more people than you can ever cope with. Hyperconnected, and disconnected.
We can choose our own communities in a way I have never felt or known before. How are we to know which connections to pursue? Which communities we partake in? To approach networking from a professional perspective has been natural. To discuss work, share ideas, make connections based on professional interest in that manner seems natural to this environment, to this method. Yet when we have this control of our communities, what are we missing out on? I miss seeing work I don’t like, but staying to look because it took 20 minutes to get there. I miss hearing people talk enthusiastically about things I wouldn’t normally take an interest in. I miss muddling through conversations, trying to piece together the references of someone I have nothing in common with. Is there something to be said for the communities we don’t get to choose? The connections we maybe wouldn’t have chosen to make? When we talk of happy accidents, we very rarely consider other people in relation to this, but isn’t it time we should?
Hyperconnectivity isn’t a new thing. It’s not a new idea or a new phenomenon. People have been working this way for years. But now, it’s everywhere. A forced connectivity; imposed, mandated, a prerequisite for engagement. A status of being simultaneously present and absent. What does that mean for the artwork? Is it present? Or is it absent? Is it any further away than if it were to be kept at arm’s length behind a wire or cordon? Is a digital experience any more impersonal, distant, alienating than the gallery experience? Is it not logical that to spend time alone with a work in a comfortable environment might not be a more organic and personal experience than the artifice, showmanship and infuriating interactions of a private view or opening night?
I have found myself living with more art than ever before, flicking through photos, scrolling through feeds, streaming films. At moments, I’ve never felt closer to the work, the community, the art world. At others, it’s never felt so abstract, so remote. It seems like it should make sense. Different works translate differently. Isn’t that the basis of digital media? But that doesn’t seem to quite cover it. There feels something more personal. Something innate in the experience. What determines whether we interact with those apart from us? What is the see-saw, or the xylophone, of today's borders? Our mechanisms for connecting beyond simply looking, staring across the border?