Border Crossers
Chico Macmurtrie’s Installation
Border Crossers comprise a series of lightweight robotic sculptures that poetically explore the notion of borders and boundary conditions. The inflatable sculptures rise up to several stories high and extend across a given threshold. Their choreographed performance, originating on both sides of the border, would stage a symbolic connection. Border Crossers provoke investigation of borders as constructed entities. At one level its actions embody a simple curiosity to see what lies on the other side of a border (national, architectural, environmental, etc.). On another level the work expresses a utopian desire to live in a world without borders. The project treats the border as a physical condition that can be temporarily transcended by technological proxies. It offers a critique of militarized geopolitical borders, and a metaphorical suspension of those borders in the form of temporary arches or partial arches equipped with sensing and surveillance technology. The specific choreography of the inflatable machines would vary from one situation to the next. In one imagined scenario along the U.S.-Mexico border fence, six inflatable units would be installed on opposite sides of the border.
Border Crossers invites the public to rethink the notion of borders in a globalized world. Technology currently helps to overcome cultural and economic borders, but is also frequently used to maintain and reinforce physical borders.This project envisions technology as a positive tool to establish dialogues beyond borders, to question borders, and to create a symbolic suspension and transcendence of borders. Their actions allude to the equality of humanity against a backdrop of tensions and conflicts over national and cultural identity. This “gesture” could reinforce the hope for peace in location where reconciliation is thought to be impossible. -
TEXT FROM THE WEBSITE OF CHICO MACMURTRIE








