Heath Bunting and Kayle Brandon's piece entitled BorderXing is all about bringing together the "virtual and the physical". After the events of 9/11, there were numerous limitations put on everyday things, especially traveling. Security wasn't just heightened all over the country, but all over the world. BorderXing is an attempt at informing people they're physical presence and dependence in a virtual world. Our primary means of communication is through objects such as the computer and cell phones. What would happen if our access to these everyday objects was limited or even shut off? Would we all just be wandering around helpless and oblivious?
BorderXing addresses these questions through physically traveling, illegally, through countries and tracking their routes. Both Bunting and Brandon devised their own routes through countries such as Italy and France and recorded them. They then devised a website where they displayed their routes offering information such as a map of their hikes and necessary tools one would need to follow this same route. "The artists patrolled the boundaries of the BorderXing project by limiting access to some of the Web site's texts to authorized users, thus prompting site visitors to consider how access to information and locations is controlled. In this way, BorderXing subverts not only the integrity of national borders, but also our expectations that the Internet is a space of open access for all".
This project really integrates nature with our virtual world and by limiting some of our virtual access of the natural world, we truly find out how little we are physically experiencing the world we see virtually, everyday.
