Tag_5: Material borders, Flexible borders

Borders as a representation are connected to images of tangible limits on the ground between states. They are there to signal these limits that accordingly build stability, sovereignty and security for a state. But borders are not only land borders as borders are an entity as a space.

Representing such borders is symbolic and refers to lines and numbers that are noted on maps as history has imposed -up to now- sea and air borders. This designates the engagement an encounter in what concerns the ground that corresponds to these maps, respecting and violating these borders is very relevant. Guarding such borders coincides with the very action of their mapping out. And defining and redefining the limits between the opposing countries - states can happen in a present continuous tense and on a 24 hour basis where we witness future-past of the present. Something like that is possible with the use of ultramodern war systems, especially of war aircrafts and helicopters as well as submarines.

With the use of technology today, geography becomes fluid, borders take a flexible form while the whole procedure happening on the air with supersonic speed, stays inconspicuous. Man down there on the ground rarely realise that the machines up above their heads, do not simply violate the old abstract notion of the map. Nor do they know that ground no more precedes the map. The map precedes the territory and gives birth to the territory. The continuous movement and the contestation of the border line is not only the result of action of the coordinating forces of the different forms of institutional power claiming the sovereignty of space. The borders are also crossed by the inhabitants of the border zone making short visits to the "other side" discovering the "others", their society and way of living. At the same time these people possibly realise the fantastic structures that the borders form and preserve in their own mind. This time the border line moves inside the conceptual space of perception, like a substantial part of the conditions that form the recognition of reality.