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related to geography and land on Earth. But as humans, we don’t
only exist in space. We also exist in time. The border can seem
static when you just observe it at one moment in time. My works
often deal with looking at the border within a stretch of time, to see
how dynamic it actually is. In “1001 Martian Homes” this stretch
is amplified, not only time-wise but also space-wise. People say
that outer space is the final frontier. I think that space is only the
next frontier, as it seems like humans are always capable of finding
yet another frontier, or they’ll start making one. Maps are part of
being human, because being generally means moving and therefore
navigating. Even the unreachable stars in the sky are mapped out,
through different constellations across different ages and cultures.
These constellations also help our movements on Earth.
It’s also interesting to hear people’s comments that my works on
the border are so relevant now. Haven’t these issues been relevant
since Plato’s Laws (360 BCE)? In that book, a section discusses
how strangers, or foreigners, could disrupt an ideal city-state
by suggesting unusual ideas, and therefore, their access to and
interaction with the locals need to be restricted. The dialogues then
suggest filtering access to foreigners by age, profession and societal
position, just like our modern visa system—the difference is that
they didn’t have our technology back then. But more interestingly,
the text also states that such restrictions would enrage certain
people who would find it barbaric.This describes the current state of our world very well.Yes, and we’re talking about a text dating from more than 2,300
years ago! “1001 Martian Homes,” taking place only about 100
years from now, is nothing compared to this time scale. It doesn’t
look like humans will change too much especially since for the last
2,300 years societies on Earth have been swinging between the two
extreme amplitudes of a pendulum, between limiting and allowing
movements across borders.
The context of Mars is useful to me in this case. Just last year the
aerospace manufacturer SpaceX claimed that a return trip to Mars
would be possible soon. This excited me, but soon after, I realized that
the possibility of a Mars colonization begs the questions of who can go