In which Cents
In Which Cents (2006, Giclée on Canvas 29½” x 52”) is the development of New Tetrahedral Map 3 with sixteen iterations of the World map into the figure-eight format. This particular configuration of the Tetrahedral map exhibits the most homogeneous arrangement of duplicated landmasses and oceanic expanse out of the four I have thus far produced. With the principal singularity located in Georgian Bay, and that upon the opposite meridian located in Southern China, the bulk of the Earths landmasses are disposed directly upon the major axes of the figure-eight form, to a greater degree than in the other prints in this series. The other two singular points are placed well offshore, so the South Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans in this version of the Tetrahedral map assume more of the total area, and appear in a more uninterrupted arrangement, than in the other configurations.
Among the extra-cartographic elements placed around the inner and outer margins of the looped map, the figures of Canadian and American one cent coins predominate. A small figure-eight design digitally reconfigured from the obverse face of each coin is placed in the left and right inner spaces; these figures are composed of twelve, rather than sixteen repetitions of the coins’ familiar pattern (have we been short-changed?). The cyclical repetition of the monetary unit seems to mythologize economics, as if assuming some kind of infinite historical dimension. The other inclusions of the coins are distributed in groups of sixteen, with American pennies directly composed on the branch-pattern in the upper left, and Canadian pennies arranged in a more haphazard sense (though mostly in squarely aligned clusters) on the right. Other figures within, half-on, or off the map display a configuration of the number sixteen, as an arrangement of stars, dragons, or series of ‘countdown’ icons (as seen along the lower edge of the image).
The central motif of colliding aircraft (modeled on the Airbus A340-600, without prejudice), each branded with the word ‘Precision,’ perhaps summarizes the whole geometrically-incestuous
premise of this sorry parade of equivalent worlds and their trajectory of sameness: if you look too closely into the conception of exactitude, it will swallow you whole, and break you to bits. A double-spiral phrase beginning and ending in the same region of the South Atlantic in the upper left is in accord with this: “Once upon a time, there was a narrative. It was unfathomably dense. We despair for the brave souls lost in the whirlwinds of their own search and rescue. But to retrace those storied and convoluted struggles, we must return to the beginning: once upon a time.” A figure-eight shaped text construction straddling the upper-left central duplicate Pacific Oceans addresses the viewer: “Do you live in the same world as the rest of us?”, while over in the equivalent region in the lower left the question is rephrased: “Do you live in the same world as the restaurant?” Less obliquely, the heartfelt complaint, “Where is my tax refund? Bastards.” appears written across the Australian continent, while in the adjacent instance of Antarctica, a more direct accusation is displayed: “It was the Governments fault.” A more circumspect view of all this, for those of a Confucian persuasion, is encapsulated in a figure-eight phrase across the far-left side duplicate Chinas: “I would be a Lao-Tzu, if I was allowed to.”
