Separation Barriers

Wikipedia lists the world's 23 separation barriers in a database (shown partially here) classifying them by country, dates, length, type.

How much better to view this data globally - revealing at a glance that only two (and one is only proposed) of the current world separation barriers are in the southern hemisphere.


And, of course, digitally:

Integrating geospatial, as well as political data in a "whole earth" social visualization would result in an instrument to view the obstructions to our human circulation – a Diasporarium.

In World Snapshots of WallJumpers Installation

Event at Global Kids International Justice Center

On October 24th,2008, Rik Panganipan of the Global Kids Digital Media Initiative interviewed us about Wallsickness and Gone Gitmo.


Using Visual Art for Political Change, Tour with Digital Artists Peggy Weil and Nonny de la Peña

Mauerkrankheit / Wallsickness

Mauerkrankheit (a German term for Wallsickness to describe the malaise surrounding the Berlin Wall) is a series of visualizations of current and historic border walls. The first installation, in Second Life, begins with a section of the proposed “border fence” dividing Mexico from the U.S. and continues with segments from Gaza Fence, the Melilla Fence (the E.U. funded wall to separate Spanish territories from Morroco), the Berlin Wall, and The Great Wall of China. Currently in prototype form on Annenberg School’s Network Culture Sim, the work challenges the notion of a physical barrier in the virtual environment and explores the potential of community to come together (as opposed to being split apart) by political walls. Mauerkrankheit/Wallsickness in SL received a merit award of Merit Award of L$50,000 (US$200.) from USC Annenberg School for Communications: Network Culture Project.

Advocacy Area for Network Culture Project

We were given a plot to build a presentation space to advocate for our proposal. There were several proposals back to back:
Salient Infinity (seated in front of the Berlin Wall) constructed the space from photo references.
Once "inside" the scale contributed to the feeling of being in proximity to one of the actual walls.

Network Culture Proposal: Mauerkrankheit

The original proposal for Mauerkrankheit/Wallsickness for Annenberg's Network Culture Community Challenge