Border Bumping is a new commission by Julian Oliver that is a work of dislocative media that situates cellular telecommunications infrastructure as a disruptive force, challenging the integrity of national borders.
As we traverse borders our cellular devices hop from network to network across neighbouring territories, often before or after we ourselves have arrived. These moments, of our device operating in one territory whilst our body continues in another, can be seen to produce a new and contradictory terrain for action.
Running a freely available, custom-built smartphone application, Border Bumping agents collect cell tower and location data as they traverse national borders in trains, cars and buses. Moments of discrepancy at the edges are logged and uploaded to the caravan at the point of crossing. This data is then used to dynamically deform borders in a map, resulting in an ever evolving map of infrastructurally challenged territory, a tele cartography.
Boarder Bumping Mobile App coming soon at borderbumping.net