Month: June 2016

Written by Marcus

Wilderness and Canadian identity

The Canadian ideology of wilderness is two-sided. On the one hand, the untouched nature, represented more or less abstractly, is Canadians’ spiritual soil, our true north strong and free, our strength, our virtue, our potential as a nation, etc. At the same time, the actual wilderness is a testing ground for our lumberjack virility. The wilderness is a gym, and the land itself makes us strong.

Hidden between the two poles is a strange Indigenous presence that is everywhere and nowhere on this ideal terrain: our wilderness recreational activity emulates and embodies what our symbolic adoption of the land as “untouched nature” erases. […]

Written by Marcus

Escher Batman

Here is the process: I found the points of symmetry in Escher’s Lizard (No. 124), which has interesting rotational and reflectional symmetry. After a first failure, I discovered the importance of adding the lopsided grid formed by joining heads and tails – it keeps black and white “squares” from touching too much and presents lines that […]

Written by Marcus

A Map the Size of the World

“Are you looking up where we’re going?” “Yes.” I show her the map. “Look, that’s where we’re going, and this is where we are now.” “Good, it’s not too far.” “Well, it looks close on the map, but it’s actually pretty far. It’ll take us another half an hour.” It’s the kind of explanation an adult […]