Impossible Borders is a ludic response to the distorted everyday of COVID-19 lockdowns, where once familiar spaces were imbued with new meanings.

Drawing on a range of experiences and shifts of perception—like the hardening of hands due to constant washing, or how a softened gaze tessellates the leaves of a house plant—seven 14 word poems were composed and ‘distorted’ (from the Latin distorquere—‘to twist apart’) across a disc of seven segments, obscuring the original poems while inviting unconventional reading approaches.

You can read the downward poems in each segment (Option A), or you can read the poems by way of an inward spiral (Option B). After reading each poem in your selected pattern you can start at the top of the next segment and repeat the pattern to read the next poem.

You can start with either or neither, but whatever reading pattern you choose will require being constricted to the confines of the disc. External devices (abacuses, cards, die, dictionaries, grimoires, etc.) as well as internal stimulants (preconceptions, prejudices, apprehensions, etc.) are encouraged, but not required. Methodical application of these devices will yield consistent results. It is up to the player to determine if this is preferable.