BorderXing is an online guide and database on how to cross borders illegally and aimed at militants and at undocumented migrants alike. Heath Bunting walked between European countries in many kinds of settings, passing through forests, rivers, mountains and tunnels. BorderXings Guide is thus a manual written on foot, an act of reportage for others who may wish to cross borders without official documents. The website is not available to everyone who has an internet connection. People wishing to view the website must physically travel to one of the listed designated locations, or apply to become an authorized client themselves. The key element of this work is to challenge the way in which movement between borders is restricted by governments and associated bureaucracies.
Heath Bunting
Heath Bunting is a contemporary British artist born in 1966. Based in Bristol, he is the founder of the site irational.org (with Daniel García Andújar, Rachel Baker and Minerva Cuevas) and was one of the early practitioners in the 1990s of Net.art. Bunting’s work is based on creating open and democratic systems by modifying communications technologies and social systems. His work often explores the porosity of borders, both in physical space and online. In 1997, his online work Visitors Guide to London was included in the 10th Documentaexhibition in Kassel. An activist, he created a dummy site for the European Lab for Network Collision (CERN) and works to maintain a list of pirate radio stations in London.