Interactive Art  Exhibition VISITOR BY TOM TOR

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. —Marcel Proust

Maps of every variety possess a certain mystical allure to inspire wanderlust in the map-reader—unfolding expanses of unexplored territory and holding forth the promise of limitless possibility. The visitor who attempts the venture into the myriad realms depicted in Tom Tor’s captivating collection, however, will travel beyond city walls and national boundaries and into historical ideologies, the evolution of cultural consciousness, and the global degeneration of social utopian visions.

Tor applies advanced mathematics and computational mapping methodologies to generate scores of schematic diagrams and gridding lattices, which all converge to manifest as organic lines of our living planet. These global lines extend beyond geographic thresholds to simultaneously trace the intimate topographical contours of a profoundly symbolic figure—John Lennon, in one instance, Ghandi in another—powerfully evocative visionaries that have become potent emblems of distinct cultural and political values, revolutionary convictions and progressive agendas.  An ambitious experiment in conceptual cartography, Tor’s traversal of world geographies evolves multi-dimensional allegorical landscapes.  With each successive layering, the maps and the portraits they piece together tell very different tales in the end.

By_ Felicia McCrossin _Editorial Director at SOMA Magazine