Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space-Map Projections: The Doughnut (tangent torus)

Agnes Denes American, born Hungary

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Science helps us make sense of the world, but the world does not always fit into the framework that science provides. Errors, discrepancies, and even absurdities can result when a system meets an object. In this work, Denes maps the earth onto a mathematical form: a doughnut.

In reimagining the globe’s spatial coordinates, she also deforms them, and as the planet bends to a new illogical logic, it loses its familiar legibility, devolving into visual chaos. "Map Projections," Denes wrote in 1976, is "based on the conflicting and interdependent elements of . . . irrationality and reason."

Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space-Map Projections: The Doughnut (tangent torus), Agnes Denes (American, born Budapest, 1931), Pen and black ink, watercolor and metallic paint on mylar and paper

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