Anna Lundh

HEXA_FLEXAGON_F_EVER

The hexaflexagon is a strip of paper, that has been folded into a hexagon. This two dimensional shape can then be turned inside out, flexed, so that a number of faces that were previously hidden will appear. In theory, it can have an infinite number of faces, although in reality the thickness of the paper sets the limit. It was discovered 1939 by a British fellowship student at Princeton, who started to fold the strips he had just trimmed off his American “letter-size” sheets to fit his A4 binder. It had a revival in the late 50ies, when it first became popular among magic buffs in New York, and after an article in Scientific American, it became something of a craze.

To map the connections between the ideas and the people associated with the hexa-flexagon, I use the digital social network Myspace as my tool. A somewhat old fashioned and analog phenomenon is applied to something contemporary [2007] and digital, to form a historical and associative network between the hexaflexacon and profiles like Martin Gardner, Salvador Dali, Alan Turing, Sadie Plant, Ray Kurzweil, Margaret Mead, Ross Ashby (to name a few). This mapping of people and ideas constantly grows, and the history is told, discovered and commented on by the living and dead, for an indefinite future.

DOCUMENTATION: Workshop for Rhizome / The World is Flat, 2009.