Heath Bunting is a colourful character in the media arts world and outside of it, a reputation he gained because of his provocative work. He’s no longer allowed to travel to the US because of his anti-General Motors pamphlets and in his birth country, England, he was detained under the 2000 Terrorism Act. He therefore sarcastically refers to his work as “dangerous”.
The controversial Brit likes challenging the system and mainly uses the Internet to this purpose. He calls himself a “hacktivist”, and with his website irational.org he has created an underground online education platform and community for web artists and hackers. One of his more recent projects, which was featured in the Tate Modern in London, was borderXing Guide. On this website he documents walks that cross national borders without interference from customs, immigration or border police. It’s his way of criticising the way national borders often remain closed for refugees, while also questioning the so-called freedom and accessibility of the Internet. He turns the system around and installs borders on the net: in order to gain access to the borderXing Guide website you will have to physically travel to one of the stated locations or become a client of the system yourself.
