Pixel Tombstones

Physical spaces die without a funeral. Buildings are demolished without obituaries, and alleys disappear without memorial services. Quiet deaths and unrecorded extinctions are repeatedly woven into our daily life. But the digital world is different. Past images recorded in satellite-based digital map services, old photos uploaded on personal blogs, and location tags on social media have become virtual cemeteries of spaces that no longer exist. Pixel tombstones and altars connected by links testify to lost spaces.

Within this solidified digital stratum, we discover preserved moments. Times fixed as data are permanently preserved on servers, transforming the past into an archaeological excavation site. Every time we click on satellite photo records, we dig through time’s tomb and witness multiple layers different from the present. In this digital map, we reunite with vanished spaces, and satellite photos and street views become death portraits of extinct spaces. With just one click, we can travel back in time and meet forgotten childhood memories, but this is now a ghostly space that exists only in pixels.

The GPS coordinates of the newly built apartment complex remain the same, but the stories that land remembers have completely changed. In locations marked by the same numbers, entirely different traces of life are overlaid. We now open our smartphones to search the past, excavate memories on social media, and make pilgrimages to places disappeared from digital maps. This new form of mourning, replacing physical extinction with digital preservation, is becoming our everyday reality.

Variable Boundaries

As fixed boundaries crumble and transition into fluid states, the very concept of demarcation is being redefined. Redefining de-zoning is not about eliminating boundaries, but about changing the way we draw them. It’s a shift from permanent line-drawing to temporary line-drawing, from fixed territories to variable spaces. In this process, boundaries no longer divide locations but distinguish perspectives. As temporal demarcation becomes more important than spatial division, boundaries become conditions valid only for a certain period.

Construction site flags most directly demonstrate this transition. Flags swaying in the wind, safety tapes, movable fences—these are not permanent boundary lines but temporary markers. They will disappear once construction is complete and will be moved elsewhere as needed.

These temporary boundaries can be found throughout the city. Fences at redevelopment sites, street banners, parking prohibition signs. In this endless cycle where variable boundaries become fixed and fixed boundaries become fluid again, the entire city appears as a massive temporary space.