Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space--Map Projections: The Snail

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Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space—Map Projections: The Snail is from a series of studies of topographical motifs that Agnes Denes began to produce in the late 1960s. In these works, Denes plays with isometric projection, a method of visually representing three-dimensional objects in the two-dimensional format of a technical sketch. Here, she projects an accurate geographical rendering of the globe onto an unexpected structure—the form of a snail. A longtime advocate for human stewardship of and responsibility for the planet, Denes used this drawing and her other Map Projections to reimagine to earth and the place of humans on it. As she remarked, “longitude and latitude lines were unraveled, points of intersection cut, continents allowed to drift, gravity tampered with [and] earth mass altered.”