Redrawing the chessboard



Spent the afternoon redrawing the chessboard and thinking about how it could be reworked for the new game. I did some drawings and got in 'the zone' thinking about territorial metaphors. Working over the 8 x 8 grid of the chess board with pencil on tracing paper, I explored the boundaries of the checker board.
The conventional board is surprisingly non-territorial in the geographical sense. The different colours of the squares denote no territorial significance.

First I drew the new grid with the idea of breaking down the linear abstractions and certainties of the checker pattern with oscillating rays or waves. Then I demarcated the 64 territories of the board by equating the boundaries with those of the states at war in Iraq.

The checker-board as it stands, maps only possible lines of attack and retreat on the battlefield. The Ranks and the Files are merely callibrations of time, space and relationship in the battle. Territory is not at stake sovereignty is. The subjects rally round their kings. The sole value of a territory or square is the advantage it offers for defence or attack- there are no sentimental or soulful attachments to particular squares (or maybe I just dont know enough about chess) no perceived benefit or in hanging out to smell the roses. It's not even hot desking . By bounding the checkers of the new chess board with the borderlines of warring states the board has shape, national flavour, association to the previously abstract, model and 81 newly twinned towns occur at the intersections of the borderlines. Theoretically a respect for nationhood may serve as an incentive for peace.