The Construction of Neutrality
An impossible complex of overlapping cultural and political territories, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem represents the ultimate site of conflict and a Holy Grail of constructed neutrality. Bill Clinton’s proposed solution was a 1.5m subterranean neutral slab to separate Muslim surface from Jewish underground. As a critique of the impossible simplicity of this proposal, Kovács deploys LI Magnus’s 1831 inversion formula – used in mathematics as an alternative order or space for solving otherwise unsolvable conundrums – to create an inverted reflection of the most contentious zones in the temple. The formula generates spatial liberties and convolutions which permit a joint occupation that would be impossible to achieve under normal spatial conditions and current political constraints.