In Reply

Since the late fifties, this investigator understands that covert alliances were formed between national transport network strategists and the military. This alliance later sent feelers into the art and tech college scene, resulting in the development of op-art, as a means of improving visual cloaking technology. The result was the development of a ‘blindside’ area surrounding major towns and cities, whereby op-art techniques were incorporated into road networks, the close twists and spirals of fly-overs and switchbacks distorting time and space and distracting vision to the extent that entering a city seemingly at location 1 can actually take the driver many miles elsewhere to location 2 while still believing themselves to be in location 1. The Google search engine company have gained their global dominance by support given by the US govt in exchange for collusion in future ‘re-imaging’ of online photographic mapping images, to continue the illusion of town and city location. The one hole in this system has always been pedestrians, who, by crossing over roads while not being restricted within the road network, could more easily detect the visual illusions being perpetrated and see beyond the matrix of road systems to the ‘real’ space around them. As such, the crime of jaywalking has been heavily enforced, along with other measures such as out of town shopping precincts, lack of footpaths, and media car culture marketing, to ensure that non-car users were in effect outlawed from travelling in and out of major towns. Stories passed among the tramp subculture have trickled into the urban myth mainstream, suggesting the existence of a strange zone around certain locations, with roads cutting at strange angles veering suddenly into different counties; guard dogs patrolling fenced enclosures; wooden mock up facades hiding fake suburbs… Certain areas are as a result avoided by bums and hoboes. However some areas much like the west coast ‘Slabs’ eco city (itself formed on the concrete foundation remains of a ‘moved’ city) are developing as bum settlements in the locations marked on maps as major settlements and business centres. The supposed location of the headquarters of an IMF sub-division are actually a flat area the size of 20 baseball diamonds, currently occupied by the airstream caravans of hedgehog eaters.