Gordon Cheung: “Lines in the Sand superimposes middle east oil and gas pipeline maps on an Institute of War map delineating ISIS territory as of January 2016, when the terrorist group declared the creation of a modern day Caliphate. I have removed the borders of nations so that the pipelines are what demarcate the land, reminiscent of the Nazca lines. I sourced the backdrop image of Mount Sinai from Google Earth and rendered it like a hovering fata morgana. Under the freedom of information act, a US organisation called Judicial Watch obtained documents that included memos from the US Defence Intelligence Agency that called ISIS a ‘strategic asset’. As Nietzsche cautioned: 'He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.'”