Ballot Initiative Would Split California into Fractals

An artist named Bear Republic has a question for Tim Draper, the Silicon Valley businessman behind an effort to qualify an initiative for the statewide ballot that would split California into six separate states: “How can California be broken if it’s more than the sum of its parts?”

“When I first encountered the proposed ballot initiative to sever California into six separate states, I believed myself to have encountered a manner of absurdity usually reserved for April Fool’s Day,” explains Republic.

Draper’s proposal would split California into six (i.e., Silicon Valley, West California, North California, South California, Jefferson, and Central California), and although Republic says that Draper’s initiative stands a “Pinkberry’s chance in Palm Springs” of approval by voters, he decided to respond with his own project to change the public’s perspective of California.

Republic, who attended several of California’s best architecture schools but never managed to graduate, created what he calls “an avant-garde political and artistic project"—a ballot initiative that would require all visualizations (e.g., maps and infographics) of California to be rendered as a unique set of fractals, reflecting what Republic calls “the infinite and perpetually evolving manifestations of the idea-state of California.”

Republic has already begun collecting signatures, and he plans on attending both weekends of Coachella, which he believes should just about cover the 504,760 signatures required to qualify the initiative for the statewide ballot.