The temperature at the border – System of Systems

During the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, all symposia, lectures and events were moved online. This was my video contribution to the online program organized by System of Systems at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. I was trying to avoid looking like a disheveled talking head on zoom so, instead, I used public domain footage from the Perlinger archives as background visuals for my contribution.

Video contribution to System of Systems’ Online Programme: Technologising the EU Border, Thursday, 4 June 2020 at Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam)

This guest programme draws on the expertise of border specialists, media scholars and artists to explore the increasing technological nature of Europe’s borders. From exploring technologies as methods of both making and discrediting evidence, to the role of technology in forming an unevenly distributed restriction on bodies, and to the border as a site of growing investment and profit, their research and practice contributes to exposing and thinking through the surge in technological strategies for exclusion in, and by, Europe. Please join us and these five practitioners, who offer varied perspectives on this issue.

‘Technologising the EU border’ is one of three research strands currently being developed by System of Systems as they work towards the publication of their second book (2021). Their other two evolving strands – ‘Outsourcing Europe’s borders’ and ‘Migration, Extraction and Colonialism’ – will take the form of two programmes later on this year.

The programme is supported by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie.

About System of Systems

System of Systems is a research project that uses the format of exhibitions, publications and public programming to address the use of technology and bureaucracy in the asylum seeking process in Europe. SoS sees the importance of a long term commitment to focus, not just on the individual migrant experience, but specifically on the system that produces and processes migration, under the pretence of security. By involving artists, architects and designers along with policy-makers, activists and researchers, SoS strives to create a diverse way of critically examining migration processing systems in a way that is accessible to non-specialists.

https://www.systemofsystems.eu/

The whole program can be watched here.


For the past decade and a half I have been making all my content available for free (and never behind a paywall) as an ongoing practice of ephemeral publishing. This site is no exception. If you wish to help offset my labor costs, you can donate on Paypal or you can subscribe to Patreon where I will not be putting my posts behind a lock but you'd be helping me continue making this work available for everyone. Thank you.  Follow me on Twitter for new post updates.

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