The Transborder Immigrant Tool was the subject of a whirlwind of media attention in the past week. The project has been developed by the Electronic Disturbance Theater, consisting of artists Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Amy Sara Carroll and Micha Cardenas. The media coverage included television, radio and print stories including the Associated Press, BBC World, NBC, Fox, and the UCSD Guardian. While the actual stories are too many to list here, the following is a list of some of the major articles. Many media outlets improperly reported it as an Iphone app, others attempted to discredit the project saying it is illegal, and some interviewed Enrique Morones of the Border Angels, one of the humanitarian providers whose water caches the tools directs people to. Overall, the members of the group are extremely happy that the Transborder Immigrant Tool has been so effective in opening up dialog on the dire need for humanitarian aid at the border, where thousands of people have needlessly died. We look forward to completing and deploying the tool in the coming year.
We believe that good storytelling strengthens social movements, so every year we want to select stories from Resist to turn into films.
We asked people to upload their stories of resistance and spoke with many activists, writers and political thinkers.
Using what we learnt, we’ve chosen to make our first film with the actor Gael Garcia Bernal
We’ve spent the last few months focusing on the Wall that is being built along the entire USA border with Mexico. It is one of the greatest symbols of the divisions between rich and poor, and inspires a major investigation into the systemic causes of poverty and migration.
We’ve followed the death of one migrant and are currently seeking funding to expand the film to expose a global network of new Walls and the divisive impact they will have on all of our futures.
Vice magazine wrote a long article this month about Ricardo Dominguez and the b.a.n.g. lab. The article covers numerous Border Disturbance Art projects, but focuses on the Transborder Immigrant Tool.
What potential did you see in the Virtual Hiker Tool from the standpoint of an artist-activist who wishes to disrupt the standard protocol for crossing the US-Mexico border? I thought it was really interesting because it moved GPS away from an urban application and placed it in the natural frontier. I’m always interested in how we shift these ubiquitous technologies and configure them toward other issues and disturbances, as I like to call them. And of course, the border is right there. We know individuals crossing the border mainly die because they get lost or run out of water. It’s the devil’s highway, and it’s been that way for 500 years.
(The video is not part of “Altar” – but I thought it would add
to the remix borders that grow from her work).
McALLEN — As a swell of African, Indian, Russian and Balkan migration seemed to turn her hometown at the heel of Italy into a zone of hostility, Paola Zaccaria came upon quotations of a Tex-Mex mestiza — Gloria Anzaldúa.
Zaccaria, a professor who specializes in America, saw the parallels.
She herself had students who were children of migrants and lost between two worlds. She lived where the third world grated against the first. Migrants were dying in rickety boats. Laws were being passed to keep them out. Detention centers were being built.
She traveled to the United States to meet Anzaldúa, a self-described “Chicana-queer” writer who’s widely credited with validating the conflicted border identity. Zaccaria translated Anzaldúa’s 1987 book “Borderlands/La Frontera” into Italian.
In 2008, four years after Anzaldúa’s death, she and director Daniele Basilio filmed “Altar,” a montage of video and still imagery, music and voice meant as a tribute to the dialogue Anzaldúa started.
Securing the United States’s border from illegal immigrants, terrorists and weapons of mass destruction “continues to be a major challenge,” says the United States Government Accountability Office in a new report. It is also proving to be expensive in both lives and money.
http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2009/10/02/borderwallcosts/
MORE
United States Government Accountability Office in a new report
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The number of immigrants who died while sneaking across the Mexican border in the last 12 months is expected to surpass the previous year’s total, even as fewer people are getting caught entering the country illegally. The Border Patrol says 378 people died near the border in the 11-month period that ended Aug. 31; 390 died last year. Immigrant rights advocates say the numbers reflect flaws in the Border Patrol approach; a spokesman said the agency had sent rescue crews out at least 444 times in the last year and installed rescue beacons. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/us/03brfs-IMMIGRANTDEA_BRF.html
The Border Agency’s DNA-testing plans would use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One goal of the project is to determine whether asylum-seekers claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya. If successful, the Border Agency suggests its pilot project could be extended to confirming other nationalities. Yet scientists say the Border Agency’s goals confuse ancestry or ethnicity with nationality. David Balding, a population geneticist at Imperial College London, notes that “genes don’t respect national borders, as many legitimate citizens are migrants or direct descendants of migrants, and many national borders split ethnic groups.”
MORE http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/09/border-agencys.html
“What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained opposition –clear, definite opposition– to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.”
— FDR, speech on “The Four Freedoms,” Jan 6, 1941 http://www.hbci.com/~tgort/fdr.htm
At the fifth semi-annual “Beiennale: Arte Nuevo InteractivA ‘09″ the Transborder Immigrant tool was honored with being featured among an array of exhibits, performances and varying displays of interactive art. The Arte Nuevo InteractivA, described as an “international exhibit”, started in 2001 and has been taking place every alternate year.
For more information on the Art and the list of participants please visit:
The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is a small group of artivists
engaged in developing the theory and
practice of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD)
By Robin Emmott
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Border Agency’s DNA-testing plans would use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One goal of the project is to determine whether asylum-seekers claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya. If successful, the Border Agency suggests its pilot project could be extended to confirming other nationalities. Yet scientists say the Border Agency’s goals confuse ancestry or ethnicity with nationality. David Balding, a population geneticist at Imperial College London, notes that “genes don’t respect national borders, as many legitimate citizens are migrants or direct descendants of migrants, and many national borders split ethnic groups.”
