1. CONTEXT:
-The
Mexico/US border, nicknamed the “Devil’s Highway” had been an area of conflict
for years, primarily because of the increase in number of people illegally
crossing into the United States for a chance at better living standards.
Americans’ fundamental misunderstanding about why these illegal immigrants come
into the US has led to a myriad of discriminatory actions based on myths that
immigrants bring crime/violence into the country and damage the economy by
taking jobs. These discriminatory actions encompass several instances of Border
Patrol agents abusing their authority, which causes more danger to those
individuals traversing the environment.
-The
rise of geospatial information systems within the past decade (such as GPS and
Google Earth) paves the way for more virtual geography systems to be developed
to parse out the best routes for illegal immigrants.
-Richard
Dominguez, founder of Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) also provides
context to the project through his personal experiences as a Mexican American,
and the inherent privilege that accompanies his upbringing in the United
States. His work is in solidarity of Zapatista (left-wing revolutionary
political/militant) communities in Chiapas, Mexico.
2. CONTENT:
Hundreds
of individuals illegally crossing the Mexico/United States border perish
because of the vertiginous geography that surrounds them; they are not able to
distinguish where they are in relation to where they have been or need to go,
and the main cause of death is from dehydration. This project also addresses
the issue of immigrants being seen as less than human, and the need to provide
a tool for survival that includes empathy for their experience.
3: FORM:
A
media “performance” in which poetry is spoken over an app on a low-cost cell
phone to increase an individual's chances of making it across the border safely.
The GPS technology, which stands for “Geo Poetic System” for this project has
over 24 hours of experimental poetry that provides guidance to food/water
caches and safer routes, and also notifies the user of security activities. The
phone has approximately an hour’s worth of battery charge, so users activate
the technology in emergency situations (mostly related to extreme dehydration).
4. STAKEHOLDERS:
The
main group invested in this project are the new-media artists of Electronic
Disturbance Theater (EDT)/b.a.n.g. (bits, atoms, neurons, genes) lab. This
group includes co-founders Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum, the latter of
whom developed the Virtual Hiker Algorithm that was applied to the TBT mobile
phone application. Many other artists and educators contributed to the project,
among them Micha Cardenas, Elle Mehrmand, and Dr. Amy Sara Carroll (who helped
to create poetry about desert survival). Stakeholders that were not directly
part of the development of the Transborder Immigrant Tool but still played an
important role include Calit2 (a technology research center) at UC
San Diego (for funding/support) and all of the critics, scholars, curators, and
artist/activists who spoke out about the work. A huge contributing factor to
the project’s success was the support from NGO’s like Water Station Inc. and
Border Angels, who worked with EDT/b.a.n.g. lab to create “locative wave
points” for the water caches that they had left in the desert.
5.
AUDIENCE:
The
Transborder Immigrant Tool was, as the name suggests, primarily conceived for
Mexican illegal immigrants traversing the dangerous terrain into the United
States. However, it is also aimed at an audience of US Americans who make no
attempt to empathize and instead mislabel these individuals as “criminals”
while unjustly assuming that they all have selfish, harmful motives.
6. ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES:
The
participants of the project (those using the app) are engaged through a navigation system
that looks like a compass and emits audio recordings of poetry. The phone also
vibrates in response to certain landmarks (ex. water cache, food cache, or
highway) which allows the user to focus on their environment rather than constantly
looking at their phone screen. This user-friendly interface allows for artistic
value, as migrants are led on an aesthetic route that contributes to the
virtual mapping and “ecological artwork” of the area. Sustenance is provided to
border crossers through poetry, and this type of “geo-poetic” disturbance helps
audiences and stakeholders begin to question the very nature of borders and
therefore allow for their preconceived notions and clichés about illegal
immigration to be challenged.
7.
GOAL:
At its core, TBT is a safety tool. Its main purpose is
to guide border crossers from Mexico into the United States in the most humane
way possible, by providing them with directions to such necessities as water
caches in the unforgiving Southern California desert. This project also seeks
to offer respite and inspiration for survival through poetry (in the
form of a series of short haikus), which ultimately serves to change the
conversation about illegal border crossings and inspire more border-disturbance
art. Though the Transborder Immigrant Tool is intended as a new-media research
project rather than a political statement, there is an aspect of electronic
civil disobedience that is facilitated by the added layer of “poetic sustenance”;
framing inherently political acts as art provides more leeway and allows the
project to survive in an “arti-vist” (artist/activist) realm.
8.
VALUES:
Electronic media is a powerful medium in which to
express new forms of activism and civil disobedience, and artists have the
power to “change the conversation theatrically, by disturbing the law.”
A majority of Mexican immigrants who illegally cross
into the US have the best intentions; their main goals are to improve their
quality of life and contribute positively to society. These individuals deserve
not only such necessities as clear routes, shelter, food, water, and allies to
guarantee a safe voyage, but also to be treated with dignity and provided with
some means of comfort, hope, and motivation in the form of art (in this case,
poetry) while they trek a dangerous path towards a better future.
9.
RESOURCES:
Tangible resources include an inexpensive Motorola
cell phone (which easily accepts new algorithms and allowed EDT/b.a.n.g. lab to
alter the GPS system), funding from large institutions such as Calit2 of UC San
Diego, water caches, food caches, safety beacons, foundational GPS technology, “Virtual
Hiker” software (developed by Brett Stalbaum; this program takes certain
terrains into account and creates a virtual trail based on the algorithms), poetry
written for survival, and voice recordings of the poetry to transmit aurally to
the migrants.
Intangible resources include the wealth of knowledge
from those reconfiguring GPS technology for this artistic purpose, Richard
Dominguez’ understanding of both Mexican and American perspectives, a knowledge
of how treacherous the border terrain is, and the trust of immigrants to stake
their lives on this project and its technology.
10:
OUTCOMES:
This project was met with an onslaught of controversy
and consequences; the members of EDT/b.a.n.g lab went through several
investigations by the Republican Party and the FBI Office of Cybercrimes (who accused
the artists of misusing public funds to promote illegal activities), and
Richard Dominguez’ tenured position as an associate professor in the visual
arts department of UC San Diego was threatened. The project itself was targeted
by right-wing media outlets, namely Fox News, and this led to violent emails
towards many of the artists.
Amongst the negative, there were some extremely
positive results; TBT received such honors as the “Transnational Communities
Award”, and, more importantly, it gained support from many volunteer
organizations including Water Station Inc. and Border Angels. Because of Brett
Stalbaum’s generosity in making TBT’s code available through his website, other
activists have examined this project and begun to challenge the idea of borders
while having the possibility to use the algorithms on borders around the world
and develop more global poetic systems. While the ultimate goal to save lives
of illegal immigrants has been met, there are more reverberations in terms of
the light that has been shed about the inequality and prejudice that has bred
resentment on both sides of the border. With dialogue that has opened up in
communities all over Latin America about potential immigrant activist networks
and new-media art communities, there is hope for a positive shift in the way we
use art to communicate, understand, and affect communities outside of our own.
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