FKW // Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und visuelle Kultur
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Stimme geben, Gehör verleihen. Kollaborative Dokumentationen und die Bedingungen der Vernehmbarkeit von Migration und Flucht
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Video Against the Machine: Lens-Based Interventions in The Refugee Crisis
Get PDFThis article studies the military-industrial-surveillance complex at Europe’s borders as a machine that functions alongside and in response to the so-called refugee crisis, but that in itself is not in crisis at all. Following philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato’s definition of machinic systems, I conceptualize the machine as anapparatus that does not depend on techne perse, but as aseries of intertwined discursive/semiotic as well as non-discursive/material elements. When viewed through the lens of machine theory, the reduction of refugees to calculable formula and neatly arranged data packets cannot be seen as an isolated, purely discursive matter. It is part of a large machinic assemblage in which economic, judicial, social and technological components work together, producing material, immobilizing, de-subjectifying, as well as oftentimes lethal consequences for the human beings involved. Only after carefully studying the workings of this refugee machine, I argue, will it become possible to uncover possible modes of resistance against this controlling and objectifying system. In order to analyse the military-industrial-surveillance complex at Europe’s borders as a machinic system, I turn to two art-house documentary films which do exactly that. Nathalie Loubeyre’s Flow Mechanics (2016) and Morgan Knibbe’s Those Who Feel the Fire Burning(2014) will be read as forms of machine analysis that are very much in line with Lazzarato’s machine theory, as they map intertwining parts of a large refugee-controlling system at work in Southern European countries.
Dramaturgies of the ‘Other’: Self-Making & Sense-Making in Contemporary Documentary Theatre
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Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer as a Luxury Immigrant: A European Public Intellectual and the ‘Refugee Crisis’
Get PDFCentral to this article is the Dutch poet and writer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer who in recent years has positioned himself explicitly as a European intellectual. Using Odile Heynders’ definition of the public intellectual, it examines the ways in which Pfeijffer has contributed to the public debate on the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in and beyondhis literary works. By means of a close reading of Brief aan Europa [Letter to Europe] (2015), the article examines the literary tools with which Pfeiffer tries to add complexity to this debate, for instance techniques such as personification, focalization and identification. In his literary writings Pfeijffer seems to prompt his readers to rethink their luxury position and to direct their attention to the complex issues underlying the ‘refugee crisis’. Simultaneously, however, he also uses images that appear rather problematic and result in stereotyping. Finally, the article also touches upon the more general difficulties of writing on the ‘refugee crisis’ today. Is a Western, privileged writer like Pfeijffer allowed to use the stories of refugees for his own economic benefit? By looking into his public position and performances, the article shows that his economic success and cultural authority are intricately connected to his position as a public intellectual writing on the ‘refugee crisis’
Stuck Between Destinations: Reflections on Pejk Malinovski’s Virtual Reality Project 'This Room'
Get PDFThe article approaches the topic of the current ‘refugee crisis’ by discussing and analysing a specific case, namely a virtual reality installation produced in 2018 by the poet and sound artist Pejk Malinovski. This project, which is entitled This Room, is about refugees who arrived in Denmark in 2015 and their subsequent fates in refugee camps. It explores and exposes the harsh, stressful and often traumatizing living conditions of refugees. Besides, as a critical and political gesture, the project attempts to extend visibility and audibility to those who are currently consigned to life in camps. The article starts by presenting and reflecting on Malinovski’s project focusing specifically on the critical potential of its blurring of the boundaries between the documentary and the fictional. Subsequently, it analyses some of the effects it has produced, not least in its capacity as a site-specific version at Copenhagen Central Station, where it was mediated by refugees and volunteers from refugee organizations. The article argues that the project appears particularly relevant within its given contexts, such as in Copenhagen, because it is created by means of a participatory methodological approach. This Roomactually seeks to facilitate conflictual encounters, and does so at a series of different sites. Drawing on conflict theory and radical democracy theory, the article argues that artistic forms of critique necessitate the creation of agonistic contact zones in which negotiations can take place and counter-hegemonic publics can be created. It concludes by arguing that critical approach involves being partisan, i.e. taking a position which is dissensual, convincing and politically positioned. Thematically,This Roomhighlights the fact that mobility is often characterized by conflicts, negotiations, and the playing out of asymmetrical power relations. Furthermore,
