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Talking Documents

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This project appeared as a need to explore potential bureaucratic -dramaturgies within the educational institution I was part as a student. -I was curious about educational bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by -smaller-scale paperwork struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and -experiences. However, unexpected emergencies - due to my eviction on the -31st of January 2024 - placed centrally my personal struggles unfolded -in parallel with the making period. I ended up conducting accidentally -auto-ethnography as the project was dynamically being reshaped due to -the material constraints of the bureaucratic timeline.

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Talking Documents are performative bureaucratic text inspections that -intend to create temporal public interventions through performative -readings. I utilized the paperwork interface of my smaller-scale story -in order to unravel and foreground questions related to the role of -bureaucracy as less material border and as a regulatory mechanism -reflecting narratives, ideologies, policies.

-

Central element of this project is a seven-act scenario that -construct my personal paperwork story, unraveling the actual struggles -of my communication with the government. The body of the text of the -“theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents, email -threads as well as recordings of the conversations with the municipality -of Rotterdam I documented and archived throughout this period. I -preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by discarding the -graphic design of the initial forms, I structured and repurposed the -text into a playable scenario.

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I perceive the document as a unit and as the fundamental symbolic -interface of the bureaucratic network. The transformation of the -materiality of a document into a scenario to be enacted collectively in -public aims to examine these artifacts and highlight the shrouded -performative elements of these processes.

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I see the collective readings of these scenarios as a way of instant -publishing and as a communal tool of inspecting bureaucratic bordering -infrastructures. How can these re-enactments be situated in different -institutional contexts and examine their structures? I organized a -series of performative readings of my own bureaucratic literature in -different spaces and contexts, pubic and semi-public WDKA, Art Meets -Radical Openness Festival in Linz, the City Hall of Rotterdam where I -invited people to perform the play together, like a tiny theater.

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-The garden of Gemeente - -
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The marginal voices of potential applicants are embodying and -enacting a role. “The speech does not only describe but brings things -into existence”(Austin, 1975). My intention was to stretch the limits of -dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document and turn individual -administrative cases into public ones. How do the inscribed words in the -documents are not descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized -in getting things done”(Butler,1997). Words as active agents. Bodies as -low-tech “human microphones”. A group of people performs the -bureaucratic scenario in chorus, out loud, in the corridor of the -school’s building, in the main hall, at the square right across, outside -of the municipality building.

-

I documented and recorded these public acts and I re-created the -collectively voiced scenario. This audio piece is a constellation of -different recordings and soundscapes of these public moments, a vocal -archive, published in the graduation exhibition of XPUB in 2024.

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Performing the + Bureaucratic Border(line)s

+ +

introduction

 + +

This thesis is an assemblage I live + somewhere in the margins of scattered references, footnotes, citations, + examinations embracing the inconvenience of talking back to myself, to + the reader and to all those people whose ideas gave soul to the text. I + shelter in the borderlands of the pages my fragmented thoughts, flying + words, introspections, voices. Enlightenment and inspiration given by + the text “Dear Science” written by Katherine McKittrick. of + thoughts, experiences, interpretations, intuitive explorations of what + borders are, attempting to unleash a conversation concerning the + entangled relation between material injurious borders and bureaucracy. I + unravel empirically the thread of how borders as entities are manifested + and (de)established. How does the lived experience of crossing multiple + borders change and under what conditions?

+ +

The eastern Mediterranean borderland I + use the word borderland to refer to Greece as a (mostly) transit zone in + the migrants’ and refugees’ route towards Europe., I + happened to come from, proves to be one of Europe’s deadly borders + towards specific ethnic groups. The embodied experience of borders and + practices of (im)mobility change radically depending on the various + identities of the people crossing them. As I moved to the Netherlands I + started more actively perceiving bureaucracy as another multi-layered + border. I was wondering how this situation is shifted and transformed + moving towards the European North. What is the role of bureaucracy and + how it could be perceived as a mechanism of repulsion for some bodies - + a camouflaged border?

+ +

But what is my starting point and where does my precarious body fit + within the borders that I am touching? The language of the + administrative document is rigid and hurtful but myself lies between the + margins of these lines.

+ +

This thesis does not consist of an excessive inquiry about the + profoundly complex concepts of borders and bureaucracy. On the contrary, + it is initiated by personal concerns, awareness and my positioning. I + choose to structure my argument and talk through a personal process that + is being unfolded in parallel with the writing period. Accordingly, + these words are dynamically being reshaped due to the material + constraints of the bureaucratic timeline. A more distant approach became + personal and tangible with auto-ethnographical I perceive auto-ethnography as a way to place + myself, my lived experiences, my identities, reflections in the + (artistic) research and talk through them about structures and within + the structures of social, cultural, political frameworks. + elements as I was trying to squish myself and my urgencies under these + thresholds and fit the A4 document lines.

+ +

I would like at this point to acknowledge and state explicitly my + privilege recognizing the different levels of otherness produced by the + several bordering mechanisms. My European machine-readable passport as a + designed artifact dictates and facilitates the easiness of my mobility. + In other (many) cases the lack of it creates profoundly a severe + barrier “Passports still function as a + technology to control movement. Technologies like RFID chips and face + recognition are part of a control system for digital state surveillance. + Designing a passport is relative to design a surveillance tool. The + analysis of passport designs rarely looks at the social consequences of + identification, control, and restriction of movement, which can have + violent consequences.” (Ruben Pater, 2021). I do not intend + in any respect to compare my case to the lived experiences and struggles + of migrants and refugees. I utilize the paperwork interface of my + smaller-scale story in order to unravel and foreground the + aforementioned questions.

+ +

This thesis is very much indebted to some text-vehicles that + mobilized my reflections and nourished the writing process. “Illegal + Traveller, an autoethnography of borders” and “Waiting, a Project in + conversation” both written by Shahram Khosravi as well as “The Utopia of + Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy” by + the anarchist anthropologist David Graeber. Graeber initiated his + research utilizing the horrendous prolonged bureaucratic processes he + had to follow in order to place his sick mother in a nursing home. In + parallel, Khosravi’s work is itself the outgrowth of his own ‘embodied + experience of borders’, of ethnographic fieldwork among undocumented + migrants. I found valuable and inspiring in both texts the personal + filter through which they articulate their positioning and develop + critique.

+ +

I follow a zoom-in approach in mapping my thoughts beginning from the + large-scale rigid border as entity and ending up at the document as the + smallest designed artifact of the bureaucratic labyrinth.

+

In the first chapter, I touch the concept of borders in relation to + migration. I begin with a personal inspection and comprehension of + material borders as entities. Alongside, I interweave in the text the + concept of hospitality as a cultural attitude towards ‘strangers’ from + the state’s perspective. Conditional and unconditional. How the document + I hold in my hands reflects positions on the government’s conditional + hospitality and what constraints it dictates.

+ +

In the second chapter, I unpack bureaucracy and focus on its + bordering function. From migration ghost bureaucracies to the + educational bureaucracies of my surroundings to even smaller components + of this apparatus. I end up analyzing the document as a unit within this + complex network. Through the “interrogation” of the form as an artifact + are emerging issues related to language, graphic design and + transparency, universality, and underlying violence.

+ +

In the third and last chapter, I bridge the written text with the + ongoing project that runs simultaneously as part of my graduation work + in Experimental Publishing, where I mainly speak through my prototypes. + Talking documents(5) are performative bureaucratic text inspections, + vocal and non-vocal, that intend to create temporal public interventions + through performative readings. The intention is to underline how the + vocalization of bureaucracies as a tool can potentially reveal their + territorial exclusive function and provide space for the invisible + vulnerability.

+ +
+

“on the other side is the river
+ and I cannot cross it
+ on the other side is the sea
+ I cannot bridge it”
+ (Anzaldua, 1987)

+
+ +

borders

+ +

How a border is defined? How, as an entity, does it define? How is it + performed? I used to think of borders in a material concrete way, coming + from a country of the European South that constitutes a rigid, violent + border that repulses and kills thousands of migrants and refugees. In + the following chapter, I will attempt to explore the terrain of material + borders in relation to bureaucracy as another multi-layered filter.

+ +

What constitutes a border? Is it a wall, a line, a fence, a machine, + a door, an armed body or a wound on the land? When somebody crosses a + border are they consciously aware of the act of crossing? I am crossing + the pedestrian street and walking on the white stripes to reach the + pedestrian route right across. Are the white stripes a border or a + territory to be crossed to reach another situation? Does the way I + perform my walking when I step onto the white stripes change? Is there + any embodied knowledge about what could be classified as border? Under + which circumstances does this knowledge become canonical? I hop over a + fence that separates one garden from another. What if instead of + assuming that the fence is a device or a furniture or a material of + enclosure, it is just part of the same land? The process or act of + jumping a fence can be itself a moment of segregation and a moment of + re-establishing or demonstrating the bordering function of it.

+ +

Borders could be considered as devices of both exclusion and + inclusion that filter people and define forms of circulation and + movement in ways no less violent than those applied in repulsive + measures. Closure and exclusion are only one function of the + nation-state borders. Of course, borders are not always that visible or + treated and perceived as borders, as Rumford argues they are “designed + not to look like borders, located in one place but projected in another + entirely” (Rumford, cited by Keshavarz, 2016, p.298)

+ +

As institutions, they seem to be much more complex, flexible, or even + penetrable in comparison with the traditional image of a wall as a + bordering device that demonstrates in a way itself. Crossing and borders + are inherently defined in relation to each other. “Where there is a + border, there is also a border crossing, legal as well as illegal” + (Khosravi, 2010).

+ +

conditional hospitality

+ +

I started thinking about hospitality as a cultural behavior and as an + inseparable term in the context of borders due to a recent personal + bureaucratic experience. Hospitality can be instrumentalized to describe + an individual’s as well as a nation’s response towards strangers within + their enclosed territory - a property, a home, a land, a country. What + does hospitality mean and how hospitality under specific circumstances + can be a tool in the hands of a state?

+ +

I will share a personal story related to hospitality and bureaucracy. + I was recently evicted from my previous house [31/01/2024] due to a + trapping contract situation. My former roommates and I were forced to + terminate our previous contract and sign a new one that further limited + our rights. The bureaucratic free market language of the contract, the + foreign law language barrier, the threats of the agent and the precarity + of being homeless in a foreign country forced us to sign the new rental + agreement which was the main reason for our eviction. Currently, I am + hosted temporarily by friends until I find a more permanent + accommodation. Meanwhile, the government requires me to declare the new + address which I do not have within five days of my moving. Consequently, + I have to follow another bureaucratic path. This involves requesting + permission for a short-term postal address while declaring the addresses + of my current hosts [4/02/2024]. I gathered the required documents, I + processed a 9-page-text and another one with the personal data of my + hosts and myself and answered questions about:

+ +
+

why don’t I have a house,
+ who are the people who host me,
+ what is my relationship with them,
+ where do I sleep,
+ where do I store my belongings,
+ how many people are hosting me and accordingly their personal + data,
+ for how long,
+ why I cannot register there,
+ what days of the week do I stay in the one house and
+ what days do I stay in the other house,
+ whether and how am I searching for a permanent place and
+ what is the tangible proof of my search?

+
+ +

All these questions provoked thinking around the concept of + conditional hospitality as a behavior of the state towards strangers. I + can see that on a smaller scale it is being applied to the hospitality I + receive from my friends in the middle of an emergency. I am wondering, + though, whether is it that important for the government to know on whose + couch I sleep or where I store my belongings. The omnipresent gaze of a + state who has the right to know every small detail about myself while at + the same time questioning people’s hospitality in case of emergency. It + seems that forms of knowledge are inseparably related to forms of power. + It will take 8 weeks for my request to be processed and for the + government to approve or reject if I deserve my friends’ + hospitality.

+ +
+ +

“Today as yesterday, her land and her time are stolen, only because + she is told that she has arrived too late. Much too late”
+ (Khosravi, 2021)

+
+ +

waiting

+ +

Waiting can be considered as a dramaturgical means embedded in + bureaucratic procedures that camouflage power relations through the + manipulation of people’s time. When people are in the middle of a + bureaucratic process and waiting for the government’s decision on their + case or just waiting for their turn. “The neoliberal technologies of + citizenship enacted through keeping people waiting for jobs, education, + housing, health care, social welfare or pensions turn citizens into + patients of the state” (Khosravi, 2021). I waited two weeks for a + response from the municipality only to discover that my request was + rejected [16/02/2024].

+ +

Contemporary border practices mirror past colonial practices, as they + exploit migrants’ time by keeping them in prolonged waiting, “like the + way colonial capitalism transformed lands to wastelands to plunder the + wealth underneath” (Khosravi, 2021). The current border regime, known by + extended waiting periods and constant delays, is part of a larger + project aimed at taking away wealth, labor, and time through colonial + accumulation and immediate expulsion.

+ +

When someone opens their house to a guest, a stranger, someone in + need, means that they open their property to someone. Hospitality is + interweaved with a sense of ownership over something. Expanding the + concept of hospitality to a nation-scale, we could say that the + nation-building process involves people asserting artificial ownership + over a territory even if they do not own any property within this + land.

+ +

Conditional hospitality is tied to a sense of offering back to the + home-land-nation-state-country as a way to win or trade your permission + to enter and enjoy the hospitality of a place. Coming from specific + places in comparison to others, having to offer some special skills or + your labor - if it is asked for - can be possible conditions that may + allow somebody to receive hospitality. I would say that an efficient + check of these conditions is regularly facilitated through bureaucratic + channels. The concept of unconditional-conditional hospitality is + closely related to exchange. When you do not have something to offer + according to the needs or expectations of a “household”, you may not + receive the gift of hospitality.

+ +

The notion of hospitality is excessively instrumentalized within the + Greek context portrayed as an “ideal” intertwined with the + nation-building narrative and as a foundational quality - product by the + Greek tourist industry. However, the Greek sea has been an endless + refugee graveyard and the eastern Aegean islands a “warehouse of + souls”For further reading: + https://wearesolomon.com/mag/focus-area/migration/how-the-aegean-islands-became-a-warehouse-of-souls/ + for the last many years. In this case, conditional hospitality applies + primarily to those who invest in and consume.

+ +

Hospitality can function as a filtration mechanism that permits + access – lets in – the ones who deserve it, those who have “passports, + valid visas, adequate bank statements, or invitations” (Khosravi, 2010). + By doing this, unproductive hospitality is being avoided due to + sovereign state’s border regulations and checks. Conditional + hospitality, is about worthiness, is directed towards migrants deemed + good and productive – skilled and capable for assimilation- or a tiny + minority of vulnerable and marginalized asylum seekers who lack + representation. Only in a world where the nation-state’s boundaries have + been dismantled and where the undocumented, stateless, non-citizens are + unconditionally accepted, only at this moment, we are able to imagine + the “political and ethical survival of humankind” (Agamben, 2000). + Hospitality does not seem a matter of choice but a profound urgency, if + humanity desires to foster a future together.

+ +

“the right to have rights”

+ +

(Arendt, as cited by Khosravi, 2010, p.121) What about the crossers + who managed to travel and reach the desirable “there”, the ones who + transcended the borders and the control checks of the ministries of + defense(7), the ones who enter but do not own papers, the paperless? + What does it mean to be documented and what is inefficiently documented + within a territory? They are threatened if they get caught by + authorities and also according to the official narrative, they threaten. + Since the physical mechanisms of bordering did not succeed in repulsing + them, the bureaucratic border appears as an additional layer of + filtration. The undocumented are non-citizens, they might be crossers or + burners(8), both, or even none. “Undocumented migrants and unauthorized + border crossers are polluted and polluting because of their very + unclassifiability” (Borelli, Poy, Rué, 2023). The loss of citizenship, + denaturalisation, makes somebody denaturalised, they are rendered + unnatural. “Citizenship has become the nature of being human” (Koshravi, + 2010).

+ +

According to Hannah Arendt, the right to have rights and claim + somebody else’s rights is the only human right (Arendt, as cited by + Khosravi, 2010, p. 121). The foundational issue with the Universal + Declaration of Human Rights is its dependence on the nation-state + system. Since human rights are grounded on civil rights, which are + essentially citizens’ rights, human rights are tied to the nation-state + system. Consequently, human rights can be materialized only in a + political community. “Loss of citizenship also means loss of human + rights” (Khosravi, 2010)

+
+ +

“…This is a transcribed recording of + my phone during a protest on migration at Dam Square in Amsterdam. I + insert part of the speech of a Palestinian woman addressing the matter + of undocumentedness. Date and time of the recording 18th of June 2023, + 15:05. I am here for the rights of the children which + haven’t be in the taking part in the education since they have + undocumented mothers and they are more than + “” means + undecipherable years. I am here to represent mothers who + are looking for a place to have a sense of belonging or how long are you + trying to continue humiliating them and the female gender. I am here to + express my frustration with INDImmigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst - Dutch + Immigration and Naturalisation Service. So frustrated. And + I will not stop talking about democracy. Democracy is the rule of law + where everybody feels included. Democracy is a rule of law where + everybody feels * We, undocumented people, we don’t feel a sense of + belonging from the system.”

+
+ +

bureaucracy as immaterial + border

+ +

Apart from the rigid visible borders, bureaucracy related to + migrants, refugees and asylum seekers can also constitute an in-between + less visible borderland. I used to perceive bureaucracy as an immaterial + and intangible entity. However, now I can claim that this assumption is + not true. Bureaucracy is material and spatial and can be seen as an + apparatus, a machine, a circuitry, an institution, a territory, a + borderland, a body, a zone – a “dead zone of imagination” as Graeber + claims. It can be inscribed on piles of papers, folders, drawers, + booklets, passports, IDs, documents, screens, tapes, bodies, hospital + corridors, offices, permissions to enter, stay, work, travel, exist, + come and go, leave, visit family, bury a friend.

+ +

Bureaucratic documents especially those related to migration, can + become territories or should be interpreted “as sites where social + interactions happen, where power relations unfold and are contested” + (Cretton, Geoffrion, 2021). When these bureaucratic objects are used and + manipulated, they can constitute sites of “confrontation, reproduction, + negotiation and performance” (Cretton, Geoffrion, 2021) shaping social + relations and producing meaning.

+ +

Bureaucracy related to asylum seekers reveals the profound bordering + nature of these practices, as a continuous process of producing + otherness. Accordingly, I see bureaucracy as a practice that raises + material and symbolic walls for specific groups of people who are + rendered unwanted and unwelcome because they dared to cross the borders + of the Global North. It is as if they could never manage to eventually + arrive and shelter their lives within the desirable “there”I am referring to the desirable potential + destinations of migrants and refugees corresponding mainly to Global + North countries.. “In these bordering processes, we can + detect the “coloniality of asylum”In this + text they insert the concept of the “coloniality of asylum” introduced + by Picozza, which talks about how asylum systems are intertwined with + colonial legacies and power dynamics. These systems are often colonial + structures reinforcing hierarchies between nations and reproducing + patterns of domination and oppression. In this framework, asylum is not + just about offering protection but also about regulating and managing + populations in a way that reflects colonial relationships. + (Borelli, Poy, Rué, 2023). Bureaucracies in practice act as filters, + determining who, from an institutional standpoint, deserves to receive + protection and who does not. They operate as systems that classify + non-citizens and place them in a social hierarchy of disproportionate + unequal obligations, lack of rights and access to institutional + support.

+ +

higher education’s + expanding bureaucracy

+ +

While I had this inherent concern about borders and bureaucratic + structures in relation to migration, I decided to start zooming in and + explore my own bureaucratic surroundings through my personal lens. As a + student, I was eager to understand and dig into the educational + institutions’ bureaucratic mechanisms being driven by smaller-scale + bureaucratic struggles and peers’ narratives, stories and experiences. + How can higher education in a European country reflect policies around + migration and border control less profoundly. How can education filter + and distinguish, how it can reproduce efficiently itself?

+ +

I gradually started perceiving the bureaucratic apparatus as an + omnipresent immaterial border - a ghost infrastructure - that one always + encounters but does not really see, a borderland that lies in the gray + zone between visibility and invisibility. Bureaucracy renders us + “stupid” and vulnerable in front of it. It is rarely questioned but it + should be performed efficiently for people to exist properly.

+ +

The contradiction embedded in many cultural and educational + institutions lies in the level of unawareness regarding surveillance via + multiple bureaucratic rituals that (re)produce docile behaviors. How + these mechanisms are masked and standing in the margins of the visible + nonvisible sphere.

+ +
+ +

“This is what makes it possible, for example, for graduate students + to be able to spend days in the stacks of university libraries poring + over Foucault-inspired theoretical tracts about the declining importance + of coercion as a factor in modern life without ever reflecting on that + fact that, had they insisted their right to enter the stacks without + showing a properly stamped and validated ID, armed men would have been + summoned to physically remove them, using whatever force might be + required.”
+ (Graeber, 2015)

+ +
+

The genuine essence of education is not bureaucratic at all, neither + does it have to fit and ground its foundations under a bureaucratic + roof. “The pedagogical process runs counter to the hierarchical, + impersonal qualities of bureaucracy” (Cunningham, 2017). However, people + working in educational institutions acknowledge the fact that entrenched + bureaucratic systems impose their material constraints on teaching + structures and on how these actors in this process interact with each + other.“Students and staff are treated as human capital” (Cunningham, + 2017). This determination can dehumanize people involved, like when + “faculty-as-labor” and “students-as-consumers” are marginalized and + treated as just variables.

+
+ +

“there is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a + document of barbarism”
+ Walter Benjamin

+
+ +

the document

+ +

From fences and armed police to nation-state mechanism of + less-material bordering to bureaucracy to the elements of bureaucracy to + the document itself as the minimum unit of an apparatus. Understanding + and unhiding the violence of a form -violence materialized and at the + same time camouflaged by the language structure, the vocabulary, the + graphic design, their ability to render subjectivities that fit and + don’t fit within the controlled territory of the lines of the form. A + language that fragments, classifies, places and un-places. Thus + bureaucratic apparatus is something more than a metaphor it is also a + symbol. It is hard to see that there are many more layers beneath the + purpose it propagates. A metaphor that is so perfectly materialized as + well as naturalized that you cannot even see it.

+ +

bureaucracy as textual + institution

+ +

The bureaucratic apparatus can be considered as something more than + an infrastructure that organizes institutions, markets, states, etc. It + can constitute itself an institution, a textual institution. As the + factory generates commodities and sets them within a circuit of motion, + bureaucracy generates documents and sets them throughout a communicative + circuitry (Cunningham, 2017). An institution that organizes and + (infra)structures other institutions and similarly reproduces itself + through text. The materiality of a text document reflects the ideology + of the interconnected institutions and their underlying bureaucratic + systems. Language occupies a dual contradictory role as the foundational + element of bureaucracy. Language can become a shroud to conceal the + violence and reinforce hierarchical structures and simultaneously can be + transformed into the rigid rational cell itself. They shape their own + narratives, they reflect the institutional narratives.

+ +

the myth of universality

+ +

One of the great powers of bureaucracies is their ability to render + themselves transparent. It seems that bureaucracy does not have to say + anything more beyond itself, is self-referential and self-contained. It + is boring or most likely is supposed to be boring. “One can describe the + ritual surrounding it. One can observe how people talk about or react to + it” (Graeber, 2015). The supposed universality of the form which is + carefully constructed can be partly attributed to the individuality and + impersonality of many bureaucratic processes. “Bureaucracies operate + through an assemblage of hierarchy, impersonality, and procedure in + order to complete organizational tasks with maximum efficiency” (Weber, + as cited by Cunningham, 2017, p. 307).

+ +

I had to open a discussion with students from non-EEA (non European + Economic Area) countries in order to understand that they have to + conduct tuberculosis x-rays“To keep the + Residence Permit, some non-European students need to visit the Dutch + Public Health Authority (GGD) after they arrived in the Netherlands. + They will undergo a medical test for tuberculosis (TB). This is a + requirement from the IND (Dutch Immigration Office)”. (Introduction + days, 2021) when they arrive in the Netherlands. It seems + that for the Dutch state, their bodies might be more threatening than + bodies coming from a European country. The relativization in the quality + and the quantity of paperwork requested from different “groups” of + applicants in a specific context deconstructs the myth of the + universality of the bureaucratic form.

+ +

Undoubtedly the success of bureaucracy is drawn from its efficiency + in relation to schematization as an efficient material quality. “Whether + it’s a matter of forms, rules, statistics, or questionnaires, it is + always a matter of simplification (Cunningham, 2017)”. Bureaucracies + ignore the social existence of a person and fragment, classify and + define them under specific perspectives. Why do they ask for this + information instead of others? “Why place of birth and not, say, place + where you went to grade school? What’s so important about the + signature?” (Graeber, 2015)

+ +

materiality-underlying + violence

+ +

There is a great materiality in bureaucracies. Bureaucratic + procedures are often compared to a labyrinth which appears as a + similarly complex structure constituted by simple geometrical shapes + (Weber, as cited by Cunningham, 2017, p.310). Bureaucratic documents can + be complicated and multiple due to this infinite accumulation of really + simple but at the same time contradictory elements. A constant + juxtaposition of letters, symbols, stamps, signatures, paper, ink, + barcodes, QR codes within a circuit of workers, interweaved and + interconnected offices, repetitive performative tasks and rituals.

+ +

Underneath every bureaucratic document, there is a good amount of + graphic design labor. What kind of visual strategy is embedded in + administrative objects that the design aspect of these artifacts appears + to be invisible? The material decisions applied as well as the material + constraints attributed to the document can transform or produce + different textual meanings and consequently understandings.

+ +
+

“This does not mean that constraints limit meaning, but on the + contrary, constitute it; meaning cannot appear where freedom is absolute + or nonexistent: the stem of meaning is that of a supervised + freedom”
+ (Roland Barthes, 1983)

+
+ +

When I encountered the green logo of the municipality of Rotterdam I + did not cultivate any feelings of enthusiasm or even boredom. A big + calligraphic “R” with the flawless green ribbons that penetrate it on + the left corner of a 229x162 mm standardized dimension folder with a + transparent rectangle that reveals my inscribed name and surname from + the inside part. I did not put any aesthetic critique over this but I + rather felt this rush of stress for the expected response to my + objection letter or a fine or a tax to be paid within a specific + timeline cause another fine would come if I did not comply with + this.

+ +

One month ago (from the writing present), my friend Chae made for my + birthday this amazing Dutch-government-like biscuit forms, recreating + the entire layout of the document using the interface of a crunchy + biscuit. She used the same color blue scheme and she placed the biscuit + form inside the same standardized dimension folder 229x162 mm with the + same transparent layer that reveals my name and surname. According to + literary critic and theorist Katherine Hayles:

+ +
+

“to alter the physical form of the artifacts is to change the act of + reading and understanding but mostly you transform the metaphoric and + symbolic network that structures the relation of world to world. To + change the material artifacts is to transform the context and + circumstances for interacting with the words, which inevitably change + the meaning of the word itself. This transformation of meaning is + especially possible when the words interact with the inscription + technologies that produce them”
+ (Hayles, 2002)

+
+ +

In the latter case, the inscription technology used is the sugar blue + paste and the handwriting of Chae. The text in the white-blue government + document forces a different reading from the white-blue biscuit + document, even if they carry the same bits of information. If I do not + read carefully the text in the folder and if I do not act according to + the suggested actions there is a threat. The level of threat varies in + relation to the case, the identities of the holder, the state, the + context, etc. There is no room for negotiation in bureaucracy and this + is the omnipresent underlying violence. The threat of violence shrouded + within its structures and foundations does not permit any questioning + but on the contrary creates “willful blindness” towards themI am referring to those people subjecting others to + bureaucratic circles shaped by structurally violent situations as well + as people in positions of privilege who deliberately ignore these + facts.. Bureaucracies are not stupid inherently rather they + manage and coerce processes that reproduce docile and stupid + behaviors.

+ +
+
+
+ +
+ +

vocal archives-talking + documents

+ +

This chapter is mainly a constellation of some prototypes I created + while writing and coping with personal bureaucratic challenges. I + provided some further space for my anxiety by unpacking and exploring + the material conditions that nourished it within this timeline.

+ +

An administrative decision on a case may not seem necessarily hurtful + in linguistic terms. However, it can be injurious and severely + threatening. By performing the bureaucratic archival material of my + interactions with the government, I aim to draw a parallel narrative + highlighting the bordering role of bureaucracy and the concealed + underlying violence it perpetuates.

+ +

A bureaucratic text does not just describe a reality, a decision, a + case or an action, but on the contrary, it is capable of changing the + reality or the order of things that is described via these words. + Bureaucratic official documents are inherently performative. These texts + regulate and bring situations into being.

+ +

My intention in transforming bureaucratic texts into “playable” + scenarios is to explore how embodying these texts in public through + collective speechI imagine the theatrical + play as a “human microphone”, a low-tech amplification device. A group + of people performs the bureaucratic scenario in chorus, out loud, in the + corridor of the school’s building, in the main hall, at the square right + across, outside of the municipality building. The term is borrowed from + the protests of the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011. People were + gathered around the speaker repeating what the speaker was saying in + order to ensure that everyone could hear the announcements during large + assemblies. Human bodies became a hack in order to replace the forbidden + technology. In New York it is required to ask for permission from + authorities to use “amplified sound” in public space. can + provoke different forms of interpretations and open tiny conceptual + holes. “The meaning of a performative act is to be found in this + apparent coincidence of signifying and enacting” (Butler, 1997). The + performative bureaucratic utterances - the vocal documents - attempt to + bring into existence -by overidentifying, exaggerating, acting- the + discomfort, the threat, the violence which is mainly condemned into + private individual spheres.

+ +

How performing a collection of small bureaucratic stories can + function as an instant micro intervention and potentially produce a + public discourse. Where do we perform this speech, where and when does + the “theater” take place? Who is the audience? I am particularly + interested in the site-specificity of these “acts”. How can these + re-enactments be situated in an educational context and examine its + structures? Is it possible for this small-scale publics to provoke the + emergence of temporal spaces of marginal vulnerable voicings? According + to the agonistic approach of the political theorist Chantal Mouffe, + critical art is art that provokes dissensus, that makes visible what the + dominant narrative tends to undermine and displace. “It is constituted + by a multiplicity of artistic practices aiming at giving a voice to all + those who are silenced within the framework of the existing hegemony” + (Mouffe, 2008).

+ +

I started working and engaging more with different bureaucratic + material that my peers and I encountered regularly or appeared in our + (e)mail (in)boxes and are partly related to our identities as foreign + students coming from different places. I chose to start touching and + looking for various bureaucracies that surround me as a personal filter + towards it. From identification documents and application forms to + rental contracts, funding applications, visa applications, quality + assurance questionnaires related to the university, assessment criteria, + supermarket point gathering cards, receipts. A sequence of locked doors + to be unlocked more or less easily via multiple bureaucratic keys. The + methods and tools used to scrutinize the administrative artifacts are + not rigid or distinct. It is mainly a “collection” of small bureaucratic + experiments - closely related to language as well as the performative + “nature” of these texts themselves. I was intrigued by how transforming + the material conditions of a piece of text could influence the potential + understandings and perceptions of its meaning.

+ +

prototypes

+ +

1.

+ +

Title: “Quality Assurance Questionnaire + Censoring”
+ When: October 2023
+ Where: XPUB studio wall
+ Who: myself

+ +

Description: Some months ago my classmates and I received an email + with a questionnaire aimed at preparing us for the upcoming quality + assurance meeting within the school. Ada and I had a meeting, in an + empty white room with closed doors, with an external collaborator of the + university. The main request was to rate and answer the pre-formulated + questions covering issues about performance, different and multiple + topics related to the course, the teaching staff, the facilities, the + tools provided. The micro linguistic experiment of highlighting, + censoring and annotating this document aimed for an understanding of + what a quality assurance meeting is within an educational + institution.

+ +

Reflections-Thoughts: This experiment was my first attempt to start + interrogating and observing the language and the structure of a + bureaucratic document. How these “desired” standards propagated through + text. What is the role of the student-client in these processes as an + esoteric gaze of control over the course and their teachers? My focus + was to locate and accumulate all the wording related to measurements, + rate, quantity, assessments, statistics. Highlighting the + disproportionate amount of metrics-related vocabulary was enough to + craft the narrative around this process.

+ +

These ‘rituals’ are components of a larger “culture of evidence”, + serving as a tool that blurs the distinction between discourse and + reality (Cunningham, 2017). This culture of evidence influences how + people perceive and understand information. The primary purposes of + these metrics are twofold: they play a role in the marketing sphere, + attracting potential students to the university as well as they are + utilized in interactions and negotiations with the government, which + increasingly cuts budgets allocated to universities.

+ +
+ The linguistic experiment of the Quality Assurance Questionnaire Document + + +
+ +

2.

+ +

Title: “Department of Bureaucracy and Administration + Customs Enforcement”
+ When: November 2023
+ Where: LeeszaalCommunity + Library in Rotterdam West
+ Who: XPUB peers, tutors, friends, alumni

+ +

Description: During the first public moment at Leeszaal, I decided to + embody and enact the traditional role of a bureaucrat in a graphic and + possibly absurd way performing a small “theatrical play”. I prepared a + 3-page and a 1-page document incorporating bureaucratic-form aesthetics + and requesting applicants’ fake data and their answers for questions + related to educational bureaucracy. People receiving an applicant number + at the entrance of Leeszaal, queuing to collect their documents from the + administration “office”, filling forms, waiting, receiving stamps, + giving fingerprints and signing, waiting again were the main components + of this act.

+ +

Reflections-Thoughts: Beyond the information gathered through my + bureaucratic-like questionnaires, the most crucial element of this + experiment was the understanding and highlighting of the hidden + performative elements that entrench these “rituals”. It was amazing + seeing the audience becoming instantly actors of the play enacting + willingly a administrative ritualistic scene. The provided context of + this “play” was a social library hosting a masters course public event + on graduation projects. I am wondering whether this asymphony between + the repetitive bureaucratic acts within the space of Leeszaal, where + such acts are not expected to be performed, evoked contradictory + feelings or thoughts. Over-identifying with a role was being + instrumentalized as an “interrogation” of one’s own involvement in the + reproduction of social discourses, power, authority, hegemony.

+ +
+ Leeszaal West Rotterdam - November 2023 – People queuingI was thinking of queues as a spatial oppressive tool used often by (bureaucratic) authorities. The naturalized image of bodies-in-a-line waiting for “something” to happen at “some point” under the public gaze in an efficiently defined area. to receive their documents and sign + + +
+ +
+ One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event + +
+ +

3.

+ +

Title: “Passport Reading Session”
+ When: January 2024
+ Where: XML – XPUB studio
+ Who: Ada, Aglaia, Stephen, Joseph

+ +

Description: This prototype is a collective passport reading session. + I asked my classmates to bring their passports or IDs and sitting in a + circular set up we attempted to “scan” our documents. Every contributor + took some time to browse, annotate verbally, interpret, understand, + analyze, vocalize their thoughts on these artifacts, approaching them + from various perspectives. The three passports and one ID card were all + coming from European countries.

+ +

Reflections-Thoughts: For the first time I observed this object so + closely. The documentation medium was a recording device, Ada’s mobile + phone. The recording was transcribed by voskVosk is an offline open-source speech recognition + toolkit. and myself and a small booklet of our passport + readings was created.

+ +
+

“So the object here is like not by random it comes from the history + of nation-states and how nation-states and nationalities created like a + form of identity. So nation-state is actually a recent invention that + came into existence over the last two hundred fifty years in the form as + we know it nowadays, in the form of democratic capitalism, before like + monarchies and so on and each citizen of such a nation-state got also + kind of a particular identity”,
+ Joseph says about his ID card.

+
+ +

We read the embedded signs, symbols, categories, texts, magical + numbers in our passports that construct our profiles. Seeing someone’s + passport, ID cards, visas, travel documents might mean that you are able + to understand how easy or not is for them to move, what are their travel + paths, how departure or arrival is smooth or cruel. Are there emotions + along the way? For some people these are documents “that embody power — + minimal or no waiting, peaceful departure, warm and confident arrival” + (Khosravi, 2021).

+ +

Part of the A6 booklet of the + transcription of the passport readings session

+ +

+ +

4.

+ +

Title: “Postal Address Application Scenario”
+ When: February 2024
+ Where: Room in Wijnhaven Building, 4th floor
+ Who: XPUB 1,2,3, tutors, Leslie


+ +

Description: This scenario is the first part of a series of small + episodes that construct a bureaucratic story unfolding the processes of + my communication with the government. The body of the text of the + “theatrical” script is sourced from the original documents as well as + recordings of the conversation I had with the municipality throughout + this process. I preserved the sequence of the given sentences and by + discarding the graphic design of the initial form, I structured and + repurposed the text into a scenario. The main actors were two + bureaucrats vocalizing the questions addressed in the form, in turns and + sometimes speaking simultaneously like a choir, three applicants + answering the questions similarly while a narrator mainly provided the + audience with the context and the storyline constructing the scenery of + the different scenes.

+ +

The first and the last moment of the performance was during a + semi-public tryout moment where XPUB peers performed the distributed + scenario in a white room on the 4th floor of the Winjhaven building. + They were seated having as a border a black long-table. A border + furniture between the bureaucrats and the applicants. The narrator was + standing still behind them while they were surrounded by the audience. + The main documentation media of the act were a camera on a tripod, a + recorder in the middle of the table and myself reconstructing the memory + of the re-enactement at that present - 6 days later.


+ +

Reflections-Thoughts: Vocalizing and embodying the bureaucratic + questions was quite useful in acknowledging the government’s voice and + presence as something tangible rather than a floating, arbitrary entity. + It was interesting observing the bureaucrats performing their role with + confidence and entitlement, contrasting with the applicants who appeared + to be more stressed to respond convincingly and promptly. There is a + notable distinction between performativity and performance. Performing + consciously and theatrically amplifying real bureaucratic texts by + occupying roles and overidentifying with them can constitute a + diffractive moment, a tool itself. From bureaucratic text to + performative text scenarios to speech. The embedded (but rather + unconscious) performativity of “real” bureaucratic rituals establishes + and empowers (bureaucratic) institutions through repetitive acts. These + theatrical moments attempt to highlight the shrouded performative + elements of these processes.

+ +

A6 booklet of the first chapter of the + “theatrical” scenario created out of the Postal Address Application + documents and performed by XPUB peers

+ +

conclusion

+ +

next + chapters of the case with reference number A.B.2024.4.03188

+ +

I expanded the “play” by incorporating additional “scenes” sourced + again from the documents accompanying the ongoing “conversation with the + government”. Two weeks after submitting my application for a short-term + postal address [16/02/2024], I received a letter from the municipality + stating their rejection of my request and warning me of potential fines + if I fail to declare a valid address and provide a rental contract. + After extensive communication with the municipality, I decided to + respond to this decision by writing and sending an objection letter + [19/02/2024]. The objections committee received my letter [21/02/2024], + and after some days, they issued a confirmation letter outlining the + following steps of the objection process which involves hearings with + municipality lawyers and further investigation of my case. The textual + components collaged for the next “episodes” are sourced from the + transcribed recordings of my actual conversations with the municipality + clerks, my objection letter, the confirmation documents including the + steps I am required to take.

+ +

My case has finished by this time. I withdrew my objection + [7/03/2024] and I de-registered [11/03/2024] after a good amount of + stress and precarity. My bureaucratic literature is meant to be read and + voiced collectively. People’s bureaucratic literatures should be read + and voiced collectively.

+ +

My intention is to facilitate a series of collective performative + readings of bureaucratic scenarios or other portable paperwork stories + as a way of publishing and inspecting bureaucratic bordering + infrastructures. The marginal voices of potential applicants are + embodying and performing a role. “The speech does not only describe but + brings things into existence” (Austin, 1975). I would like to stretch + the limits of dramaturgical speech through vocalizing a document in + public with others and turn an individual administrative case into a + public one. How do the inscribed words in the documents are not + descriptive but on the contrary “are instrumentalized in getting things + done” (Butler, 1997). Words as active agents. I am inviting past and + future applicants, traumatized students, injured bearers, bureaucratic + border crossers, stressed expired document holders or just curious + people to share, vocalize, talk through, read out loud, amplify, + (un)name, unplace, dismantle the injurious words of these artifacts.

+ +

+ +

“we didn’t + cross the border, the border crossed us”(20)

+

As I sit in the waiting area at the gate B7 in the airport preparing + to come back to the Netherlands, I am writing the last lines of this + text. I am thinking of all these borders and gates that my body was able + to pass through smoothly, carrying my magical object through which I + embody power- at least within this context. However, I yearn for a + reality where we stop looking at those bodies that cross the + multifaceted borders and get crossed and entrenched by them, but on the + contrary we start interrogating and shouting at the contexts and the + frameworks that construct them and render them invisible, natural and + powerful.

+ +

references

+ +

Agamben, G. (2000) Means without end: Notes on politics. Minneapolis, + MN: University of Minnesota Press.

+ +

Anzaldua, G. (1987) Borderlands - la Frontera: The new mestiza. 2nd + ed. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.

+ +

Austin, J. L. (1975) “lECTURE VII”, in How to do things with words. + Oxford University Press, pp.83-93.

+ +

Barthes, R. (1983) Fashion system. Translated by M. Ward and R. + Howard. Hill & Wang.

+ +

Border controls (2017) Defensie.nl. Available at: + https://english.defensie.nl/topics/border-controls

+ +

Borelli, C., Poy, A., and Rué, A. (2023). “Governing Asylum without + ‘Being There’: Ghost Bureaucracy, Outsourcing, and the Unreachability of + the State.” Social Sciences, 12(3), 169. [DOI: + https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12030169]

+ +

Butler, J. (1997) Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. + London, England: Routledge.

+ +

Cretton, V., Geoffrion, K. (2021). “Bureaucratic Routes to Migration: + Migrants’ Lived Experience of Paperwork, Clerks and Other Immigration + Intermediaries”, University of Victoria

+ +

Cunningham, J. (2017), “Rhetorical Tension in Bureaucratic + University”, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

+ +

Graeber, D. (2015) The utopia of rules: On technology, stupidity, and + the secret joys of bureaucracy. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House + Publishing

+ +

Hayles, N. K. (2002) Writing Machines. London, England: MIT + Press.

+ +

Introduction days (2021) Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. + Available at: + https://www.rotterdamuas.com/study-information/practical-information/international-introduction-days/Tuberculosis-test/ + (Accessed: April 8, 2024).

+ +

Keshavarz, M. (2016) Design-Politics: An Inquiry into Passports, + Camps and Borders. Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society.

+ +

Khosravi, S. (2010) “illegal” traveller: An auto-ethnography of + borders. 2010th ed. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

+ +

Khosravi, S. (ed.) (2021) Waiting - A Project in Conversation. + transcript Verlag.

+ +

M’charek, A. (2020) “Harraga: Burning borders, navigating + colonialism,” The sociological review, 68(2), pp. 418–434. doi: + 10.1177/0038026120905491.

+ +

Malichudis, S. (2020) How the Aegean islands became a warehouse of + souls, Solomon. Available at: + https://wearesolomon.com/mag/focus-area/migration/how-the-aegean-islands-became-a-warehouse-of-souls/ + (Accessed: April 7, 2024).

+ +

McKittrick, K. (2021) Dear science and other stories. Durham, NC: + Duke University Press.

+ +

Mouffe, C. (2008) ‘Art and Democracy: Art as an Agonistic + Internvention’. Open:14 Art as a Public Issue, No.14 (2008), p.4

+ +

Pater, R. (2021) Caps lock: How capitalism took hold of graphic + design, and how to escape from it. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Valiz.

+ +

Picozza, F. (2021). The coloniality of asylum : mobility, autonomy + and solidarity in the wake of Europe’s refugee crisis. London: Rowman + & Littlefield Publishers.

+ +
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