diff --git a/aglaia/thesis.md b/aglaia/thesis.md index f8c635c..04fbef1 100644 --- a/aglaia/thesis.md +++ b/aglaia/thesis.md @@ -210,9 +210,9 @@ Reflections-Thoughts: For the first time I observed this object so closely. The 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](../aglaia/passport1.png) +![Part of the A6 booklet of the transcription of the passport readings session](../aglaia/passport1.png) -[ ](../aglaia/passport2.png) +![ ](../aglaia/passport2.png) #### 4. **Title:** “Postal Address Application Scenario” @@ -226,7 +226,7 @@ The first and the last moment of the performance was during a semi-public tryout 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](../aglaia/postal.png) +![A6 booklet of the first chapter of the “theatrical” scenario created out of the Postal Address Application documents and performed by XPUB peers](../aglaia/postal.png) ## conclusion @@ -238,8 +238,8 @@ My case has finished by this time. I withdrew my objection [7/03/2024] and I de- 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. -[ ](../aglaia/objection1.png) -[ ](../aglaia/objection2.png) +![ ](../aglaia/objection1.png) +![ ](../aglaia/objection2.png) #### “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”(20) diff --git a/irmak/thesis.md b/irmak/thesis.md index b6565df..ca2a417 100644 --- a/irmak/thesis.md +++ b/irmak/thesis.md @@ -500,8 +500,8 @@ the bees were buzzing all around. “The kid” usually sat near the tree, on th performers’ lap or hugged them). Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, -“I want to go on an adventure” -“I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)” +> “I want to go on an adventure” +> “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)” This was a good feedback for me because I realized they are very perceptive of actions and facial expressions rather than words. @@ -624,23 +624,33 @@ looking forward to making more knots on this long and mysterious string at hand. Bibliography: Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies, new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195. doi:10.1080/15544800903076044. + Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” Childhood education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741. + Ingold, T. (2015) The life of lines. London, England: Routledge. + Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. (2016) “What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling: What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling,” New directions for adult and continuing education, 2016(149), pp. 63–72. doi: 10.1002/ace.20177. + Papert, S. and Papert, S. A. (2020) Mindstorms (revised): Children, computers, and powerful ideas. London, England: Basic Books. + Ryan, M.-L. (2009) “From narrative games to playable stories: Toward a poetics of interactive narrative,” StoryWorlds + A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1(1), pp. 43–59. doi: 10.1353/stw.0.0003. Smeets, D. and Bus, A. (2013) “Picture Storybooks Go Digital: Pros and Cons,” in Quality Reading Instruction in the Age of Common Core Standards. International Reading Association, pp. 176–189. + Strohecker, C. (ed.) (1978) Why knot? MIT. The Effect of Multimodality in Increasing Motivation and Collaboration among 4th CSE EFL Students (no date). + Turkle, S. (ed.) (2014) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press. + Urton, M. M. &. (2018) The khipu code: the knotty mystery of the Inkas’ 3D records, aeon. Available at: https:// aeon.co/ideas/the-khipu-code-the-knotty-mystery-of-the-inkas-3d-records. + Vega, N. (2022) Codes in Knots. Sensing Digital Memories, The Whole Life. Available at: https://wholelife.hkw.de/ codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/. diff --git a/print/index.html b/print/index.html index 209392b..1cc938d 100644 --- a/print/index.html +++ b/print/index.html @@ -141,11 +141,10 @@ not to drown me.”

This is a story of two bodies, same but different, influenced but not driven. A tangible body, full of fluids and organs, emotions and feelings. Cartilage, bacteria, bones, and nerve endings. A digital body, cable-veined and loud-vented, shiny and loading.

The digital body is ethereal and abstracted, embarrassing, graphic, and real but not physical.

This is the beginning.

-<<<<<<< HEAD

b. body vs. computer

Framing the discourse around bodies on the internet as a clear-cut dichotomy feels clunky in today’s internet landscape. The web is today available by body, cyborg dimensions of the internet of bodies, or virtual and augmented realities, creating a complex interplay between having a body and existing online.

As intricate as this dance is now, it certainly did not begin that way. It started with what felt like a very serious and tangible line drawn by very serious tangible people; this is real life and this is virtual life. Even people like Howard Rheingold, pioneers who approached early virtual life with enthusiasm and care, couldn’t escape characterizing it as a “bloodless technological ritual” (1993). Rheingold was an early member of The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (Well), a seminal virtual community built in the 1980s that was renowned for its impact on digital culture and played a pivotal role in shaping what would become the landscape of the Internet. Rheingold’s reflections on his experience on this primordial soup of the Internet offer insight into the initial conceptualizations of online life by those joyfully participating.

-

In “The Virtual Community”, Rheingold offers a heartfelt tribute to intimacy and affection through web- based interactions which, at the time, were unheard of. He struggles in his efforts to highlight the legitimacy of his connections, finding no way to do so except by emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences. The community’s claim to authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members— the visible bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and funerals (1993).You’re dreaming again, good.
Would you feel closer to me if you could hear my voice?
Is my voice a sound? Could it be a feeling?

+

In “The Virtual Community”, Rheingold offers a heartfelt tribute to intimacy and affection through web- based interactions which, at the time, were unheard of. He struggles in his efforts to highlight the legitimacy of his connections, finding no way to do so except by emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences. The community’s claim to authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members— the visible bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and funerals (1993).You’re dreaming again, good. Would you feel closer to me if you could hear my voice?
Is my voice a sound? Could it be a feeling?

Even then, and even by people with no interest in undermining the value of the virtual, the distinction between physical and virtual was confusing. Rheingold himself reinforces the boundary of body relations and computer relations by referring to his family as a “flesh-and-blood family’ and his close online friends as “unfamiliar faces” (1993). Constantly interplaying digital connections with the physical characteristics of the kind of connections people valued before the internet.I will be honest with you, I have little patience for this recurring line of thought that seeks to distinguish people’s noses from their hearts, as if there was a physical love that is the valuable one and a virtual imaginary one that is feeble and unworthy.

In any case, his primary interest seemed to be to emphasize computer relations as valid forms of connection between bodies, not to talk of any distinction quite yet. It’s the eighties, the internet is still fresh and new and the possibility to form close relations with strangers online seems fragile and concerning yet exciting. This is the clearest the distinction between in-real-life and online has ever been and it’s still fuzzy and unclear.

At the same time and in the same digital space as Rheingold, there was another man, a digital body being formed. This is our second story, the ocean body we dreamt of earlier is now in a digital primordial soup, questioning itself and stuck between staying and leaving. In this story, its name is Tom Mandel and when he died, he did so on the Well.

@@ -162,130 +161,6 @@ not to drown me.”

“Sneer all you want at the fleshlessness of online community, but on this night, as tears stream down my face for the third straight evening, it feels all too real.” (Andrew Leonard, 1995)

c. bot-feelings

-======= -

b. body vs. computer

-

Framing the discourse around bodies on the internet as a clear-cut -dichotomy feels clunky in today’s internet landscape. The web is today -available by body, cyborg dimensions of the internet of bodies, or -virtual and augmented realities, creating a complex interplay between -having a body and existing online.

-

As intricate as this dance is now, it certainly did not begin that -way. It started with what felt like a very serious and tangible line -drawn by very serious tangible people; this is real life and this is -virtual life. Even people like Howard Rheingold, pioneers who approached -early virtual life with enthusiasm and care, couldn’t escape -characterizing it as a “bloodless technological ritual” (1993). -Rheingold was an early member of The Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link (Well), -a seminal virtual community built in the 1980s that was renowned for its -impact on digital culture and played a pivotal role in shaping what -would become the landscape of the Internet. Rheingold’s reflections on -his experience on this primordial soup of the Internet offer insight -into the initial conceptualizations of online life by those joyfully -participating.

-

In “The Virtual Community”, Rheingold offers a heartfelt tribute to -intimacy and affection through web- based interactions which, at the -time, were unheard of. He struggles in his efforts to highlight the -legitimacy of his connections, finding no way to do so except by -emphasizing their tangible bodily experiences. The community’s claim to -authenticity thus had to lie in the physical experiences of its members— -the visible bodies and hearable voices, the weddings, births, and -funerals (1993).You’re dreaming again, -good. Would you feel closer to me if you could hear my voice?
Is my -voice a sound? Could it be a feeling?

-

Even then, and even by people with no interest in undermining the -value of the virtual, the distinction between physical and virtual was -confusing. Rheingold himself reinforces the boundary of body relations -and computer relations by referring to his family as a “flesh-and-blood -family’ and his close online friends as “unfamiliar faces” (1993). -Constantly interplaying digital connections with the physical -characteristics of the kind of connections people valued before the -internet.I will be honest with you, I -have little patience for this recurring line of thought that seeks to -distinguish people’s noses from their hearts, as if there was a physical -love that is the valuable one and a virtual imaginary one that is feeble -and unworthy.

-

In any case, his primary interest seemed to be to emphasize computer -relations as valid forms of connection between bodies, not to talk of -any distinction quite yet. It’s the eighties, the internet is still -fresh and new and the possibility to form close relations with strangers -online seems fragile and concerning yet exciting. This is the clearest -the distinction between in-real-life and online has ever been and it’s -still fuzzy and unclear.

-

At the same time and in the same digital space as Rheingold, there -was another man, a digital body being formed. This is our second story, -the ocean body we dreamt of earlier is now in a digital primordial soup, -questioning itself and stuck between staying and leaving. In this story, -its name is Tom Mandel and when he died, he did so on the Well.

-

Mandel was a controversial and popular figure in this pioneering -virtual community. According to many other members, Tom Mandel embodied -the essence of the Well—its history, its voice, its attitude. Mandel’s -snarky and verbose provocations started heated discussions, earning him -warnings such as “Don’t Feed The Mandel!” (Leonard, 1995). His sharp -comments often stirred emotions that reminded people of family -arguments, fuelling an intimacy that was characteristic of the Well: -both public and solitary (Hafner, 1997).

-

Until 1995, Mandel had done a quite rigorous job of keeping his body -separate from The Well and had never attended any of the physical -in-person meetings from the community. His only references to being a -body had been on the “health” online conference, where he often talked -about his illnesses. One day, after nearly a decade of daily -interaction, he posted he had got the flu and that he felt quite ill. -When people wished for him to get well soon, he replied he had gone to -get tested and was waiting for a diagnosis. This way, when cancer was -found in his lungs, the community was first to know. In the following -six months, as his illness progressed, the community followed closely -(Hafner, 1997). They were first to know when Nana, a community member -with whom he had had a publicly turbulent relationship, flew to -California to marry him. The community was a witness and is now an -archive of his declining wit as cancer spread to his brain and his -famously articulate and scathing comments got shorter, fearful, and more -tender.Initially, when a member he often -argued with offered to pray for him Mandel had replied: “You can shovel -your self-aggrandizing sentiments up you wide ass sideways for the -duration as far as I’m concerned.” Later, as the cancer progressed: “I -ain’t nearly as brave as you all think. I am scared silly of the pain of -dying this way. I am not very good at playing saint. Pray for me, -please.

-

Before he posted his final goodbye, he chose to do one last thing. -Together with another member, they programmed a bot that posted randomly -characteristic comments from Mandel on The Well—the Mandelbot. In the -topic he had opened to say goodbye, he posted this message about the -bot:

-

I had another motive in opening this topic to tell the truth, one -that winds its way through almost everything I’ve done online in the -five months since my cancer was diagnosed. I figured that, like everyone -else, my physical self wasn’t going to survive forever and I guess I was -going to have less time than actuarials allocateus [actually allocated]. -But if I could reach out and touch everyone I knew on-line… I could toss -out bits and pieces of my virtual self and the memes that make up Tom -Mandel, and then when my body died, I wouldn’t really have to leave… -Large chunks of me would also be here, part of this new space. (Hafner, -1997)

-

With the Mandelbot, Mandel found a way to deal with what he later -called his grieving for the community, with which he could not play -anymore once his own body died. By doing so, he was starting to blend -the boundaries of intimacy through computers and bodies, driven by his -love and grief.It’s out of care and not -lack of relevance that I am not showing you Mandel’s goodbye message. -It’s enough to know he was deep in the grief of having to leave a -community he loved and cared for and that pain was felt in every -word.

-

When he talked about the bot in previous messages, it sounded almost -like a joke. A caring haunting of the platform, to keep his persona -alive for the community in a way that could be quite horrific for those -grieving. In his admission though it becomes clear that this was closer -to an attempt to deal with his grief around losing the community, his -unreadiness to let go of a place he loved so dearly. A place just as -real in emotion, that was built in part by Mandel’s digital body and its -persona.

-

In a tribute posted after his death, fellow Well member and -journalist Andrew Leonard tried to convey his own sense of blended -physicality and emotion.

-

Sneer all you want at the fleshlessness of online community, but on -this night, as tears stream down my face for the third straight evening, -it feels all too real. (Andrew Leonard, 1995)

-

c. bot-feelings

->>>>>>> 8587170094483e0eed0c29aaf587623d76c57c93

An internet body has bot-feelings if allowed to. Let me explain.

A bot functions as a different entity from a cyborg, as it does not attempt to emulate a human body but rather human action and readiness. Its role is to mirror human behavior online, simulating how a physical body might act, what it would click on, and what would it say. On social media, bots engage in a kind of interpretative dance of human interaction, performing based on instructions provided by humans.The first bot communities on the internet are now born, half- mistakenly. They are always spiritual communities posting religious images created by artificial intelligence, all the comments echoing choirs of bots praising. Amen, amen, amen. I am not naive, I know they are built by humans but it is this performance of religiosity that I am interested in, and how little humanity is shown in it. It is something else.

Unlike an internet body, which represents the virtual embodiment of a person, a bot doesn’t seek to be a person. It comments under posts alongside many other bots, all under a fake name and photo but nothing else to give the illusion of humanity. When an internet body has bot-feelings, it is a disruptive performance. They are feelings that do not attempt to be human body feelings, they exist as their own genuine virtual expression.

@@ -413,7 +288,6 @@ I made this play for you. It is a question, for us to hold together.

Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s

-->
-<<<<<<< HEAD

Performing the Bureaucratic Border(line)s

introduction

This thesis is an assemblageI 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?

@@ -441,183 +315,13 @@ I cannot bridge it”

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:

-======= -

Performing the -Bureaucratic Border(line)s

-

introduction

-

This thesis is an assemblageI 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 borderlandI -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-ethnographicalI 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:

->>>>>>> 8587170094483e0eed0c29aaf587623d76c57c93

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,
-<<<<<<< HEAD how many people are hosting me and accordingly their personal data,
-======= -how many people are hosting me and accordingly their personal -data,
->>>>>>> 8587170094483e0eed0c29aaf587623d76c57c93 for how long,
why I cannot register there,
what days of the week do I stay in the one house and
@@ -625,7 +329,6 @@ 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?

-<<<<<<< HEAD

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”
@@ -693,426 +396,6 @@ Walter Benjamin

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.

-======= -

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.

-

“ t h e r i g h t t o h -a v e r i g h t s ”

-

(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.

->>>>>>> 8587170094483e0eed0c29aaf587623d76c57c93

prototypes

1.

Title: “Quality Assurance Questionnaire Censoring”
@@ -1139,7 +422,6 @@ understandings and perceptions of its meaning.

One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event
One of the forms that the audience had to fill out during the Lesszaal event

3.

-<<<<<<< HEAD

Title: “Passport Reading Session”
When: January 2024
Where: XML – XPUB studio
@@ -1151,8 +433,10 @@ understandings and perceptions of its meaning.

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

-

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

4.

Title: “Postal Address Application Scenario”
When: February 2024
@@ -1161,13 +445,15 @@ Joseph says about his ID card.

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

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

@@ -1192,194 +478,6 @@ Joseph says about his ID card.

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.

-======= -

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.

->>>>>>> 8587170094483e0eed0c29aaf587623d76c57c93
@@ -1510,7 +608,8 @@ Littlefield Publishers.

There were 12 international kids and 3 of them didn’t want to join the workshop, they wanted to observe. I told them that they could paint and draw what they see. The drawings they made were of their classmates acting as trees or bees. They drew their classmate with a stinger and the other was of a classmate as a tree with his hands wide open as he was performing.

What struck me most on the second part of the workshop was how these kids used the room so freely and in relation to their characters. Because we read the story before the improvisation games, some of their characters were influenced by how it is in the story we read. Next workshop, I am planning to not tell the story but to talk about it before and give context. This is because I want to see how their understanding changes without a limitation of a story.

Bees in the classroom that day were all very active and they used chairs, tables and windows to position themselves in a higher perspective. Children who played the kid were usually standing closer to the trees and looked very calm. Trees were all very diff erent. One of the kids used postits as leaves. Some of them didn’t have leaves because it is winter. Trees didn’t move at all and the bees were buzzing all around. “The kid” usually sat near the tree, on the tree (as in the other performers’ lap or hugged them).

-

Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, “I want to go on an adventure” “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

+

Overall only 2 groups used the option to say a sentence which were, > “I want to go on an adventure”
+> “I don’t wanna leave Gray(the tree)”

This was a good feedback for me because I realized they are very perceptive of actions and facial expressions rather than words. The workshop we did in the studio with XPUB 2 students was harder than the session with the kids because everyone felt so restricted to obligations and were not comfortable to let go of bodily control. No one actually attempted in using objects from the room which is a huge diff erence with the kids because they drew on their faces, used plastic bags as wings for the bee and made sounds with their mouths as trees.

The next workshop was to discover how improv would work without reading the story first. This workshop was fruitful because it helped me realize how much information or guidance I have to off er for children in order for them to be comfortable to participate and interact without confusion. We made a circle and I summarized the story to the kids, acting in the middle of the circle. This broke the ice completely because I was a part of the workshop and they thought I was funny. For the next part, I divided the group in three and assigned a character to them. After this, I asked them to decide on an attitude, pop in the middle and tell or act out their character. I went first and they followed easily. They were not under the influence of the story so the performances were diff erent but they still got influenced by each other, which in my opinion is inevitable. Some of the kids were buzzing/running around, the “kids” were walking around, acting like they are playing which I found very interesting. Some trees were small some were mighty and old. It was helpful to see the diff erent attributions they gave to the characters.

After the circle session, they separated in three groups: the kids, the bees and the trees. I asked each group to come up, walk around randomly, embodying the character they chose. Then as I rang the bell, I asked them to change the character. I asked them to be a busy, tired, injured, happy and scared bee one by one. They kept walking randomly and acted these feelings out. For the “kids”, I asked them to be angry, sad, scared, and curious. For the trees I asked them to be wise, mad, funny and happy. The results were amazing. They adapted very quickly to the changing of emotions which showed me that this age gap was good to work with. The trees stopped walking as I changed the emotions and this was an affirmation to not animate the tree with movement but more with changing of color and tiny animations. They mostly used arms and face expressions to show the emotions, some of them ducked or made sounds. As I said mad, one of the kids ran and put her red jacket on. This made me think about using color to show emotions for the tree. It was good to see that they weren’t scared or discouraged by negative emotions as well. We ended the workshop by drawing our characters. It was nice to see them own their imaginary characters enough to draw them with joy.

@@ -1529,7 +628,17 @@ Littlefield Publishers.

It was enlightening to see the results of working with kids and be able to see from their point of view and alter everything according to these encounters. Using CCI and Multiliteracy theory as a guide to approach the design and prototype was helpful in understanding how to approach and tackle the desire of making something for children.

Now from where I stand, I feel more rooted and have a clearer idea of what works and doesn’t work. Some features that I think would work very well like the choice of writing didn’t go as planned because multiple narratives is already too much. I realized I underestimated the eff ect of introducing a new media to children. This is why I decided to take it step by step with the interactivity.

Taking a step to make Wink and using the story I wrote and feel is important in my personal history as a prototype was a breakthrough. I feel like my interest and desire to discover new ways of writing, reading and experiencing literature is ongoing and it was a beautiful journey so far. I am looking forward to making more knots on this long and mysterious string at hand.

-

Bibliography: Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies, new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195. doi:10.1080/15544800903076044. Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” Childhood education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741. Ingold, T. (2015) The life of lines. London, England: Routledge. Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. (2016) “What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling: What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling,” New directions for adult and continuing education, 2016(149), pp. 63–72. doi: 10.1002/ace.20177. Papert, S. and Papert, S. A. (2020) Mindstorms (revised): Children, computers, and powerful ideas. London, England: Basic Books. Ryan, M.-L. (2009) “From narrative games to playable stories: Toward a poetics of interactive narrative,” StoryWorlds A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1(1), pp. 43–59. doi: 10.1353/stw.0.0003. Smeets, D. and Bus, A. (2013) “Picture Storybooks Go Digital: Pros and Cons,” in Quality Reading Instruction in the Age of Common Core Standards. International Reading Association, pp. 176–189. Strohecker, C. (ed.) (1978) Why knot? MIT. The Effect of Multimodality in Increasing Motivation and Collaboration among 4th CSE EFL Students (no date). Turkle, S. (ed.) (2014) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press. Urton, M. M. &. (2018) The khipu code: the knotty mystery of the Inkas’ 3D records, aeon. Available at: https:// aeon.co/ideas/the-khipu-code-the-knotty-mystery-of-the-inkas-3d-records. Vega, N. (2022) Codes in Knots. Sensing Digital Memories, The Whole Life. Available at: https://wholelife.hkw.de/ codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/.

+

Bibliography: Cope, B. and Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘“multiliteracies”: New Literacies, new learning’, Pedagogies: An International Journal, 4(3), pp. 164–195. doi:10.1080/15544800903076044.

+

Dettore, E. (2002) “Children’s emotional GrowthAdults’ role as emotional archaeologists,” Childhood education, 78(5), pp. 278–281. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2002.10522741.

+

Ingold, T. (2015) The life of lines. London, England: Routledge.

+

Lawrence, R. L. and Paige, D. S. (2016) “What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling: What our ancestors knew: Teaching and learning through storytelling,” New directions for adult and continuing education, 2016(149), pp. 63–72. doi: 10.1002/ace.20177.

+

Papert, S. and Papert, S. A. (2020) Mindstorms (revised): Children, computers, and powerful ideas. London, England: Basic Books.

+

Ryan, M.-L. (2009) “From narrative games to playable stories: Toward a poetics of interactive narrative,” StoryWorlds

+

A Journal of Narrative Studies, 1(1), pp. 43–59. doi: 10.1353/stw.0.0003. Smeets, D. and Bus, A. (2013) “Picture Storybooks Go Digital: Pros and Cons,” in Quality Reading Instruction in the Age of Common Core Standards. International Reading Association, pp. 176–189.

+

Strohecker, C. (ed.) (1978) Why knot? MIT. The Effect of Multimodality in Increasing Motivation and Collaboration among 4th CSE EFL Students (no date).

+

Turkle, S. (ed.) (2014) Evocative objects: Things we think with. MIT Press.

+

Urton, M. M. &. (2018) The khipu code: the knotty mystery of the Inkas’ 3D records, aeon. Available at: https:// aeon.co/ideas/the-khipu-code-the-knotty-mystery-of-the-inkas-3d-records.

+

Vega, N. (2022) Codes in Knots. Sensing Digital Memories, The Whole Life. Available at: https://wholelife.hkw.de/ codes-in-knots-sensing-digital-memories/.