« WACO Reenactment | Main | NETROPOLIS »

September 15, 2004

Elastic Test

birthcertangl.gif

eliminate undesirable foreigners

Immigration authorities around the world need our help!! Use this website to contribute your ideas or proposals for an elastic test that can be devised to eliminate undesirable foreigners.

Immigration Statutes around the world are generally written using vague or abstract notions such as good moral character. It is the messy job of the courts to make such abstractions concrete, to objectively test and measure the moral character of a foreigner, and to eliminate arbitrary or contingent factors from the immigrations process. Join us in doing our part. We will invent, develop and implement numerous elastic tests, which can help the authorities contain and eliminate undesirable foreign bodies. Some of these tests will then be executed on our foreign test subject in a series of live and webcast performances.

Robert Lawrence (UNIMAS, Sarawak, Malaysia and USF, Tampa, Florida) wrote to us about this project on July 22, 2004. He said:

This project from the beginning has had an open door for participation through the web, but currently we are looking for ways to decentralize the project in more significant ways. Some issues related to this on which we are cogitating:

1. Given that our interventions require location-specific collaborations, how can the role of trans-local media, networks or distribution channels be re-imagined?

2. How can the project become less centralized? What are some models of de-centered cooperation we can try to implement – what is the advantage of a distributed network of creators in this case?

3. How might considerations of distribution and re-usability expand the current scope of the work?

4. One of the important aspects of the work is initiating and facilitating new relationships between local communities and structures – is this sustainable?

As we continue to evolve this project and develop ways to ‘turn it loose’ we are very interested in engaging in dialogue, theoretical and practical collaborations, and discovering and developing new models for distance collaboration.

Another of Lawrence's projects Un Message, Evidemment was blogged here.

Lawrence had this to say about it:

"The ‘story’ will be told entirely in the recorded messages that the foreground characters are listening to on their cell phones. These stories will be selected, synthesized and/or adapted from the contributions at this website and other venues. These stories will be gathered in several ways. Whenever the film in progress is shown at festivals, workshops or any other venue people will be asked to contribute storys by phone, sms, email. Participants will be encouraged to engage the performance on any number of levels.

We are also seeking opportunities to workshop the film doing shooting or writing. The “completed” film provides another dimension of the viewer/performer dynamic. At every stage of production, post-production, and presentation the ‘final form’ of the film will be negotiable. It will be shown in a user interactive form on the web, and in ‘concrete,’ though varying, versions in festivals and the usual film art venues – It may not ever appear in the same form twice."

Posted by jo at September 15, 2004 08:46 AM

Comments