On the night of 17 September 2005, an event took place in Naushki - at the Russian-Mongolian border:
"...the train stops at Naushki, the Russian border guards enter and collect the passengers' passports and other documents handed out earlier by the conductors, then the passengers alight to buy products from the locals near the platform (kebabs, dried noodles, vodka bottled from a flask concealed in a tent). At a certain point, the conductors give the signal to reboard. The Russian guards re-enter the train to return the passports, search cavities for human bodies, and harass the Mongolian traders transporting products like urine bags and dialysis tubes. And then the train makes its way into Mongolia , crossing the imagined line sometime during an indistinct half an hour. Then there is another delay. But this time there is no alighting. The Mongolian border guards enter, marked immediately by a different aesthetic order. In place of the dull uniforms and overalls of the Russian officials are patent leather boots, made-up faces, and stern expressions. The border crosser is told to stand while the face is surveyed. There can be little doubt here of the contiguity between the affective pull of colonialism's tropes of servitude, the always sexualized dynamic of power, and the state's governance of human mobility". (Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter, '
Action without Reaction: A Mongolian Border Intervention')
Then an intervention, an experiment, an organization - an event took place: the performance ‘border action-with(/out)-reaction'. See 9 videos that captured the event:
All videos by Helen Grace; under Creative Commons licence. To see these videos, you will need the free Quicktime software.
The border action was conceived by Bernardo Giorgi in conversation with Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter. Thanks to Helen Grace for some incisive input to the text. Thanks also to those who made the patterns and, in particular, Carlos Fernández, who added a sonic dimension to the border zone.
the authors and artists:
Brett Neilson is senior lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Sydney , where he is also a member of the Centre for Cultural Research. Ned Rossiter is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster and an adjuct research fellow at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney . He is also co-facilitator of Fibreculture, a network of critical Internet research and culture, www.fibreculture.org .
E-mail: b.neilson@uws.edu.au / n.rossiter@ulster.ac.uk
Bernardo Giorgi plans and realises relational work. His work investigates the boundary between author and user and the limit that divides art and life. It attempts to circumscribe a common area where artists and anyone else can connect through mental and material exploration of places, territories and different cultures. Bernardo's research is therefore focused on borders and identities, using journeys and the mapping of territories as instruments of investigation. www.borders.de Major exhibition: 2003 Biennale di Venezia. in the [ve]01: border counter, Utopia Station; Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella // 2002 Adriano Olivetti Foundation, Roma; Kunst Haus Dresden; Italian Cultural Institute, Prague // 2001 Palazzo delle Papesse Contemporary Art Center , Siena // 2000 Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle , Warsaw // 1999 Küntlerhaus Bethanien , Berlin.
E-mail: bernardo.giorgi@libero.it
Helen Grace is Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, University of Technology , Sydney and Visiting Fellow in the College of Fine Arts , University of New South Wales . She edited Aesthesia & the Economy of the Senses (1996), co-edited Planet Diana: Cultural Studies & Global Mourning (1997) & in 2000 compiled the CD-ROM Before Utopia: A Non-Official Pre-history of the Present .
E-mail: Helen.Grace@uts.edu.au
Photos on this page by Bernardo Giorgi and Bodó Balázs (Creative Commons licence applies).
Back to the contents page of ephemera 5(X) |
