CONTAINED MOBILITY

’Contained Mobility’ concentrates on the suspended time-space of translocal existences, and the politics of mobility and containment. The video project looks at the situation currently emerging from the changes to, and prompted by, the regulation of movement across Europe’s borders. The focus is on the sophisticated methods and technologies which have been developed on both sides: on the part of the authorities, restricting the movement of goods and people; and on the part of the migrants, outwitting the restrictions and achieving mobility and security. The contradictory terms of containment and mobility shape the paradox we are currently facing. We observe that the already-stringent measures devised for the Schengen area are being further reinforced in the post-9/11 era. For many migrants, it has become virtually impossible to enter the European space in a straightforward way. Only the most resourceful and inventive stand a chance of overcoming the imposed barriers. Even though many of them would rather choose other routes, they are forced to recognise that seeking asylum is the only available channel for entering the UK. In theory, the European countries maintain that access to asylum is a human right, included in the Geneva Convention which remains one of the basic conventions of a humanist state. De facto, however, they implement legal and practical measures that make it virtually impossible to access this right. A post-human and post-humanist state stigmatises cross-border mobility under these conditions. Rather than classifying people by their status, ’Contained Mobility’ attempts to grasp this transformative moment, understand the qualities that characterise the emerging subject and bring it to the surface. Displaying two video streams in parallel, ’Contained Mobility’ addresses both of these strategies and suggests their correlation. The shipping container becomes a symbol for these contradictory terms as it denotes a quality of confinement and enclosure while implying, at the same time, a systematized worldwide mobility. ’Contained Mobility’ is a mise-en-scène of a self-defined migratory effort which speaks of this suspended, translocal, highly informed and technologised subject which can be discerned. Ursula Biemann Commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial 2004" (Source: https://www.geobodies.org)