veral times to verify their validity. The image shown during the video is a female body with phrases, both in Spanish and English, to show the struggle between these two worlds within one person or body. Many of the refugees have gone through terrifying things, and Monica critiques this practice because of the damaging and lasting effects it can have on those who just want to get away from it. Her other video, “Objetos de Memoria”, is the voice of woman talking about the boots that her partner in Mexico purchased for her. The woman no longer wears the boots because she wants to preserve them as a memory of her partner. In Mexico, the woman was persecuted because of her relationship with another woman, but being here in the U.S., despite getting away from the persecution, has separated her from the one she loves. In both of these examples, Monica points to what we discussed as asylum politics in class. The U.S. constructs itself as a big safety-ship for all those being harmed in other countries. However, the practices and politics of asylum law can be equally terrifying and traumatic.
Hasan Elahi created his website “Tracking Transience” as a backlash against the U.S. government. Afte
r being detained for being a security risk, government officials asked Elahi to check in with them in order to track his whereabouts. Elahi created his website as a 24/7 alibi that reports his every move so that the government, as well as anyone else who goes to the site, can know his exact location at any time. He is using GPS and internet technologies to show where his body is at all times.
In his piece, Elahi is showing the absurdness of what U.S. officials want to do to those who do not “fit the mold” of the good American citizen. Those who do not fit the mold of a socially accepted race, gender, sexuality, or citizenship are targeted as trying to harm the country in some way. In our visual culture, those who look different, despite maybe being ordinary on the inside, are targeted and watched over to be sure that they are not doing anything outside of the norm.
After viewing the website, I did a quick search on Elahi to try and make sense
of it. I was quite surprised by the images I found of him. While he is Middle Eastern and has typical features, he bleaches his hair blonde. I could tell based on the pictures that he is not a natural blonde because of the varying dark root length. My brain was quite overwhelmed with the possible implications and interpretations of his hair color choice. The U.S. government has been criticized for possibly using racial profiling in their detaining practices. There are an unequal number of people from the Middle Eastern race who are detained as being a security threat. This made me wonder if Elahi dyes his hair in order to show hi
mself as being a more stereotypical “American” body. I suppose that it would be easier to interpret if we knew what his hair color was when he was originally detained, but I thought the image was an important part of the discussion about bodies and surveillance.
'image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/penamericancenter/2490251188/
tracking transience: http://trackingtransience.net/
Monica Enríquez-Enríquez's site: http://danm.ucsc.edu/~mpenriqu/home.html
To indulge your question, Elahi said on the Colbert Report that at the time of his detainment, he had "red dreads." Because of that, I think that he probably isn't trying to assimilate, but rather he just expresses himself through his hairstyle.
ReplyDeleteElahi and Enriquez-Enriquez express personality on physical bodies. I think that, no matter how the expression comes about, the message is clear that they are going to be who they are, beyond the possibility of surveillance. The writing on the skin, the material shots of the boots, the color of a man's hair...it all means something to them; the revolt against putting a "face to the name" of what they stand for.
I like your comparison on the pieces. I hadn't really thought about this before now.