Do you have any idea about how much the European public is concerned by these European border fences? We point the finger at the US-Mexico wall and turn a bind eye at our own manifestations of intolerance and inhospitality. Hi Dani! I often have the feeling that we are a bit hypocritical in Europe, at least in the areas that are not in close proximity to these new borders. The exhibition at Bruthaus Gallery is sadly over but i got in touch with the artist a couple of weeks ago to know more about SMART FENCE: Along the way, the artist also attempts to deconstruct the techno-ideologies that are often inscribed in these technologies of control and exclusion.ĭani Ploeger, SMART FENCE. His SMART FENCE project uses old and new media, from celluloid film to augmented reality, to explore the way we delegate our responsibility towards asylum-seekers to these tech-enhanced structures.
#SMART NOTES FENCES SERIES#
Ploeger recently exhibited that piece of fence as well as a series of related works at Bruthaus Gallery in Belgium. This was a daring action: damaging the border fence is a criminal offence under Hungarian law.ĭani Ploeger, European Studies #1 (sensors).
Once at the border fence, Ploeger cut off and ran away with a piece of razor wire from the border fence. The barbed-wire is capable of delivering electric shocks and is equipped with heat sensors, cameras and loudspeakers that shout inhospitable messages in several languages. Last December, the artist traveled to the fortified border fence that Hungary had raised along its southern border with Serbia to keep out migrants and asylum seekers. Moreover, Ploeger writes, “their framing as supposedly clean and precise technologies is symptomatic of a broader cultural practice that uses narratives of technologization to justify means of violence” (think of the military drones and their supposedly surgical precision). Documentation of action at Hungarian border fenceĪrtist Dani Ploeger has been looking at the fences recently built to toughen “Fortress Europe.” In particular the ones that use heat and movement sensors, sophisticated cameras and other so-called ‘smart’ technologies to shut off “illegal immigrants.” The hi-tech terminology used to describe theses fences obscure their inherent violence. Dani Ploeger, SMART FENCE at Bruthaus Gallery, 2019ĭani Ploeger, Still from Border Operation, 2018-19, HD video, 3′.
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