LIQUID TRAJECTORIES Documenting Illegalised Migration and the Violence of Borders Charles Heller Centre for Research Architecture, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths University of London Ph.D. submission in Research Architecture Declaration I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis meets the full requirements of a doctoral dissertation in the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA) and is largely my own but also contains materials co-produced with Lorenzo Pezzani, former PhD candidate (CRA). Signed: Charles Heller, May 24, 2015 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Eyal Weizman, my thesis’ first supervisor, has been a deep inspiration, both for his incisive and creative political thought, but also for the way it operates in the world, across the fields of nongovernmental politics, theory and aesthetic practice. When many PhD supervisors would have despaired at my eternal questions and ever-readiness to start from scratch, his eagerness for the new, the emergent, his attention to “small shifts” only spurred my questions further. For this and much more I am deeply grateful. Thomas Keenan, my second supervisor, taught me to see images as actions, to be attuned to the ambivalences of good intentions and to take seriously the practices of actors from the “other sides”. Susan Schuppli, while not formally my supervisor, has provided invaluable feedback on countless drafts, and the finesse of her thought on the politics of images has been a constant source of inspiration. The Forensic Architecture project gave me the intellectual and institutional support to embark on a daring project, which has simply transformed me in the process. Fellow students and friends of Centre for Research Architecture (CRA) have been a constant sources of inspiration, and my thinking has been transformed by our common discussions. I know already that one day I will be able to say with pride “I did my thesis with” many of you: Ayesha Hameed, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Paulo Tavares, Adrian Lahoud, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Oliver Rees, Emanuel Licha, Francesco Sebregondi, Godofredo Pereira, Shela Sheikh, Karen Mirza, Fusun Turetken, Nabil Ahmed and Gerald Nestler. To thank Lorenzo Pezzani, I would need an entire book dedicated to our common adventures. From the moment we embarked on the Forensic Oceanography project to this day and I hope for many years to come we have simply shared everything. We investigated, thought theoretically and politically, launched a mapping platform, contributed to migrants’ rights struggle and much more together. Several sections of my thesis have been written jointly with Lorenzo Pezzani (and are indicated as such), and all have been shaped by our discussions. The strength of our collaboration has paradoxically only been further revealed to me by the final and more solitary phase of writing this thesis: even writing alone, we think and argue together. The project Lorenzo Pezzani and I embarked on would have never materialised had it been for our encounter with an incredible group of migrants’ rights activists, for whom I 3 have the deepest gratitude and admiration. They are the sharpest observers of the politics of migration, and have the political creativity and strength to truly contest the government of migration. In France, where the Forensic Oceanography adventure started with the friends of the GISTI (Groupe d’information et de soutien des immigrés), Migreurop and Boats4People, I am particularly grateful to Sara Prestianni, Claire Rodier, Violaine Carrère, Olivier Clochard, Nicanor Haon, Eva Ottavy, Alessandra Capodanno, Marie Martin and the entire legal team that led the “left-to-die boat” case, including Stéphane Maugendre, Karine Parrot, Jean Matringe, Claire Saas, Clemence Bectarte, Katie Booth. Father Zerai – the Martin Luther King of migration – has been a constant inspiration. For the common work on the WatchTheMed platform we launched together, I am particularly grateful to Laura Maikowski, Helmut Dietrich and Hagen Kopp, from the organisations Africa-Europe-Interact, FFM and Welcome to Europe. Through you and a multitude of other activists, I discovered the amazing militant tradition of the “underground railway”. I cannot forget my comrades of Stop Exclusion in Geneva, with whom I began to engage with the politics of migration. The work of mapping and the use of various forms of remote sensing which are a crucial dimension of the Forensic Oceanography project would never have been possible without the technical creativity and aesthetic strength of SITU Research, the support of GIS Corps who helped recruit for us experts who’s knowledge, commitment and generosity has never ceased to amaze me, in particular Donald Ferguson, Lawrence Fox III and Rossana Padaletti, and Richard Limeburner. I also thank Lars Bromley of UNOSAT who has been a constant source of inspiration. Patrick Meier helped us in the initial but crucial steps of launching WatchTheMed and for this I am very grateful. Samaneh Moafi worked her graphic magic for our video Liquid Traces. Some of the first ideas towards Forensic Oceanography were discussed with Trevor Paglen, who inspired us to think towards the horizon of the possible. The stunning maps of Philippe Rekacewicz are certainly what inspired me to produce maps in the first place. In the process of my research, I have been inspired by many thinkers but three in particular have been constant companions of thought in relation to the transformations of migration and borders: Sandro Mezzadra, Nicholas de Genova and William Walters. I am grateful to have had the privilege of being in dialogue with thinkers I admire. I further thank Antoine Pécoud, Alessandro Monsutti, Michael Samers, Philip Steinberg, Sanjay Seth, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Soenke Zehle, whose comments have been 4 inspirational. My research has evolved in constant dialogue with fellow researchers Martina Tazzioli, Maurice Stierl, Sebastian Cobarrubias and Maribel Casas Cortes, Mehdi Alioua, Omar Alsoumi, Giorgio Sciabica. The AntiAtlas of Borders project has been an endless source of exchange from which I benefited greatly. In Geneva my friends (in particular Noémi Michel and Jacob Lachat) of the POSTIT network have been a refuge for critical thought on Race, Postcoloniality and the politics of the image. I would never have embarked on the trajectory that has been mine had it been for the support of the CCC at the Fine Arts School in Geneva 10 years ago, and in particular that of Ursula Biemann. Our common experience of the Maghreb Connection continues to provide food for thought for me to this day. Hito Steyerl, whose work taught me to look at images as a material part of the world, has been a constant source of inspiration and provided feedback that was crucial in steering the initial direction of this project. I have been lucky to count as my friends amazing artists and curators, whose aesthetic politics has deeply influenced my thought and practice. I would like to thank in particular Rafael Lutter, Maria Iorio, Raphael Cuomo, Tobias Hering, Joanne Richardson, David Rich, Joana Mol, Auélien Gamboni, Laure Vermeersch, Hannane Djaziriya. My experience with Jean-Philipp Rapp and Franck Simond of the North South Media Forum and Laurence Hoenig of MSF has been transformative. I could not have completed this thesis without the support of my friends and family. For their presence during the last months of writing in Tunisia and sharing the special place of Haouaria, many thank Nebil Ben Rejeb, Inge Parmentier, Wissem Ziadi, Madelief de Heer, Kouraich Jaouahdou, Monia Jafaar. For helping us land back in Switzerland, my thanks go to Olivier Mäusli and Laura Gamboni, as well as Alice Thomann and Hassan Bugnard. For their unconditional support, love and humanism I would like to thank my entire family, in particular my parents Amy and Yvon Heller, my sister Olivia Heller, as well as Marianne and Christian Honegger. During the 6 years that my thesis lasted, I had the joy of having two sons, Achilles and Anouar. Kids, thank you for interrupting me and reminding me of how beautiful life is. Manuela Honegger Heller, my companion, has been by my side during and contributed to every single project I discuss in this thesis and has sharpened countless drafts through her critical mind. Between the lines of this thesis is the story of our common adventure. This thesis is dedicated to people on the move. 5 ABSTRACT This PhD thesis offers an account of my trajectory as a researcher and aesthetic practitioner seeking to document and contest the violence of the migration regime operating between Europe and Africa. I describe the successive shifts my research and practice has undergone in a “diary of practice” of sorts. Through my successive experiments with the use of a wide range of sensing devises – ranging from photographs, videos, maps, satellite images and statistical graphs – this thesis explores the intersection between the politics of migration and that of aesthetic practices. In the introduction to this thesis, I describe further my approach and inscribe it within broader theoretical fields. In the second chapter, Image/Migration, I follow the “lives” of the images of migration I have produced as a documentary filmmaker, and enquire into their effects. Considering images as practices and objects which produce variegated effects depending on their use by different actors, I chart the way images depicting migrants’ precarious condition have become embedded in the government of migration. In a third chapter, Forensic Oceanography, I present a collaborative research project aiming at documenting the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and accounting for the conditions which have led to them. I engage with the complex geography of the EU’s maritime frontier and seek to reappropritate some of the tools normally used for surveillance – such as mapping and remote sensing – so as to reinscribe responsibility in a sea of impunity. In a fourth chapter, Tactical Statistics, I explore the potential of a critical statistical practice to register the violence of the European migration regime, which operates indirectly and leads to deaths on a structural basis.