Une mobilité reconfigurée. By Myriam Yates

Artists have always appropriated new technologies, taking them and changing the way that they are used.   In this latest edition of .dpi, we look at emerging projects with a focus on the theme of mobility.   This issue examines how this appropriation of media has evolved, and also delves into the constraints and technical problems that impede the fluidity of these new and hijacked uses.

Because the idea of the body is essential to mobility technology, the contributions in this issue bring together projects that cover a broad range of the corporal sphere, from the ghostly body that spends hours in front of a glowing screen, to the body engaged in a struggle between life and death ( Transborder Immigrant Tool project).

An article by Sophie Le-Phat Ho reflects on the Transborder Immigrant Tool , an audacious and militant project developed by a group of artists from the electronic resistance movement out of the University of California's Calit2 Lab in San Diego.   The device (basically a cell phone with GPS) provides assistance to immigrants in their dangerous attempt to cross the Mexico-U.S. border by helping them locate water and shelter in the desert, and providing them with a tool to orient themselves.   As the author mentions, the project is inspired by techno-artistic projects oriented towards locative technology and psychogeography, but is marked by its approach and its humanitarian and political goals.   The success of the project is based on successful community outreach.

With this concept of the body in danger (the body that tries to cross the border from which Transborder Immigrant Tool draws its inspiration), we can draw a parallel to the body engaged in performance.   The question of immigration and territorial occupation are at the heart of Constanza Camelo's performances, especially in her Expand or Contract the Universe , a collaborative project with StudioXX.   With the focus on new immigrants, the body has already crossed a border and the journey is behind it, but there are still obstacles to overcome.   In the performance, the faces of new immigrants are covered by their passports; with their vision obscured, they let themselves be guided by MIRA guide dogs.   Their hesitant movements trigger the national anthem of their country of origin, spliced with Canada's national anthem, via a mechanism conceived at StudioXX.

In her interview with Helena Martin Franco, the artist argues that “the immigrant does not have a space, it is movement that constitutes the immigrant.”   With her group action, she emphasizes the other , increasing the body's presence by displaying its legal status.   The artist asks the question, “What power of representation do people have when their presence is intensified by their passports, covering their eyes and blinding them?” The politics of territorial occupation emerge in their performance, where the body becomes involved in a context that is realized in political action.

The body is involved less dramatically in the project The Haunting , developed by the Mobile Digital Commons Network, in which the participants are invited to a ghost hunt around Mount Royal.   The project, a game that is designed to entertain and educate, involves a hunt that takes the player over several kilometres of terrain that has been equipped with Bluetooth/GPS-triggering hotspots.   Located on a site that is emblematic of Montreal, layers of narrative are revealed as the players work their way up the mountain.   Andrea Zeffiro, the co-coordinator of the project, relates anecdotes about the design process and brings up fields of investigation to encourage feminist involvement in this kind of technologically elaborate project.

Aude Crispel describes another use for cell phones in her article on Nicolas Frespech, an artist who has long used the Internet as an artistic medium and who now diffuses his work via cell phone.   Contrary to the previous projects, place is not important in Frespech's work.   Often consulted between two destinations, the cell phone has the power to absorb the body into its tiny glowing screen.   The artist proposes recreational interactions that interrupt intimacy little by little, introducing a psychological dimension to his work.   His approach was inspired by the relational aesthetic movement that was so popular in France as well as here in Quebec.   His work goes hand in hand with the medium of the cell phone, which encourages a certain introspection.

Delving deeper into the realm of technology in entertainment, we have Paule Mackrous interviewing Julie Cazzaro, the production coordinator of Ubisoft.   Questions often come up about the place and role of women in the popular and lucrative sphere of the gaming industry.   This first meeting builds a general portrait that will to be developed in future issues.   And finally, as a result of a similar interview, Sophie Le-Phat Ho offers up her reflections on the Mutek Festival 2008 that just came to a close in a column called MUTEK and Feminism :) .

And to kick off your summer, the artist Natacha Clitandre presents us with three little flip books to load onto our Ipods (for those that have one!) to follow us on our daily travels.

Enjoy the issue and have a good summer!

Myriam Yates