Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 10:10:45 -0400
Subject: Video essay on Gender/Technology/Mexico/US border


>
>>--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
>>Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1999 14:21:52 -0400
>>From: Simel_Esim-AT-dai.com
>>
>>
>>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE             
>>Gender/Technology/Border
>>
>><performing the border>
>>Ursula Biemann =B8 1999, 42 min.
>>Contact  biemann-AT-access.ch
>>
>>A video essay set in the Mexican-US border town Ciudad Juarez, where the US
>>industries assemble their electronic and digital equipment, located right
>>across from El Paso, Texas.  <performing the border>  looks at the border
>>as both a discursive and a material space constituted through the
>>performance of gender and the management of these gender relations. The
>>drastic industrialization drew mainly young women into the labor force. The
>>video discusses the sexualisation of the border region through the labor
>>division, prostitution, the expression of female desires in the
>>entertainment industry, and sexual violence in the public sphere.
>>Interviews, scripted voice over, quoted text on the screen, scenes and
>>sounds recorded on site, as well as found footage are combined to give an
>>insight into the gendered conditions inscribed in the border region.
>>
>><performing the border<  divides roughly into five parts.
>>
>>LA FRONTERA is a place of unstable identities as a result of migration and
>>a start from scratch in a geography characterized by a hostile desert and a
>>border they cannot transgress. The border is discussed as a discursive
>>construction that is articulated through the crossing of people and the
>>power relation of the two nations. There is the story of Concha who learned
>>how to avoid the border control and cross people, mainly pregnant women, to
>>the other side, where they give birth in a US hospital.
>>
>>LA COLONIA addresses how adolescent girls come from central Mexico to the
>>border to start a life, the choices they have, the dangers, the fragility
>>of their new situation caught in an ambivalent world between high
>>technology and the lack of the most rudimentary necessities.
>>
>>LA MAQUILA describes the labor condition of women who are the producers in
>>the global plan. In the feminisation of international labor division it
>>becomes evident that gender matters to capital. This section includes
>>fragments of interviews conducted with Judith, a human rights activist,
>>Cipriana, a labor activist and Isabel, a journalist and literary critic on
>>the relation between the production of technology and gender.
>>
>>SEX WORK is a major trade in this border town. Juana, a former prostitute
>>from Torreon gives us her perspective on the trade and the changes it
>>underwent during the past 10 years. There are crossovers with the Maquila
>>women who need to complement their income on weekends with prostitution. On
>>the other hand, the reversal of income pattern is obvious in the night
>>clubs, where the entertainment is catering mainly to young women with male
>>shows. Relationship patterns are being remapped quite drastically on the
>>border.
>>
>>SERIAL KILLING In the 90ies, the rapid modernization laid the ground for
>>another urban phenomena. Since 1993, close to 160 girls and young women
>>have been raped and killed in Juarez according to the same pattern. It's
>>the biggest case of serial killing known just about anywhere in the world.
>>Sexual offense raises questions of the public/private. The compulsive,
>>repetitive character of serial killing is related to an entanglement
>>between eroticized violence and mass technologies (registration,
>>identification and simulation), between intimacy and technology. A parallel
>>is drawn to the last Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, when the
>>rising urban pathology produced a similar phenomena of serial killers and
>>gave birth to a new genre of pulp fiction and TV culture.
>>
>>
>>Ursula Biemann is an artist and videomaker involved in gender and
>>postcolonial theory and art practice. She studied in New York and lives now
>>in Zurich/Switzerland.  biemann-AT-access.ch
>>
>>
>>
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