Unidentified
Single channel video/sound installation and a series of 3 Ink on paper, 2014
Biometrics refers to metrics related to human characteristics and traits. It is used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance. Fingerprint identification is one of the most well-known biometrics, it’s popular because of the inherent ease in acquisition, and their established use and collections by law enforcement and immigration. Biometric technologies constitute the biopolitical dimensions of bodies.
Eurodac Is a supranational cybernetic network, an EU-wide database that is the first common Automated Fingerprint Identification System within the European Union. It has been operating since 2003. Eurodac contains the digital fingerprints of every person over the age of 14 who is claiming asylum in one of the EU countries. Prior to assigning any given asylum application to a caseworker, the applicant’s fingerprints are taken and matched with other digitised fingerprints in the database of the Central Unit that is responsible for the storage and matching of new fingerprints with those already stored.
Eurodac persecutory practices began with creating a buffer zone between asylum seekers and wealthier northern European countries, where there is more chances for getting an asylum and stronger welfare benefits for refugees, by tracking and controlling the movement of refugees.
If the applicant has already tried claiming asylum at another border crossing, and a match to their fingerprints is found in the central database, the applicant will be subject to an internal deportation to the country of the first application, if not to an external deportation to the country of origin.
The new regulation that is going to be applicable in July 2015, allows national police forces and Europol to compare fingerprints linked to “crimes and terrorism investigations” with those contained in Eurodac.
Unidentified explore questions such as how to render a body unreadable, non-computable, inaccessible and biometrical unprocessable, and techniques used by refugees and immigrants at the borders in order to achieve freedom of movement by defacing, abrading, slicing, and burning their fingertips.