project description

knowbotic research's naked bandit/here, not here/white sovereign 3.0 focuses on the mechanisms of detainment of so-called 'unlawful enemy combatants' – as held at Guantanamo – who can be regarded as 'here' and, at the same time, 'elsewhere', not anymore on the territory of the nation state, and thus banned, stripped off from the legal framework which the nation state guarantees ('naked bandit'). The project investigates the mechanisms of such an inclusive exclusion and the inherent formations of power. By remodelling these specific formalisms in software code the artists are able to offer different possible scenarios for the liberation of the 'naked bandit'. It's obvious that the solution cannot be applied on the prison situation. However, this tension of the hypothetical is crucial to the aesthetics of the work.
 

archive.transmediale.de/05/page/detail/detail.0.releases.38.2.html (transmediale website archive)

related text

The project by the artists group knowbotic research (krcf), currently working in Zurich and Cologne, forms part of a series of works that engage with the experience of total inclusion, and with hypothetical scenarios for becoming able to act in a situation where independent action is systematically denied. 'naked bandit/here, not here/white sovereign' is based on a technical scenario, represented through a software process, in which one 'parent' process controls another, the 'child' process. In analogy to Giorgio Agamben's analysis of the homo sacer, the 'nude bandit' is a figure caught up in a dependent relationship in which it has to report its continued presence ('here'), yet, is prevented from acting or leaving ('not here'). By offering an interface for a basic intervention into this scenario, the exhibition visitors are confronted with their implication into situations where the modern state systematically prevents people on the margins of society, from engaging their human and citizen rights. (Andreas Broeckmann)
 

krcf.org/krcfhome/Banditweb/banditpage3.htm (exhibition, Rotterdam version)

[The first version of this project was shown at Tracer. Six Curators on Art in Rotterdam.]

related links

project site: krcf.org/krcf.org/?p=348

Andreas Broeckmann: The Naked Bandit in the Theatre of Visibilities:
krcf.org/krcfhome/ROOM_MANOUVRES/RFM_10.htm
 

image credits

[01] knowbotic research: naked bandit at transmediale.05
[02] knowbotic research: naked bandit at transmediale.05
[03] knowbotic research: naked bandit at transmediale.05
[04] knowbotic research: naked bandit, script
[05] knowbotic research: naked bandit/here, not here / white sovereign 3.0
[06] knowbotic research: naked bandit, Rotterdam version