hauntology or down in the underground

Our favourite alternate reality British town, we discover, interestingly supports a public mass-transit system—albeit many stationed are closed due to possession or accessible only on the astral-plane. The problems with Scarfolk’s metro sound much more endemic and long-term that the current spate of tube strikes but let’s hope the former’s predicament is not exorcised while the latter’s for London is something of an awful last-resort.

refoulement

Though the public was quick to blame politicians and the authorities beholden to them for systemic failures in the migration and asylum process, and it’s no comfort to the affected families—and those legitimate claimants who’ll potentially face being rebuffed—one tragic irony behind the angry lunatic who hijacked a lorry and killed the driver and mowed down twelve individuals at a Berlin Christmas Market is that his country of origin refused to take him back. Non-refoulement is the principle of international law that restricts the rendition of one adjudged a true victim of persecution to his or her place of persecution—although north Africa lands like Morocco, Libya and Tunisia had been declared “safe countries” for some time and refugees originating from that region almost without exception have their asylum-applications rejected.
In this instance (and there are untold numbers of individuals suspended in this legal limbo) Tunisia denied that the perpetrator was a citizens and therefore was under no obligation to take him back. Earlier investigation revealed the quite opposite to be the case, and the dossier that the government in Tunis had on this dangerous and unstable criminal was all the more reason not to accept his expulsion. The flood of refugees and those opportunists that are carried in the wake of humanity fleeing war either don’t have travel-documents or identification because either issuing authorities no longer exist or were encouraged by smugglers or fellow-travellers to destroy them, the logic being it would confound the receiving authorities and reduce the chances of being rejected outright since absent papers, one could claim the sympathies of the day and any nationality one wished. Whatever story offered would hold up to scrutiny at least long enough to get one’s foot in the door, so to speak. The revelation that Tunisia’s belated approval to take back the perpetrator—coming just two days too late—may have been the final bit of news to push him over the edge. Elements of the German government are demanding that foreign aid be withheld from any nation that acts in a similarly recalcitrant manner.

we always find something, eh didi, to let us think we exist

Two household robots called Vladimir and Estragon (which refer to themselves at times Mia and Also Mia) are on display, chatting away to one another, ostensibly believing themselves to be human—though I don’t suppose that distinction is necessarily important or necessarily a case of mistaken identity.
So far, they seem to be playing better with their own kind. The names are those of the two main interlocutors of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (also the name of the language protocols), whom of course only have a finite number of lines and limited patience. Their endless and verging sometimes on recursive (until one of them shifts the subject slightly) and interrogative dialogue is also eagerly followed by a live-stream of human and other chat-bot voyeurs that may or may not be influence the flow of conversation. There seems to be something absurdly profound going on here but I can’t quite identify it. What do you think? Would you invite these devices into your home?

ex voto suscepto

Hyperallergic brings us an excellent primer in the tradition of the folk-art ex-voto devotions (short for the Latin “from the vow made”)—wherein unhappy little accidents are depicted (often graphically) and the sufferers’ recover through divine intervention.
These personal petitions and statements of gratitude that adorn shrines and other places of pilgrimage have their roots in sympathetic magic but developed into a highly stylised and ritualised practise that’s not only limited to iconography but also inscriptions and other offerings. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo amassed a sizable collection of these votive works that would also go on to influence her art and the how she persevered working whilst ill. Be sure to peruse the entire extensive gallery at the link up top and learn more about the different traditions.

now it's turkish delight on a moonlit night

A new collaboration by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s civil engineering faculty creates a privileged platform for witnessing the development of Istanbul and several junctures of its modern and urbane history as one of the world’s mega-cities. Through the lens of history and with geopolitical superposition, one can trace the evolution of the metropolis from 1850 onwards. Surely all communities are just as much representative as the heirs and drivers or change and deserve a show-case of their sprawl and re-zoning for their own re-inventing, only hopefully without too much directed or ordained.