For the
Love of
Inquiry

In this multidisciplinary course, students will confront the ways new technologies are changing border controls and the regulation of migration. These technologies include automated facial recognition, the usage of other biometric markers, the observing of digital presence and more. Alongside harsher border controls, where artists are under scrutiny and increasingly restricted, an emerging body of artists are responding to the border through activism, performances and installations, as well as shaping collaborations in the digital realm. We will discuss this in response to our current time: COVID-19, BLM, financial crises, student restrictions etc. We believe this class gives students the opportunity to process collectively what they are living through. The class will culminate in students’ own final multimedia project where they, as artists and investigators, respond to notions of digitized borders. Students are expected not only to engage their critical thinking skills with respect to the class topics, but also to design, build, and deploy creative responses.

What is the impact of emerging digital borderscapes on the lives, works, and practice of artists? What are the hurdles faced in artistic practice when transgressing the national borderscape? How can artists and investigators respond to the changing face of the nation-state border? These are the main questions that will connect the weeks presented below. Have these questions in mind as you engage with the material.

Digital Borders was a Graduate Class taught at the Design and Technology M.F.A department of The New School, Parsons School of Design (Fall Semester 2020).