Abstract

The video by Ursula Biemann, Performing the border, explores the living and working conditions of women in the huge industrial backyard of the American economy just south of the US-Mexico border. Taking her departure point from au ad of the Elamex corporation selling female labor for one dollar an hour, the videomaker shows that the social and technical construction of the border extends all the way to the sexuality of those whose « performance » is exalted in the image. Although the story of a « coyote » woman - an expert at illegal boundary crossing- allows one to imagine a possible escape from this control system, it is the account of the serial killings around the Mexican town of Juarez that raises the most disquieting questions about the just-in-tine production of human lives for the assembly of hi-tech merchandise