Miloš Stolić, Command and Control, 2018
Installation, Video HD with surround 5.1
loop, indefinite length, multiple HDTV, vertical speakers, office tables, chairs

Over the past decades immigration control has become a sensitive political issue so that checks at the European borders have entered a new stage of hi-tech monitoring systems. In hermetically sealed rooms the authorities run a sophisticated de-centred security systems to improve the efficiency of the fight against illegal immigration and other border crime activities. Such facilities are the nodes of wide-ranging global network for sharing information to provide national and international security. They embody non-transparency and inaccessibility that visualize strong top-down systems of state control. The exhibition space is transformed into a monitoring room, the viewer is placed in an institution of control in which he has to reflect. ‘Command and control’ is a conceptually thought-out work based on an audio piece called „Send them Back“ by Miloš Stolić, 2014. Miloš Stolić makes use of material from the European Media archive/ database. Found footage, filtered using specific keywords (eg. migration), were recut and rearranged into a new composition and presented in the installation room. The medial view of the migrants is counterposed by looking into the European Parliament. Video clips from conferences and forums show old white men in positions of power negotiating the issue of European migration policy. At the same time „stock-videos“ of European Reports are played, reinforcing the inability to articulate the migrants’ voice. The audio is a composed sound scape of the same material, but only the non-commenting moments are heard.