This piece inaugurates my exploration of contemporary military scenarios
as intercultural encounters.
In the age of info-war and smart bombs, the last “theatre of combat” between
America and its “others” is occurring in the prisons where “enemy
combatants” are being held around the world. For many American soldiers
the prisons are the only places where they actually meet the enemy
face to face. And precisely because these prisons are not considered combat
zones,
many women in the US armed forces are assigned to them, since women
are barred from engaging in combat.
Some of the most controversial images of the war on terror have emerged
from these prisons. They are depictions of ritualized humiliation
of “enemy
combatants,” usually taken by the soldiers who operate as agents of
sovereign authority. These photographs, together with various testimonies
by soldiers and interpreters who have witnessed acts of excessive
cruelty, shed some light on the uses of spectacles of subjection
inside these prisons
as disciplinary conventions.
The detail I focus on for this group performance is the act of cleaning
the floor with a toothbrush. Reports have surfaced that American soldiers
order prisoners to clean their cells with toothbrushes for hours at a time.
I am staging a street performance in front of a building that represents
US interests in Sao Paolo. The performers will be dressed in the orange suits
that have become an internationally recognized symbol of detention. We will
get on our knees and sweep the street in front of the building with toothbrushes
together. |