Generation 1992 Creative Competition
"1992 - 20 years ago: all countries belonging to the European Union decided to create a single market. This meant removing the obstacles blocking the free movement of goods, people, services and capital among them.
20 years on, we can travel across Europe without having to show our passports, work and live in another country without any difficulty, and find the best deals across Europe when shopping online. But we all agree that more work needs to be done in order to have a fully functioning European single market.
If you are 20 years old, we want to hear from you: your experiences, stories, complaints and proposals to make Europe a better place to live and work."
(Generation 1992)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
SmartGate: New Zealand & Australia passport control self-processing
"SmartGate gives some travellers the option to self-process through passport control. It uses the data in the e-Passport and face recognition technology to perform the customs and immigration checks that are usually conducted by a Customs officer.
An e-Passport has a microchip embedded in a hard plastic page and an international e-Passport symbol on the front cover. The microchip contains the same personal information that is on the photo page of the e-Passport, including an electronic copy of your photograph."
(Aotearoa New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Terminal: a Hollywood treatment for Merhan Karimi Nasseri
"Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) is a visitor to America from a small fictional eastern European country called Krakozhia. He's detained at JFK airport, New York, informed that a coup has occurred in his homeland and that as Krakozhia is no longer recognised by the US, his passport is invalid and he cannot enter the States. His nation no longer exists, so he can't go back, so he takes up residence in the airport terminal, scratching out a living and making friends with the people who work there. He even falls in love with strangely available airline hostess Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), but all the while Navorski is being watched by a paper-shuffling airport security fascist Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci).The film is, in fact, based on a real-life incident, namely that of Merhan Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian-born traveller who, having lost his documents, has been living on a red plastic bench at Charles de Gaulle Airport since 1988. DreamWorks, it seems, paid Nasseri for the rights to his story, but rather than have a character of Middle Eastern origin (the investors wouldn't like that), this gutless production opts instead for a fictional country."
(Brendan Walls, 2004)
Walls, Brendan (2004) Brisbane News, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA: Brisbane News.
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
In-Transit: The Devil's Mode
The character, Mr. Paxton in Anthony Burgess' novel The Devil's Mode has thrown away his passport after entering the nowhere of departure lounges and planes, filled his pockets with air tickets and is determined to spend the rest of his life in the nowhere and comfortable emptiness of planes and airports is, of course, a rather unusual personage -(Burgess, 1989)."God almighty," I said. What he showed me was a large yellow plastic folder crammed with air tickets. He said, riffling through them: "Going everywhere. Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, wherever that is, Mozambique, Sydney, Christchurch, Honolulu, Moscow. "If there's one place where you'll need a visa, it's certainly Moscow," I said. "But, damn it, how do you propose to go anywhere without a passport?" There's going and going," he said. "When I get to one place then I start off right away for another. Well, in some cases not right away. There's a fair amount of waiting in some of the places. But they have what they call transit lounges. Get a wash and a brush-up. Perhaps a bath. Throw a dirty shirt away and buy a new one. Ditto for socks and underpants. No trouble, really. "In effect," I said, astonished, "you'll be travelling without arriving. "You could put it that way." -(Burgess, 1989: 141).Burgess' character provides a clear demonstration of the cultural emptiness entailed in this peculiar expression of modernity. An uprooted man who had lost everything that connected him to the thick, rich meaning-contexts of ordinary life (he was retired, a widower, and his children had left home), he was intent on ending his days in the nowhere of air travel.
CONTRIBUTOR
The Constellations ProjectSHARE
