EURO—VISION
EURO—VISION undergrounds the extractivist gaze of the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act / UK's Critical Mineral Strategy. It is a research-led enquiry that seeks to understand extraction beyond the removal and displacement of minerals – to encompass policies, international treaties and regulations that impose controversial forms of stewardship of natural resources on communities.
In 2008, the European Commission adopted the Critical Raw Materials Initiative, which defined a strategy for accessing resources viewed as imperative to the EU’s subsistence. Resources criticality is measured according to supply risk and economic importance. Legislation and policies are thus drawn up to ensure the continued availability of materials deemed critical. Such efforts are leading to agreements in the persue of biological and geological commodities of the Global Majority The current list, revised in 2023, includes 30 materials, including Cobalt, Rubber, Phosphate, and the newly added Lithium and Titanium. EURO—VISION focuses on the inscriptive operations of such policies, i.e., the establishment of Free Trade Zones, (FTZs), fisheries partnerships agreements (FPAs), and de-risking investment tools like public-private partnerships (PPPs). Critical Raw Materials act as a contemporary lens in which international relations, trade, economic policy and military operations come into sharp focus.
The project includes a web platform, a podcast series, and a series of publications. The website presents a research-led approach to navigation, intended as a growing resource and archive, in which exploration paths follow the various strands of research that have informed each commodity investigation. The podcast series, in conversation with academics, practitioners, economists, lawyers, activists and journalists, explores the extractive gaze of European institutions and policies, and looks beyond these practices to the possibility of thinking and doing otherwise. These conversations have also been published in an expanded form. In addition, this research was published online and in a printed pamphlet comprising a survey of surveillance technology research and development projects that are publicly funded by the European Union.
EURO—VISION was commissioned by RADAR Loughborough, the 5th Istanbul Design Biennial and Arts Catalyst. The podcast series is edited by Canon Batur and published in the Nottingham Contemporary Journal.
EURO-VISION, or the Making of the Automated Gaze was initially developed in collaboration with Btihaj Ajana (King’s College London’s Department of Digital Humanities), brokered and supported by the Cultural Institute at King’s in partnership with Somerset House Studios.
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