In recent years, Swiss artist Ursula Biemann has produced a wide variety of works that investigate issues of mobility, technology and identity. As a theorist, curator and artist, she has taken up the questions surrounding migration, maintaining, "Location is spatially produced rather than pre-determined by governance." Her experimental video essay Performing the Border (1999) is set in Ciudad Juarez, situated across the border from El Paso, Texas, where many U.S. industries hire Mexican workers to assemble digital equipment and electronics. Using interviews with women factory workers and prostitutes, scripted voice over, and found footage, Biemann explores topics such as divisions of labor and sexual violence in order to document the gendered conditions of this border town. In Europlex (2003), made in collaboration with visual anthropologist Angela Sanders, Biemann documents the daily, sometimes illicit, border crossings of "domesticas" who traverse Spain and Morocco. With a mesmerizing soundtrack and a collage of digital graphics and texts, Biemann effectively highlights the surreal "time travel" that occurs when these migrants step back in time as they enter Europe. Both video essays survey the feminization of the global economy, and by focusing on the activities that occur at the periphery of these transnational zones, demonstrate the ways in which these spaces are enacted.

Ursula Biemann (b. 1955, Zürich) studied art and cultural theory in Mexico, at the School of Visual Arts and the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York City. Her work has been exhibited widely at international biennales. She is the author of the artist book Been There and Back to Nowhere—Gender in Transnational Spaces (2000). In 2003 she curated the exhibition Geography and the Politics of Mobility in Vienna. She is a researcher at the Institute for Theory of Art and Design at HGK ZÜrich and lectures at the CCC program of the Arts Academy in Geneva. Her videos are distributed in the United States by Women Make Movies.

/The Imaginary Line/ is a series of exhibitions and screenings which explore the idea of nation-dividing borders to understand the political, cultural, and sociological issues that arise from these boundaries, and also explores borders as intangible, incorporeal delineations that exist within our everyday lives. This summer Hallwalls joins Buffalo Arts Studio and El Museo, to host a series of screenings in conjunction with /The Imaginary Line/ that will include works by Jim Finn, Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Ursula Biemann. In August Hallwalls welcomes artist Fereshteh Toosi, who will be in Buffalo/Niagara Falls to create works that commemorate the 30th anniversary of Love Canal, declared a Federal State of Emergency by President Jimmy Carter in August, 1978.

At Hallwalls through August:
8/8/08 at 8 p.m.
Love Canal Memorial screening presented by artist Fereshteh Toosi

At the Buffalo Arts Studio:
On exhibition from May 17—August 9, 2008, works by:
Paula Braswell, Peter Dykhuis, Shelley Niro, and Leandro Soto

At El Museo:
Border Film Project (May 30—July 22, 2008).
Opening Reception June 13, 8—10. On view through July 22, 2008

Now you too can deliver the great rhetoric filled speeches of today's most important politicians. Why settle with hearing politicians when Politaoke allows you to become them. Politaoke, an audience participatory political karaoke bar, changes the face of politics and karaoke by allowing audience members to take on the role of political leaders. Who needs American Idol when you could be a presidential candidate?

Politaoke will make its US debut at the Hallwalls Center for Contemporary Art in Buffalo New York as part of the Infringement Festival and tour across the US in cities across the country from July 30th until October 2nd, 2008. First performed in January 2008 in Germany, Politaoke has been expanded to include speeches, interviews and other appearances by American politicians currently in and running for office.

Politaoke provides the audience a platform to perform, mock and finally hear and see clearly what their politicians say. Completely nonpartisan, Politaoke allows the audience to decide how to interpret each politician's words, whether serious or in a sarcastic manner. The politician's speeches and interviews are provided, word for word, only edited into sections (songs) of 1 - 8 minutes. A series of debates, interviews and television appearances are also provided as duets.

Created by Diana Arce, Politaoke is a natural progression in her (in person) work as an artist, filmmaker and activist, who is interested in using artistic methods as a platform to engage in political and cultural critique and commentary in the public realm. Much of her work stems not only from her personal experience, but also from contemporary politics, economics and news. She is also notorious for her prize-winning karaoke performance at Pan Am Lounge in Berlin.