ERSTAUFNAHME - Initial Admission

with Sena Dogan and Manuel Sinn

Erstaufnahme is an interactive audio-visual installation. It examines how border regimes instrumentalize speech biometrics to exclude and control asylum seekers. It critically engages with the Dialect Identification Assistance System (DIAS) used by the Federal Office for the Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in Germany. In 2023, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees used the System in 43.000 cases to classify asylum seekers’ origins by their dialects, influencing the decision of their application. Germany remains the only state in Europe to use it.

Erstaufnahme, rather than assuming that scientific neutrality can be achieved through technological optimization, reveals the opaque processes and racializing logics the system perpetuates. By transforming another mystified object — the voice — the process taking place reflects on how classification systems strip the voice into its mechanical, disembodied form, detached from the speaker and its context. In doing so, it draws parallels to the mechanisms governments employ in the utilization of AI, mystifying its operations and concealing its historical, political, and material implications.

This installation is part of a larger ongoing research project.
For more : The Right to Silence? Sonic Power, Surveillance and Control in Border Spaces

Selected Images