Extraordinary Rendition is an expression coined by the Bush administration to define a series of the new legal measures designed to sidestep the existing Human Rights system and deprive citizens from its protection.
The excuse for these measures can be traced back to the “dirty war” in Latin America during the 1980s, yet it was with the 9-11 attacks when it really took off and gained visibility under the shelter of the so-called “war on terror”. Though outwardly minor steps, they nevertheless lead, little by little, to situations allowing or “legalising” illegal detentions and torture under euphemistic formulas.
For instance, laws like the “Patriot Act” limit, if not completely abolish, citizens’ right to privacy or freedom of expression while at once allowing for kidnapping and confinement of persons without charges, without trial or a detention period as has been happening in Guantanamo since 2002. Physical and psychological torture is even justified with a system of euphemisms in which methods of torture described back in medieval treatises are now given new names, like “waterboarding”, in an attempt to disguise their true meaning.
Alicia Framis (1967, Barcelona, Spain) is presenting the first part of a wider project called “Welcome to Guantánamo Museum” displaying and documenting all the constitutive elements of a hypothetical museum on the installations at the US detention centre in Cuba. Scale models, drawings, floor plans and structures are exhibited together with an audio piece created with the collaboration of Enrique Vila Matas and Blixa Bargeld.