MIGRANT 4 DARK 1 MATTERS GEOGRAPHICAL ZONE ARTICLE TITLE TABLE OF CONTENTS A CROSSING INTO CEUTA P. 8 Charlotte Malterre-Barthes & A. George Bajalia B HUNDI & HAWALA P. 24 Parsa Sanjana Sajid C TIL GRAVITATION IS THE CAUSE OF MIGRATION P. 30 Michaela Büsse D ESSENCE DU BÉNIN P. 40 Javier Corso E ABYSSAL THEORY P. 60 C. S. Hu F THEY FUCK IT UP P. 72 Max Opray G VOX EX ORIENTIS P. 82 Giorgos Kassiteridis H EXIT STRATEGIES P. 92 Alice Bucknell I MY LAND P. 105 Mauro Tosarelli J BEYOND ELYSIUM P. 122 Benjamin H. Bratton K NOT OUR RYTHM SECTION P. 130 Yeb Wiersma & Ishion Hutchinson EDITORS’ LETTER P. 2 THE CONTRIBUTORS P. 149 X COLOPHON CONTRIBUTER NAME P. 152 H In this comprehensive NORTHERN AMERICA cloud of speculative capital, becoming a petri dish and spiritual mega-mall of space and vivid essay Alice Bucknell brings tourism and metaphysical encounters. together three rather untypical mi- Though it permeates pop culture in the gration stories originating in the South- form of scraggly tumbleweed, snuff-chew- ing cowboys, fiery rock formations, and EXIT ern California desert. Using drug prehistoric-sized cacti, the American South- trade, space travel and spiritual trans- west has no consolidated location: a resist- ance to the real that doubtlessly adds to formation treatments as case studies, STRATEGIES its mythic allure and springboards its con- Bucknell outlines the entangled rela- temporary profitability. Some sources de- tionship between the flow of resources, marcate the southwest region of the United States from Los Angeles to El Paso, while big dreams and (dark) economies. the US Census Bureau demarcates Texas LOCATION Dawn breaks over the Mojave Desert in and Oklahoma as part of the South, ³ and United States Southern California, reflecting off the National Geographic excludes California LANGUAGE white-domed structure of the Integratron in entirely. ⁴ Generally, the common ground is English a blinding light. Inside its warm wooden cu- the heartland of New Mexico and Arizona, CURRENCY pola, a group of lifestyle bloggers from Los through which the Sonoran and Chihuahuan US Dollar (USD) Angeles recline on woven blankets import- deserts unwind. Yet with the introduction TIME ZONE ed from Mexico, preparing for a restorative of annual desert music festivals such as CT (UTC–5), MST (UTC–6), PT (UTC–8) sound bath experience. Meanwhile, a thou- Burning Man in 1986 and Coachella in sand kilometres east, the winter sun beats 1999, the Mojave Desert across South- AREA 9 833 520 km² down on Spaceport America, its glassy ern California and Nevada has in creas ing- husk blending into the New Mexican land- ly become a part of the Southwest in pop POPULATION 325 719 178 scape through an outer layer of painted rub- cultural discussion. ber sheeting. Rows of barbed wire fencing Ditching state lines and regional distinc- 1 The Integratron is a 11.5 m tall structure grips its $ 209 million facilities in a choke- tions for common geography, it becomes designed by ufologist hold. ¹ Security cameras glitter like gem- easier to understand the Southwest instead and alien contactee George Van Tassel. stones across the 73,000,000 m² expanse; as a cluster of deserts whose precise sur- Once claiming to a yawning guard reaches the end of his face areas have morphed across millennia, be capable of rejuve- nation, anti-gravity night shift and scans the horizon one last with the acceleration of these changes in and time travel, time for the intruder who never arrives. recent years largely attributed to human ac- the Integratron now offers sound baths, New-age health nuts and space-hungry tivity. This effect comes in the form of both consciousness tech billionaires: what causes these worlds’ localised action, e.g. nuclear tests conduct- building workshops and other new age collision—and collusion—within the south- ed by the US government during the 1950s; health services. west American desert, and why now? Orig- and global circulation, e.g. the centuries-old inally settled some ten thousand years shale oil extraction from the Permian Basin ago and written off later in the 15 th cen- in Texas and New Mexico. ⁵ Still, the murky tury by European colonists as inhospitable history of the Southwest and its entangled wasteland, modern attempts at settling geopolitical present is perhaps best told the desert—such as the urban lab of through its long term residential flora. Arcosanti ²—were ridiculed as the fanta- Stretching across Mexico and the United sies of heat-stricken madmen. Now, this States, the 8,000-year-old landscape of the sprawling landscape and its alluring narra- Chihuahuan Desert has survived livestock tive of un-mined potential has become the overgrazing, agriculture, oil and gas drilling perfect backdrop for late capitalist survival to remain one of the most diverse ecoregions strategies. Fifty years on, amid rising tem- in North America. Home to over 3,000 spe- peratures, sinking cities, and the imminent cies of plants and over a third of the world’s exhaustion of natural resources, the dark- known cacti, its most significant prickly lodg- ness of the desert has kicked up a dust er may well be the psychoactive species ALICE BUCKNELL 93 NORTHERN AMERICA EXIT STRATEGIES Lophophora williamsii (Peyote). Traditional- 2 Arcosanti is a desert overseas venture capitalists as well as the town on board, Branson conjured a vi- community built ly used by the Navajo, Huichol, and other in the 1970s by archi- local residents and politicians alike. sion of future riches lying in wait for T or C indigenous tribes in shamanistic practices, tect-theorist Paolo Enter “starchitect” Norman Foster. Smitten following Spaceport’s construction and Soleri. It intended this hardy root cactus now circulates in the to be an experimental with the idea of space tourism since his promised the town’s economic rebirth in underground drug trade due to its easy ex- testing ground for visit in 1990 to Russia’s cosmonaut boot the form of luxury tourism. T or C would re- a new form of urban- traction and powerful psychic properties. ism based on Soleri’s camp, Star City, ⁷ Foster churned out a typi- ceive its own airport for the international Ingesting a small handful of its buttons, understanding of cally glassy and high-tech design for the 1 % to come stay in its spa resorts; when T “arcology”, or the or spores, results in a trip lasting around harmonious merging enterprise. The Spaceport’s shell-like body or Cers got tired of their newfound mate- twelve to eighteen hours. Furthermore, of architecture and appears to rise out of the desert, its top rial wealth, they could tour Spaceport’s fa- ecology. while Peyote traditionally grows along the covered in non-descript rubber sheet- cilities for free or maybe join in on a steeply Texas-Mexico border, climate change and 3 See the Census ing and military-grade camouflage paint. discounted sub-orbital flight. Regions and Divisions the Chihuahuan’s increasing aridification of the United States Piles of dirt swoop up to meet the wings of Sierra County approved the Spaceport has caused the cactus to migrate further [census.gov/geo/ the building on either side, concealing its tax hike in 2008, and construction of the pdfs/maps-data/ southwest into Mexico in recent years. maps/reference/us_ glossy underbelly with a desert cape. From $ 209 million facilities officially began. While growing, selling, or consuming regdiv.pdf] the ground, Spaceport is all metal and glass, Branson’s promises had an optimistic start Peyote has been strictly outlawed in the US 4 Miller, M. and Lehman, the organic form dissolving under a blind - with a bump in employment in 2008 that since 1970 (except for the Native American D. (2002) National ing display of skylights and floor-to-ceiling was primarily due to growth in trade, trans- Geographic's driving Church, which is exempt from this ban) and guides to America; glass that reflects the desert sun with an portation of materials, and increasing utili- recreational cactus eaters face up to fifteen Southwest. ominous Cheshire Cat-like grin. The design ties, both in the private sector and in federal years of prison, Peyote’s (il)legal status 5 In its nearly hundred intends to spellbind jet-lagged venture government employment—nearly all ex- remains largely unenforced in Mexico. The years of production, capitalists and feels all kinds of other- plained by Spaceport’s construction. But the Permian Basin has bypass made possible by the species’ never produced more worldly; simultaneously futuristic and pre- when the buzz cooled and construction was territorial shift across borders has single- oil than it produces historic, the building harbours the same complete, yet New Mexico’s desert skies today, according to a handedly revitalised the abandoned min- report published in mystical aura of living fossils that patrol the remained conspicuously empty, things ing town of Real de Catorce, whose pop- Forbes Magazine on dark depths of the ocean. started to go awry. 18 January 2018. ulation dropped from 40,000 residents to At the time of writing, Truth or Consequences ate it up, and Completed in 2011 and with no set date less than a thousand after the silver crash in ExxonMobile has how would they not? Settled in 1876 as Hot for its first commercial launch, Spaceport announced plans to the late 19 th century. ⁶ Now, this remote increase its extraction Springs, Truth or Consequences (known almost immediately switched gears into 1 pueb lo in the mountains sustains a healthy from the area fivefold simply as T or C to locals) has always had a distracting self-promotion, co-opting T or C’s by 2025: a rate of commercial base of cafés, bars, motels, and 500,000 barrels a day. thing for the spectacular. In 1950, its 6,000- town hall and transforming it into the offi- shuttles out to the desert year-round. There, some residents voted to rename the town cial Spaceport Welcome Centre. Branson 6 Hutchinson, B. (1974, curious tourists can pick their own peyote 24 July) “Mountain top as part of a larger publicity stunt by the tapped the same company behind Disney- as souvenirs and tripping psychonauts can ghost town will be- popular radio quiz show of the same name land to create a similar environment of sus- come tourist center” find their spiritual essence out in the infinite, Hutchinson News, p.5. (its host, Ralph Edwards, announced he pended reality and patronising spectacle, star-studded wilderness of the desert. would air the programme’s 10 th anniver- complete with interactive exhibits and pro- Just as migrant psychedelic cacti and sary from the first town to change its name motional videos. the recreational drug trade trailing behind after the show). The name change was par- The Disneyfied entrance has been closed it have revitalised an old mining town in the tially T or C’s own PR stunt, and partially for weeks but LaRena Miller, the Executive Chihuahuan Desert, Spaceport America because the small town “didn’t have much Director of the larger Geronimo Trail pitched itself as an antidote to the sluggish else to stand for,” according to the owner of Sce nic Byway Visitor Centre housing tourist economy of Truth or Consequences. a Seventh Day Adventist thrift shop on the Space port’s Welcome Centre, senses my Sensing a southwestern gap in the space high street—and only main street—of this curiosity and lets me in. She flips the tourism market, with the other ten licensed 30 km² town. switch and suddenly a cacophony of spaceports around the country flocking But T or C’s rustic eccentricity cuts deep- Branson voices erupt from the video to Texas and Florida, mega mogul Richard er, with more than a third of its residents screens, while the interactive exhibits light Branson descended upon the unassuming making less than $ 15,000 per year, and up and whirr in fairground-like fashion. community of six thousand residents in forty-six per cent of children living beneath Following the death of a Virgin Galactic 2005. His first step in selling the Space- the US poverty line. ⁸ For Branson—whose pilot during a botched rocket launch in port America fantasy—just one of his individual net worth tops $ 5 billion—bleed- October 2014, the Welcome Centre—like 400 en ter prises—was to conjure a two- ing this impoverished town further to fund the rest of the Spaceport enterprise—has way desert mirage that could be sold to his space dreams was a no-brainer. To get “operated in a paranoid, erratic fashion, 1 The Peyote cactus is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive properties when H ingested. It is used worldwide, having a long history of ritualistic and medicinal use by indigenous North Americans. Peyote contains the hallucinogen mescaline. 95 NORTHERN AMERICA EXIT STRATEGIES Aerial view of the Gateway to Space facing west at Spaceport America. The site opened H in October 2011 and is built to accommodate both vertical and horizontal launch aero- space vehicles, as well as an array of non-aerospace events and commercial activities. 97 NORTHERN AMERICA EXIT STRATEGIES restricting access to its facilities and re- 7 About an hour’s drive sidise its construction has no official expi- centres to package-deal visits organised by northeast of Moscow, maining closed most days,” explains Miller, Star City (Zvyozdny ration date). Urban Outfitters. The sisters’ ambiguous while wiping some dust from the airport Gorodok) was an On the fringe of Joshua Tree in Landers, stance is an appropriate metaphor for the ultra-secret Air Force style check in counter. She gestures toward facility transformed California, sits the collective fantasy of booming business, which is booked out for some framed photographs of the facilities into a cosmonaut “ufologists”, lifestyle journalists, and Sound- months at a time by a steady stream of re- training centre in the nestled in an alcove like family portraits. heyday of the Soviet cloud musicians. Built in 1953 by ex-aviator turning clients and curious tourists. One of the glossier images is of a luxury space programme George Van Tassel, who claimed to have Each drawn into the desert by escape in the early 1960s. British sports car, the $ 3.5 million Aston Unveiled to the public received its blueprints from aliens, the Inte- fantasies conjured in the fatigue of late capi- Martin One-77, parked on Spaceport’s in the 90s following gratron is a 11.5 m tall cupola made entirely talism, cactus-hunting psychonauts, space the dissolution of 3.65 km runway. Aston Martin is one of the USSR, today Star out of wood. Today, it is run by three sisters tourists, and metaphysical spiritualists many companies taking advantage of the City behaves like a with no relation to Tassel who died in 1978 converge in the crosshairs of a hidden com- sort of self-sustained facility for car and motorcycle advertise- intergalactic Vegas: after twenty years of toiling away at the mercial flow. This ever-accelerating circu- ments, leasing Spaceport’s mythic aura for curious tourists can sixteen-sided, metal-free building. It now of- lation of goods, bodies, and capital moves test out the gear, their own luxury escapism. floatation tanks, and fers a transformative spiritual journey in the across borders and species, giving birth to 1 ↓2 Yet the economy of secrecy that binds other facilities that form of an hour-long, acoustically-perfect unique ecologies that emerge silently from originally primed soon- Spaceport America with its rival spaceports to-be-spacemen. sound bath. the desert sand. It also persists in shadowy as part of this second age of space travel These sonic healing sessions—priced and speculative ways: through the delayed 8 Joyce, G. and Mitchell, casts a darker shadow on Branson’s failure J. (2015) “Truth or between $ 30 – $ 90, depending on who’s promises and unexpected arrivals of tourist to launch. The billionaire space race, other- Consequences Main- rubbing your quartz crystal singing bowls, economies that breathe new life into dried street: Community wise known as Space Race 2.0, kicked off Economic Assess- and how many others are joining in—don’t up ghost towns or hover on the horizon, for- when NASA retired its space shuttle fleet ment” [bber.unm.edu/ quite reach Tassel’s original vision of time ever just out of reach. media/files/Truth in 2012 to focus on travel to Mars, and ap- %20or%20 travel and infinite life. The Integratron is Desert escapism has become the lucid pealed for private companies to step in. ⁹ Consequences%20 a sort of sacred vessel in its own right. It exit strategy from our overcrowded and Economic%20 Alongside the government, NASA has given Assessment.pdf] brings a steady flow of tourists, including undermined world. For the 1 %, this salvation large subsidies to private companies like rock stars (such as the Smashing Pumpkins, manifests through a life-changing orbit 9 Charlton, A. (2017) SpaceX, Up Aerospace, EXOS Aerospace, “Space Race 2.0: the Arctic Monkeys, and Arcade Fire on a around the Earth, face-to-face with the dark and EnergeticX to perform a space shuttle How SpaceX, Virgin post-Coachella cleanse) into the otherwise abyss of outer space. Others find it through Galactic, Blue Origin service that sends astronauts up to the In- and more will take isolated desert town of 3,900 inhabitants. the euphoric prick of a new vein of oil, its ternational Space Station, a task NASA us to the stars” Inter- It also attracts a large crowd of admiring sputtering black discharge as deep as any national Business currently outsources to Russia. ¹⁰ Unlike Times [ibtimes.co.uk/ architects who flock to the outskirts of cosmos. Still others find it in the unfamil- the interstellar fantasies of Elon Musk’s space-race-2-0- Joshua Tree to get a look at this perfectly iar faces of curious tourists who have trav- how-spacex-virgin- SpaceX and Jeff Bezos, Spaceport es- galactic-blue-origin- preserved sample of mid-century modern- elled many miles to land on their doorstep. capism was always supposed to be tem- more-will-take- ist design. Finally, the Integratron serves as Regardless of its physical form, desert es- us-stars-1627455] porary. Its suborbital flights would hardly a living fossil of Cold War-era UFO culture capism is sustained only by the continued graze the entry point of outer space; a 10 Messier, D. (2015) and cult spirituality. extraction of non-renewable resources from “No End in Sight for short 2.5 h trip would culminate with a brief Spaceport America Today’s visitors are not the only recipients the Earth. moment of noiseless suspension some Tax” Parabolic Arc. of the Integratron’s life-changing powers. The fuel of this fantasy is finite, but the [parabolicarc.com/ 100 km up, where passengers would “ex- 2017/09/05/ When Joanne, Nancy, and Patty Karl pur- darkness of the desert incubates this ec- perience weightlessness and views of our sight-spaceport- chased the Integratron in 2000 after two static fantasy of limitless potential. It lets america-tax/] beautiful planet that will change your per- decades of disuse, they decided to trade us keep the blinds closed a little longer, ception of life,” Branson coos in a pro mo- 11 Turner, C. (2012) in their former lives as medical researchers concealing the messy gravitas of the pres- “Foster + Partners' tional film. ¹¹ Surrounded by the infinite Spaceport America” and marketing managers. Joanne and Nancy ent with its lucid daydreams of rejuvena- Icon [iconeye.com/ darkness of the universe, space tourists architecture/ even moved out to the desert to learn the tion and invisibility. While delusion as a might achieve a higher form of spirituality, features/item/9838] craft of performing sound baths. Yet the resource has the longest half-life, the de- a deeper connection with the planet they owners—or “stewards”, as they prefer to sert’s physical expanse is quicker to reflect would soon return to again. With so much be called—tend to take an ambivalent ap- these pressure points. When the hallucino- money flowing in from investment capital proach to this spirituality, their business genic high wears off and the pseudo-spiri- alongside NASA and government funding, intuition emerging in collaborations with tualism comes crashing down like one of there’s no hurry for Spaceport to initiate other businesses to provide private resto- Virgin Galactic’s rockets, these illusions of its commercial offerings (the tax hike ap - ration retreats at the Integratron. Clients a desert salvation will dissolve into the arid proved by Sierra County in 2008 to sub- range from local metaphysical and wellness landscape like a cruel mirage. • H 1, 2 Inside the spaceport. Spaceport America has experienced problems in development of their programmes and technologies, resulting in revenues far below projections. 99 NORTHERN AMERICA EXIT STRATEGIES The creator of Integratron, George Van Tassel (1910 –1978), claimed that the structure H of the 55-foot diametre, all wood dome is based on the design of Moses’ Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. 101 NORTHERN AMERICA EXIT STRATEGIES FEDERAL VS. COMMERCIAL US SPACEPORTS US ROCKET LAUNCH VEHICLES Spaceports are sites for launching spacecrafts into the orbit of Earth or on interplanetary trajectories. They can be rented MOST LAUNCHES The US government prefered contractor for launching rockets was United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Boeing and PAYLOADS OF ROCKETS by companies that want to–for example–send satellites or tourists into space. While the first spaceports after World War II Lockheed Martin). But due to high cost structures new options for obtaining spaceflight services emerged since 2010. For were owned by the Federal Aviation Administration, more and more privately owned spaceports pop up today, fulfilling the >7.000 White Sands example, SpaceX–owned by Paypal-co-founder Elon Musk. Through the use of new technologies the company has de- [1] 60,000 kg rising demand for low costs and launches on time. A simple satellite launch can cost upwards of $ 60 million. 151 Cape Canaveral creased the costs of access to orbit by 10 –20 %, starting at around $ 57 million for a Falcon launch. [2] 45,000 kg 14 Kodiak Launch C. [3] 26,700 kg 8 Spaceport America [4] 8,900 kg 111 m [5] 1,350 kg 95 m USA 70 m 60 m 30 m Kodiak Launch Spaceport Complex America Cape Canaveral White Sands Missile Range US FEDERAL COMMERCIAL PROPOSED COMMERCIAL US STATE WITH 1–SATURN V (APOLLO 2–NEW GLENN (BLUE 3–FALCON HEAVY 4–ATLAS V (UNITED 5–MINOTAUR C SPACEPORT SPACEPORT SPACEPORT SPACEPORT MOON MISSIONS) ORIGIN) (SPACEX) LAUNCH ALLIANCE) (ORBITAL ATK) US COMMERCIAL ORBITAL LAUNCHES REUSABLE ROCKET LAUNCH SYSTEM The space launch services business began in the early decades of the Space Age in the 1950s with state-owned programmes. NUMBER OF COMMERCIAL The use of innovative technologies has reduced the costs of entering the orbit drastically. For example, SpaceX has de- FALCON 9 PARTS Only when commercial satellites became a major tool of communication and transport later in the 20 th century, the mar- LAUNCHES IN 2017 veloped a reusable launch system for NASA to service the International Space Station (ISS). Thereby the Falcon 9 booster ket became privatised. In 2017, the United States, Russia, Europe, China, Japan, India, and New Zealand conducted a total rocket used to launch the payload flies back and lands safely on an offshore floating patform on Earth. The manoeuvre was 1 First Stage of 90 orbital launches, 33 of which were commercial. Most of these 33 launches were conducted by private companies. 21 USA performed successfully for the first time in 2015 and raised SpaceX’s global commercial market share up to 62 % by 2017. 2 Interstage 8 Europe 3 Second Stage 3 Russia 4 Dragon Cargo 1 New Zealand Capsule 70 60 boostback burn adjusts second stage ignites to vehicle and deceleration 50 boost payload into orbit fins slow it vehicle 40 separates 30 4 20 3 2 launch from single engine 10 Cape Canaveral landing burn 1 0 2008 2013 2018 2023 2027 ATLANTIC OCEAN X HISTORICAL AND PROJECTED COMMERCIAL US ORBITAL LAUNCHES COMMERCIAL ORBITAL LAUNCHES FOR THE CONTRIBUTER NAME TELECOMMUNICATION INDUSTRY 103 GEOGRAPHICAL ZONE UN-anchored drone ARTICLE TITLE platform (92 x 52 m)
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