ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Franco Vaccari's work was particularly trenchant because of the loaded medium; photobooths produced the standardized portraits used in identity cards, the official document of citizenship. It analyses position the personal as political, albeit in different historical contexts. The book also analyzes photographs, performances, sculptures, and videos from the 1990s and early 2000s by three contemporary artists from Turkey: Sener Ozmen, Jujin, and Hale Tenger. It deals with the relationship of borders and citizenship. The book explains how new media technologies, such as blogging and YouTube, were used to construct citizenship in the case of Mikhail Sebastian, a refugee from Azerbaijan living in the United States. It focuses on the United States-Mexico border region and relations between Anglo Americans and people of Mexican descent.
