Black Sea files

Abstract

Black Sea Files is a territorial research on the Caspian oil geography: the world?s oldest oil extraction zone. The overall focus of the two-year video exploration is the spatial and social transformations introduced by the gigantic infrastructure project. Passing through the Southern Caucasus and Turkey, the newly built pipeline pumps large amounts of new Caspian crude oil from Azerbaijan to the world market. In record time, the representation of the region has changed from that of a politically unsettled and impoverished post-Soviet periphery hosting a million displaced people, to a space where energy and capital flow at a rate that is remarkable even by world standards. In the wider picture, the oil pipeline is the first materialization of a larger European plan to expand access to Caspian oil reserves, moving even further into post-Cold War territories. A veritable Super-Silk Highway is the long-term vision behind it, and it will encompass a fully integrated transportation and communication network linking Europe with Central Asia. The pipeline is a geo-strategic project of some political impact, not only for the powerful players in the region, but also for a great number of locals: farmers, oil workers, migrants, and prostitutes. These are the subjects that populate the video, turning the corridor into a complex human geography. While migration and displacement are a major historical experience in this part of the world between the Caucasus and Turkey, it is crucial to conceive of migration not as a singular phenomenon but one among many strands of interaction between regional and national spaces. In this instance, the video looks at the movement of people in relation to flows of resources, capital, information, and images. What is at stake here is not only a matter of oil, land and power, but also a centralizing practice of image making that needs to be dispersed to include the many sidelines and secondary landscapes in the extended geography of Caspian oil.