Black Sites (2009)
An installation by Christian de Lutz

'Black sites' is the military and journalistic terminology for the extra-legal detention and interrogation centers used by The United States and allied governments in the 'war on terror.' The most famous black sites are camps Delta, Iguana and X-Ray at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A number of less known sites exist or have existed throughout the world, including in Europe. A number of journalistic sources have documented their existence, as well as the stories of former inmates and intelligence and military officials at these sites.

The black sites were set up by both the U.S. military and the CIA to facilitate interrogation of suspected Al Qaeda members, so as to discover actionable intelligence in the quickest possible way. Many of the interrogation methods used, such as waterboarding, confinement in claustrophobic quarters, sensory deprivation and psychological and physical stress, have proved extremely controversial. While the Bush administration has insisted that these methods did not and do not qualify as torture, many legal and human rights professionals disagree.

The installation black sites presents texts in spoken and written form, taken from documents provided by Amnesty International and articles by the journalist Jane Mayer from the New Yorker. The texts are based on accounts of those present at actual black sites, including both inmates and interrogators. The audiotexts are placed in spaces whose design is based on reported holding, interrogation and confinement cells. Viewers thus place themselves, temporarily, in situations of physical confinement and sensory deprivation that parallel the accounts that they then listen to on headphones. Additional material, in a written form, will also be provided, to further document the phenomenon of black sites and provide the source material of the audio texts.

In addition to the installation are two series of digital prints. The prints of black sites (FOIA) are facsimiles of CIA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents were requested with keywords which are shown, but almost all the rest information has been blacked out by CIA censors. The other series is based on satellite photographs of some of the black sites (Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Bagram air Base, Afghanistan.) The prints also include depictions of internet based 'mash-ups', material that people have put online documenting specific geographic locations. This depicts the ironic situation in which supposedly secret locations are readily accessible to viewing by the common citizenry. The suggestion is that open access to information is our best defense against human rights abuses.

-Christian de Lutz,