Open.Kurator

EU Green Card Lottery

Societe Realiste

Project date: January 2006

submitted 2009-01-13 17:37:33

Call: After the Net

Description:

To address the issue of global immigration management, Société Réaliste has devised a three-part project consisting of a website, a promotional campaign and a physical installation. The EU Green Card Lottery website mimics a very specific type of website - “parasite” websites - which exploit aspiring migrant workers hoping to apply for the American Green Card Lottery system. These sites encourage migrant candidates to apply to the U.S. State Department Lottery through them and pay for this service which is actually free. These parasite websites are designed to resemble official U.S. Sites complete with star-spangled banner, bald eagle, statue of liberty, etc. but are really just frauds – another component of the vast engine of the migration business. The EU Green Card Lottery promotional campaign drives people to the website. Usually displayed in various contexts, the physical installation is a meticulously created and totally fictional EU Green Card Lottery Registration Office. The idea is to stay as close as possible to what could be an official EU program, in order to engage with the main problems and principles of the generalized migration business."

Format: Website

Genre: Multimedia

URL: http://www.green-card-lottery-eu.org

Artist Bio:

Société Réaliste is a Paris-based cooperative created by Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy in June 2004. This cooperative manages the development of several research and economical structures in fields such as territorial ergonomy, experimental economy, political design or counter-strategy. Société Réaliste is researcher at Jan van Eyck Academie  (Maastricht) and is represented by Galerie Martine Aboucaya (Paris). For more info, www.societerealiste.net

Tags: information campaign, installation, website