Illustrations vii

Check-In: A Prelude xiii

Charting a Course: Exile, Diaspora, Nomads, Refugees: A Genealogy of Art and Migration 1

Departure A. Moving Images of Globalization 21

1. Indeterminacy and Bare Life in Steve McQueen's Western Deep 33

2. "Sabotaging the Future": The Essay-Films of the Otolith Group 54

3. Hito Steyerl's Traveling Images 74

Transit: Politicizing Aesthetics 90

Departure B. Life Full of Holes 95

4. The Art of Emily Jacir: Dislocation and Politicization 103

5. Recognizing the Unrecognized: The Photographs of Ahlam Shibli 124

6. The Right of Opacity: On the Otolith Group's Nervus Rerum 144

Transit: Going Offshore 160

Departure C. Zones of Conflict 169

7. Out of Beirut: Mobile Histories and the Politics of Fiction 177

8. Video's Migrant Geography: Ursula Biemann's Sahara Chronicle 201

9. Means without End: Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri's Camp Campaign 221

Destination: The Politics of Aesthetics during Global Crisis 245

Acknowledgments 251

Notes 255

Bibliography 305

Index 323