"Every (digital) application defines a boundary: we enter a platform like Uber or Facebook or Instagram. When you use a particular browser, it defines rules and you engage with the rules of that company, that organization ..."

— from "processing borders" by Ian Purnell & Philine Rinnert

In processing boarders Ian Purnell and Philine Rinnert question the assertion of territorial and national boundaries. The main character is a replica of a 250-year-old boundary stone - a remnant of the Peace of Westphalia. Its story is expanded with encounters at the German-Dutch border and a conversation about the supposedly borderless space of the Internet. A border crossing between documentation and fiction, realism and utopia, seriousness and wit.

processing borders by
Ian Purnell & Philine Rinnert

with
Johannes Hoven
Freek Diersen
Marleen Stikker
Heinz Kroschner

processing borders was created in the context of the performance Westfailure, a co-production of Burg Hülshoff - Center for Literature with the Westfälischer Kunstverein, as part of europa:westfalen - literaturfestival [lila we:] 2021.

Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

Westfailure was part of the project The White White West?: Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Kunststiftung NRW and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.