who will pay for Donald Trump’s wall and what will it look like?
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised supporters he would take a hard stance on immigration and build an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall” between the US and Mexico. While an effective national boarder is usually considered as infrastructure, Trump’s grand vision of an impenetrable barrier from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico seems to be nothing but a physical monument to his hardline immigration policy. Most experts say it would be nearly impossible to make the barrier truly impenetrable and every wall can be circumvented. If the wall is to be built, its function will be more symbolic or ‘poetic’ than technical. Besides, due to a lack of funding and congressional support for the project, we might never see the “big, beautiful wall” Trump promised his supporters. In this sense, the promised construction itself may be seen as a symbolic campaign.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2179808/donald-trump-wall-mexico-border-cost/
Considering Larkin’s idea of ‘technopolitics’ and the ‘poetics of aesthetics’, it is interesting to see how Trump has already been negotiating for budget to design the wall and for future construction, and how the bidders plan to use high-tech material to make the wall ‘a piece of art’, creating a sense of modern and secure.
Contributed by YuranYan on 20/02/2018
