Illegal Cross-Border Butterflies
Butterflies do not respect borders; they traverse their own pathways. The Blue Polyommatus Damonides is known worldwide for two populations: one located in Nakhichevan (a western Azerbaijan enclave) and another in the Meghri area of Armenia. The Armenian population was thought to be extinct due to habitat destruction from open-pit mining, but remnants of this species have recently been rediscovered, necessitating strong protection.
Many use plant-derived toxins for defense, making themselves toxic or unpalatable, akin to chemical warfare. The spots on their wings signal this danger to potential enemies. To survive, they create accidental beauty for our eyes. Others mimic these rare color patterns to appear lethal or distasteful.
Another traditional combat tactic used by these insects is camouflage. Some have colors similar to leaves, branches, and other elements of the landscape. When resting, a butterfly often position its wings to cast minimal shadow. A few even distract predators with decoys, such as simulating a false head on their tail to mislead attackers into striking the wrong end. Those that lack these defenses often execute an unpredictable flight, to difficult the catching.
Insect collection, much like wars where AI is employed, involves creating target lists, gathering all possible information about their environment and behavior, and then pinning them. They can be captured passively with traps, some baited with sweet foods, or actively with nets. Ultraviolet light is used for nocturnal bugs. Aspirators capture the smallest ones. Aerial nets catch flying arthropods, while a sweep net is needed for those living among vegetation. Once collected, they are sacrificed for preservation using killing jars or ethanol and water solutions, depending on their type.
The dynamics of human hunting through new inventions often begin by dehumanizing their marks. The drone operators usually called their killings as ‘bug splats’ because that was what they resemble on their screens. In a practice widely used in the past, the enemy is treated as non-human. Each of the "eliminated" has a profile with their data, which first places them on a kill list and then leads to their death. It seems as if they are collecting insects. When people enter certain contested areas, they can easily become targets for states equipped with advanced surveillance tools.
A reality that doesn't get much attention in the news is the so-called trade routes. Historically, these have been linked to armed conflicts: wars, skirmishes, punitive actions, terrorism, etc. This is clearly evident in the case of the Zangezur corridor. In regions like this, coveted by several neighboring powers, small countries tend to appear and disappear; enclaves with strange names that almost no one remembers once they cease to exist (Republic of Mountainous Armenia). We could say that, like a mark on the skin warning of a disease, shifting borders and states controlled by large empires are symptoms of significant commercial interests at play in that part of the world.
Therefore, it is crucial to identify as soon as possible these zones that will become operational fields of technical brutality. Another sign is when, after sudden military incursions, or a full-blown war, there is silence surrounding them. In South Caucasus, many examples of violence have already occurred that barely merited space in the massive flow of information. Even certain instances of ethnic cleansing and destruction of cultural heritage, which in other cases have raised alarms when recorded elsewhere.
The colonization of the future, like any empire, feeds on a curated past—one that is preferred, elevated, even glorified.
So how could we break free? Basal art—work that rejects the eye and ear, leaning instead on smell, taste, touch. Experiences that can’t be archived or repackaged. No energy wasted, no data extracted. This refusal to record, to consume—might is the only way out. We have to get imaginative to respond to a new dawn of the human.
https://palaciosrojo.neocities.org/basal/artmanifesto
https://palaciosrojo.neocities.org/basal/reasons
https://palaciosrojo.neocities.org/