otb-portfolio/passports.tex

\section{Passports: identity and airports}

\begin{frame}{Introduction}
    Airports and passports are corner stones of the current and future world and society. They represent the freedom to travel and the power of aerial transportation.

    However, they also are signs and symbols of the climate change. The one represent the main source of carbon emissions of the average individual of the western world, the other is a
    symbol of all the people that will be forced to move and flee from their countries because of climate change.  
    
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[allowframebreaks]{Origins of the passport}
\begin{itemize}
    \item Nowadays passports date back to the beginning of the $20^{th}$ century.
    \item They always have been used by international organisations and countries to attest the personal and national identity of an individual.
\end{itemize}
 
Before that, passports, tattoos, marks, badges\dots where used to identify what kind of people one was.
\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width = .3\linewidth]{images/passports/badge.png}
    \caption{An example of such badge.}
\end{figure}
For instance, beggars and poor people had to wear a visible badge form the end of the $17^{th}$ century. At this time, people who committed crimes were tattooed with distinctive letters according to the crime they were guilty of.

Throughout the nineteenth century, identification means evolved towards documents with physical description of the individual (at the time, photography was not widespread), seals, signatures,\dots.

Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, passports started to include photographs and all sorts of information: height, date of birth, place of birth, address\dots   

At the end of the century ('70s), more elements were added to ensure authenticity of the document: laminated photographs, watermarks\dots

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{images/passports/pass.png}
    \caption{A more modern version of passports, with counterfeiting-proof artifacts}
\end{figure}

\end{frame}


\begin{frame}{Security in airports}
    When traveling around the world, airports are a major frontier place. As most long-distance travel are made with planes, most people go through airports 
    when going in a foreign country. This makes airports a very sensitive place, as they are the gateway to a country. They must filter between desired traffic (tourists, workers,\dots) and undesired traffic (criminal, terrorists, illegal merchandise\dots).
    Therefore, security is a huge matter when it comes airports. They are the most surveilled and secured places one can experience in the modern world.
    The size of such a challenge is proportional to the tremendous flow of daily passengers. 
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Relation of a passenger to an airport}
    People are not familiar with airports, nobody really knows the place when going inside. Yet, airports are done in a way such as everything happens as if people were familiar with it.
    Signalisations guides the flow of people perfectly to their destination even though they are not familiar with the building. Particularly, one does not have to be familiar with a specific airport, one just has to be
    familiar with the concept of airport, as all airports around the world look alike in a certain manner. \\
    Everybody is familiar with ticket offices, waiting spaces, boarding gates.
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Dichotomy in airports}

    It is interesting to notice that the notion of filter in ubiquitous in airports along with the idea of dichotomy is too.
    \begin{figure}
        \centering
        \includegraphics[width=.5\linewidth]{images/passports/sterile.png}
        \caption{The sterile/non-sterile dichotomy in airports}
    \end{figure}
    
    The photography above represents the clear split between a part that is considered absolutely safe on the left-hand side and the one that is not secured on the right-hand side.
    Associating potential threats with micro-organisms and security with sterilisation.

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{The hybrid concept}
    Finally, airports are the perfect place to describe the concept of hybrids.
    Hybridisation is the phenomenon happening the a human being becomes inseparable from a material object.

    In the case of an airport, the human being and its passport, especially in the context of the airport are deeply interwoven.
     Obviously, the passport has no mean being in an airport without the corresponding human being. But the symmetric situation is also true, the individual has no use
     being in an airport without its passport. This little reasoning shows that the individual and the passport are inseparable from each other. 
    
\end{frame}