Sunday, March 30, 2025

DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows


DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows, the curated survey exhibition of the last decade of my creative practice and research is entering its last week. The exhibition is at the University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia. The exhibition was curated by the gallery director, Brodie Taylor, JP (Qual), BCRA (hons), FRSA, FSA Scot, MIML, GAICD. The exhibition represents a milestone in my creative and academic journey. 

The show finishes on Friday April 4. Gallery hours Tuesday - Friday 10am - 3pm. 

The exhibition has, according to the Director, attracted hundreds of visitors. I am thrilled! The opening event was also a vibrant occasion, which ended with a panel discussion, 'War in the Age of Hyperconnectivity: What does it look like?'. I was very pleased to discuss military and civilian impacts of signal-enabled hyperconnectivity and the importance of art as a method to examine these impacts, with colleague, Dr. Samid Suliman (Griffith University) and, industry representative, Dave Devine OAM, from Alkath Group-Mellori Solutions.

Here are some photos of the exhibition, opening, and panel discussion. My artist's statement is at the end of the post. And, the exhibition essay 'Against the Sensoration of the World', by Associate Professor Michael Richardson (Uni of New South Wales), is also at the end. 

Beliefs and Battlefields is on the floor. Viewers can walk around the multi-piece painting.
Various parts can be 'read' from different perspectives. 

Left: Ghost Bat, rearrange-able 30 piece painting, 2022-2023.
Right: Ghost Cloud, 2024.

DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows exhibition.

That's me with my exhibition, DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows.

Panel: L - R: Dave Devine OAM, Dr. Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, Dr. Samid Suliman.

        Panel: L - R: Dave Devine OAM, Dr. Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, Dr. Samid Suliman.

People at the opening of DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows.
The event had to be postponed to mid-way through the exhibition due to Cyclone Alfred causing havoc and flooding across a vast area of Queensland.  



Thanks must also be given to Brodie Taylor, JP (Qual), BCRA (hons), FRSA, FSA Scot, MIML, GAICD. He is a terrific curator to work with. He had a vision for the show, and it has worked wonderfully.

Artist Statement

DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows

I invite viewers of my paintings to ‘fly’ in their imaginations, above, below, inside, and around the mechanisms of war and spawning new modes of signal-facilitated warfare - information, hybrid, cyber, space, and electromagnetic. If you ‘fly’ beyond orbiting satellites, the earth-to-satellite environment can be cosmically ‘viewed’, as an extension of landscape. It is an invisible hyper-landscape of signals carrying data and instructions, transmitted at beyond-human speed – lightspeed.

Drone: Ghost and Shadows represents a survey of my work created over the last ten years. While the paintings address militarised technology, the militarise-ability of civilian technology, and increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), each painting has multiple other influences. As a pre-teen I loved biographies of famous scientists - Marconi, Faraday, Curie, Pasteur. I also loved art. During my B.A, while majoring in art history, I undertook a year-long history subject, The History of Science. This subject has profoundly influenced my life’s work, helping to integrate my youthful fascinations, and inspiring me to ‘see’ connections between art, science, culture, technology, society, war, politics, and more. This throng of inspirations has shaped my creative practice, and my interdisciplinary post-graduate studies. 

I grew up on a farm between Dalby and Jimbour, Queensland. As I gazed across the vast landscape of endless skies and flat horizons, I ‘flew’, in imagination, above our farm. I knew what it looked like - buildings, crops, ploughed paddocks, roads - from above.  Childhood imaginational flight is the source of my creative and critical method - ‘imaginational metaveillance.’ I combine it with painting practice to interrogate the visible, and to expose the normally invisible, elements of our hyperconnected world – from civilian and military airborne drones to the lightspeed electromagnetic frequencies our civilian and military technologies rely upon for connectivity and interconnectivity. While imaginational metaveillance and painting are not reliant on digital/cyber devices, or signal connectivity, this does not preclude them as methods to critique these technologies. Rather, they provide a distance from them that affords different perspectives. DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows is your chance to ‘see’ what this distance reveals.

Below is the wonderful exhibition essay by Associate Professor, Michael Richardson (UNSW). 



OTHER NEWS
In other news, I invite you to watch/listen to the first half hour of my presentation 'Painting the Politics of Drones' at the March Visual Politics Research Program seminar, University of Queensland. The second half was Q&A

It can also be viewed on YOUTUBE

Cheers,
Kathryn

Saturday, January 18, 2025

HOLDING ON OR LETTING GO?

Beliefs and Battlefields Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2024.

NEWS!

New article, Surrendering to 'too powerful' technologies: from the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone, published in Media, War, and Conflict journal.

__________________________________________________________________________

HOLDING ON OR LETTING GO?  
Beliefs and Battlefields (above) and An Unfolding Story (below) were inspired by the work of Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia MacDonald, co-authors of a new book The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Military Arsenal (2024 online, 2025 print). The third painting, Another Unfolding Story (bottom)was inspired by creating the first two paintings. Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and is the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative. Julia MacDonald is Director, Research and Engagement Asia New Zealand Foundation, NZ. 

Having previously read some of Jacquelyn Schneider's work, when I read the early edition of this new book's Introduction, I was inspired. From a US perspective, the book examines various issues dealing with human beliefs about the conduct of war, including "technological determinism and military revolutions, force protection and casualty aversion, and service identities"(abstract)

PAINTINGS
In each painting I have painted outlines of human hands. In Beliefs and Battlefields small squares painted on three of the hands and some of the military devices mimic pixels. These pixels reference digital technology, computer graphics, and aspirational concepts of human-machine teaming. Four shadow-like hands seem to hover in the background, their white forms are ghostly. Perhaps they are reminders of human history and its drive for technological advancement. For example, the Futurists of the early twentieth century embraced the idea of industrial speed - the automobile, the train, and the airplane. Against a backdrop of the First World War and industrial inventions, the Futurists enthusiastically applauded mechanical and industrial speed as a sign of progress. 

In the late twentieth century Paul Virilio observed that during the first Gulf War (1990-1991) the “real environment for all important military action is no longer so much the geographic environment, be it desert or other terrain, but rather the electromagnetic domain” (Virilio, Desert Screen, War at the Speed of Light, 1991, 88). Invisible signals, travelling at lightspeed (or near lightspeed) transmitted images from surveillance drones to remote operators, at the same time images of war were transmitted to television sets around the world. Lightspeed, unlike mechanical speed, operates beyond human perceptions of sight, sound, feeling, and time. Since the first Gulf War the systems and machines of war are increasingly unmanned, remotely operated, autonomous, interconnected, and interoperable. Beliefs and Battlefields depicts how terrain, from earth to orbiting satellites, is enfolded into the invisible "electromagnetic domain". In the painting, unmanned and autonomous robotic systems are connected via painted lines that represent normally invisible signalic connectivity, interconnectivity and interoperability.
 
In Beliefs and Battlefields, the pixel-hands, seem instrumental. The shadow-hands, however, seem to be reaching out, perhaps from the past to the future, which is now. While contemporary war zones remind us that physical battlefields still exist, other kinds of 'battlefields' - cyber, information, political, electromagnetic - generate complexity. The term battlefield is an intriguing one. With my research into increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in mind, a quote from United States Department of Defense’s (USDoD) October 2020 Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy raises concerns. The document describes the EMS operational (EMSO) environment - Virilio's "electromagnetic domain" - as a "battlespace, a place where competition and warfare, as well as commerce and other nonmilitary activities, are conducted". (USDoD, 3) The earth-to-orbiting satellite environment, therefore, is a largely invisible battlespace/field that embroils both civilian and military technologies. This sense of an encompassing volumetric battlespace, from Earth to satellites, is evident in both Beliefs and Battlefields and An Unfolding Story. 

In An Unfolding Story, I have painted interconnecting circles, rather than lines, to indicate interconnectivity. These circles form a cloud-like mesh - the 'cloud'. Like the shadow-hands in Beliefs and Battlefields, the hands in this painting seem to hover between being there and not. Are they holding on or letting go? What are they holding onto or letting go of? Could it be beliefs?

An Unfolding Story, Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2024.

Another Unfolding Story (below), painted some months after Beliefs and Battlefields and An Unfolding Story, is a departure from the other two paintings. However, I probably would not have painted it without the experience of thinking through and creating the other two paintings. I think there might be more to come too! Thank you Jacquelyn and Julia!

Again, hands feature, but I will let you ponder alone.
(the binary code 'instructs' repeated questions marks ?????

The painting echoes previous work On the Edge of Being and Where's The Beating Heart?. Both paintings channel the aesthetics of Douglas Hofstadter's invention, the ambigram. Check out the linked titles for more details. 

Cheers, Kathryn.


Another Unfolding Story, Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2025.




Sunday, December 29, 2024

WHERE ARE THE SHADOWS?


Disappearing Shadows Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2024
Copyright - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox


SPEED
There is an avalanche of both information and hype about AI, LLMs, generative AI, and associated issues such as creativity, job losses, speed, efficiency, human-machine teaming, and more. One key aspect that I pick up on is how often AI-enabled speed is viewed as an advantage. AI speed is great if a life/lives is/are in jeopardy. But, speed does not necessarily equate with efficiency, productivity, satisfaction, and creativity. Speed can kill. Speed can bypass. Speed can blind. Speed can confuse. But, gee, it can be exciting - maybe that's why we are blinded by it?

AI-enabled or assisted systems generally also rely upon signal connectivity to servers, relay points, satellites, and other systems for software updates, cloud access, digital tools, and the communication and dissemination of outcomes, and more. This adds another layer of speed - lightspeed or near lightspeed transmission of signals that enable connectivity as they carry instructions and various kinds of data. In a signal-enabled connected and interconnected world of speed, systems require standardised and synchronised protocols to meet our increasing expectations of and for speed. In an increasingly standardised and synchronised system, human involvement can slow down process speed, introducing choke points that are then deemed to require bypassing or replacement with more autonomous components. I ask, is a world built around and for beyond-human speed a one way journey to homogenised behaviour, aesthetics, and expectations... ? 

Does speed propel us forward, or are we, in fact, in free-fall? Either way, beyond-human speed erodes attention, thus eliding peripherality and laterality. In doing so, orientation to time and space is difficult, if not impossible. Maybe that is why techno-AI-hype maintains an awestruck hold, with its 'sound bites' of constant announcements about new iterations, updates, and possibilities assisting seemingly forward propulsion or accelerating free-fall. Hype may be the only way to gain even a nano-second of attention in a world of speed. 

SAMENESS
You can already see 'sameness' occurring in car design, advertising, fashion, image production, and more. Yes, Chat GPT and other generative-AI tools are major influences for this registration to the mean, but underlying much of the hype is speed of generation. If you read commentary from tech companies, marketeers, users, and wannabe artists, words like 'speed' and 'fast' pepper their scripts of excited awe. Militaries and defence departments around the world are also increasingly aware of speed in a hyperconnected world. I have written about this in a recent (2024) article 'Lightspeed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review' in Digital War journal. 

PAINTINGS
Disappearing Shadows and Virtual Shadow visually ask questions about human-machine teaming, technology and beyond-human speed, data as a proxy for life, AGI hype, and more. The paintings are offerings from a periphery - my painting studio where no computer is involved in the process of creation. Using my creative and critical method of 'imaginational metaveillance', I use painting as a medium to reflect upon technology, speed, tech hype, and more. I use imaginational metaveillance and painting to observe in ways that can reveal patterns and behaviours that become invisible as they become normalised into speed's slipstream. 

While these paintings may appear simple, they took time. I sprayed the watercolour paper with water, then had to wait until the saturated paper was just right for me to apply the gouache paint. Yes, some of the painting was swift, but after the paintings had dried, I returned to them to accentuate certain areas, rewet others, and add some more markings. I did not apply a 'style' from a menu! 

I could write more, but I will leave it there.

Cheers, Kathryn
P.S. Links to more on imaginational metaveillance 👇 

2024: Brimblecombe-Fox, K. 2024. “Imaginational Metaveillance: Revelations in the Drone Age” in Drone Aesthetics: War, Culture, Ecology, Open Humanities Press. Eds. Beryl Pong (University of Cambridge) and Michael Richardson (University of New South Wales). 

2024: Brimblecombe-Fox, K. 2024. “Imaginational Metaveillance, Creative Painting Practice, and the Airborne Drone” in   Drones in Society: A New Visual Aesthetics, Palgrave Macmillan. Ed. Elisa Serafinelli (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK).


Virtual Shadow Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2024
Copyright - Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox







Sunday, December 15, 2024

GHOSTS AND SHADOWS: SEEKING PATTERNS

 

Ghosts and Shadows: Seeking Patterns Oil on linen 92 x 112cm 2024


Ghosts and Shadows: Seeking Patterns is a new painting that plays with multiple influences and issues that occupy my mind, and imagination. The visual indulgence of repetitive shapes alludes to algorithmic pattern detections that assist collection, storage, and sorting of data. Patterning also references algorithmic and AI statistical and sequencing operations across interconnected and inter-operational technologies. Patterning also alludes to synchronisation and standardisation requirements for these interconnected and inter-operational technologies to produce or generate outcomes and outputs. And, patterning also indicates how synchronisation and standardisation lead to homogenisation - aesthetic, behavioural, expectations, and more. 

Yet patterning can be quite reassuring. I have played with this sense of reassurance in Ghosts and Shadows: Seeking Patterns. However, the reassurance is a ruse. In my mind, each patterned section denotes technological capabilities, dispersed across a synchronised scape. Two MQ-28 Ghost Bat drones ambigrammatically relate to each other. Is one a shadow? Are they allied drones, or is one an enemy drone? Is one a digital twin? Both drones are painted with different patterns across their fuselages and wings. For me, this indicates the MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone's multirole capabilities within one drone, as well as across a group-swarm of drones ie: removable nose cones allow different payloads.

The background is an assortment of lines, circles, squares, rectangles, and shard-like shapes. They create a kind of landscape or skyscape, a measured environment that appears to be colourful and neutral. Are you above, below, or in front of this unusual scape? Neutrality, however, is not assured if the patterns are geolocating measures designed to guide autonomous drone flight. Are the patterns a sign that geography is algorithmically sequenced to enhance target selection? The patterns may harbor dispersed dual-use and/or latent lethality.

The softer background plays with the idea of ghosts and shadows. Maybe other worlds? Or, maybe past sorties, the drones now readied for an immanent new deployment, or on the edge of full blown attack? 

The words seeking patterns in the title of the painting is my way of indicating that while algorithms scope data for patterns, sequences, and statistical alignments or anomalies, we humans can also identify patterns - patterns of homogeneity, patterns of creeping normalisations, patterns of standardised behaviour, expectations, and more. 

As a painting, Ghosts and Shadows: Seeking Patterns exposes, but also retreats from the world of algorithms and AI. 

I'll leave you to ponder!
Cheers,
Kathryn

PS. My solo show, DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows, curated by the University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery is early next year. You can find details on the UniSQ Art Gallery site. 

PPS. Have you read my article "Light-Speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review" in Digital War journal? It is open access, so anyone can read it! 

Sunday, September 29, 2024

SPOOFED AI GENERATION: A PAINTED PORTRAIT

Self Portrait: From My Dataset, Oil on 3 canvas boards, 2024


Generative AI is the talk of the town. 

I am particularly interested in gen-AI image production. 

Fast AI generated 'paintings'! 
Gen-AI image production has provided the vehicle for tech-bros types, opportunists, and wannabes to become 'artists'. After a prompt, the speed of generation induces exclamations about how fast images can be 'created', 'painted'. I have seen these words used, and yes, I have pointed out, for example, that a generated image may have elements of various paintings, due to data scraped from online sources, but this does not make the generated image a painting. Rather, it falls into contested areas of copyrighted image use! Yes, the generated image might simulate painterly-textural elements, but again this does not make it a painting, because a painting is a material object, created with actual materials, such as, canvas, brushes - and paint! 

The clincher is that the gen-AI 'painting' has been GENERATED using algorithms - it has not been created using paint. If the generated image was to be made into a material object, it would need to be printed, and then it would become a print. And, there's a huge range of print types, from monoprints, limited edition artist prints (lithographs, etching, screen prints etc) to the mass produced prints found in places like IKEA, news agencies, KMART etc. And, of course, the use of canvas giclee prints (not a fan!).

Last year (2023) I made all these comments (above) to someone on TWITTER (X), in response to their excited tweet about their speedily produced series of gen-AI 'paintings' - and - their response was something like, "Hey, good points"! It was like a revelation to this person! This is why artists and art historians with a broad experiences and understanding across multiple creative practices and histories need to engage in current debates about generative-AI image production. Some of the tools list 'styles' in which a prompter can choose for their image generation. This is akin to a list of font styles - but choosing a font style to write text, does not make a person a good writer, nor a creative writer, a poet, a speech writer.... 

On the issue of speed and generative AI, I have many concerns about the lure of speed and its effect on contemporary world-building activities. These concerns are based on my PhD research, an examination of increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum. But, that's for another blog post! In the meantime, here's an article I wrote, published in Digital War Journal, Light-Speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review 

Is 'cultural product' a better description?
Although my comments above may not indicate it, while I am concerned, I also find the explosion in generated AI image production to be extremely interesting, for many reasons. I do prefer, however, to view the phenomenon as cultural activity, with image outputs as cultural product. I propose that these descriptions avoid the binary question - is it art or not? I hasten to add that art is also a cultural activity. Thus, the topic can be opened up to embrace wider cultural and social issues, for example, the influence of tech platforms on increasingly homogenised visual aesthetics across various aspects of cultural production - design, fashion, advertising, football paraphernalia. and yes, art too? One of my hobby-horses is the homogenisation and standardisation of car design!

I'll add here, to avoid being called a technophobe 😁, some images and videos derived from gen-AI tools, could be called art. It's what someone, an artist, does with the tool or the tool's product generation? For example, if an artist develops their own datasets and experiments with them, or 'breaks' the technology by introducing glitches or other interstices, or does something with a generated image, for example - prints it and then draws or paints over it, or rips it up and weaves pieces into other ripped up pieces. There are so many possibilities. 

One needs to keep in mind that art, whether AI assisted, painted, sculpted, digital or other, can be good or bad, fashionable or cutting edge. Critical appraisal is another subject for another day. 

'Art' and advertising
Simply ascribing the term 'art' to a product/service/tool does not elevate the product, but some opportunistically seem to think so. The term 'art' has become a marketing word or medium for companies that develop gen-AI tools. This reeks of desires to legitimise and elevate their products. But, this reeking exposes ignorance, opportunism, carelessness. 

John Berger's observation, in Ways of Seeing (book and TV show-1970s), that during the mid 20th century famous paintings/art were used to advertise completely unassociated products, such as alcohol and cars, provides a way to critically think about how the term 'art' is used to market contemporary tech products. The 21st century twist is that the so-called 'art' and the tech being promoted/sold are less divisible than in the mid 20th century promotions. 

Divisibility is illustrated in the image below, a photo from a 1967 edition of a French magazine, Réalités, that my mother used to subscribe to. A detail of Emil Jean Horace Vernet's painting Bataille du pont d'Acole' (1826) is used to promote a product, Courvoisier Cognac. AND, while the advertisement in effect cheapens art as an advertising motif, please notice that the advertiser places a caption acknowledging the artist, the painting, and the context of the painting. This does not happen with images now scraped from online sites where artists works are posted. In the twenty-first century the cheapening continues at speed! Ironically, this is at the same time people aspire to be called artists, many claiming the anybody can be an artist, and that all artists are inspired by other artists, so copying is ok etc! Regarding the latter, the art theory term appropriation is another topic - for another post! 

From Réalités, November 1967. 

Self Portrait: From My Dataset, 2024

SO, my self portrait at the top of this post, is a painting, an actual painting - a triptych painted over a number of months. It is a spoof of gen-AI processes and outputs. This self-portrait seems to be grappling with how it might emerge. Each piece of Self-Portrait: From My Dataset conveys something about me; my likeness, my personality, my geeky sense of humour. Therefore, each piece is a portrait/self-portrait. Combined, the three paintings are another self-portrait.

The first piece of the triptych makes my 'prompt', To paint a portrait of Kathryn, appear like the headline for a fabulous show! Is it a gameshow, a carnival oddity, or....? This is a critique of the importance placed on prompting, now a 'profession' eg: prompt engineer. 

The middle piece is my image 'dataset', but it includes images chosen for reasons no scoping/scraping algorithm could detect. 

The third piece is the final 'generated image', but there seems to have been a glitch because the 'AI' has not been able to pixelate a final 'perfect' image. Have correlations from the dataset and statistical probabilities failed to sequence? Did my painted dataset of characteristics no algorithm could scope, trick the tool? Or, maybe it was because, over the few months I took to paint Self Portrait: From My Dataset a few insects got stuck in wet paint. While I did attempt to remove them, and repaint areas, I am pretty sure insect body parts may still be embalmed in the paint. Pretty sure an AI tool would not have to deal with a stuck insect! But, for an artist - a painter - this kind of occurrence is all part of the process of problem solving. 

NEWS

BOOK LAUNCH for Drone Aesthetics: War, Culture, Ecology on Wednesday October 2, 2024. Please register through the Centre for Drones and Culture, The University of Cambridge, site 

  • Visual essay chapter "Imaginational Metaveillance, Creative Painting Practice and the Airborne Drone", in Drones in Society: New Visual Aesthetics  Palgrave MacMillan.

  • In November 2024, I am presenting at Artificial Visionaries two day workshop, The University of Queensland. Humanitix Registration   

  • In March 2025, a major solo exhibition DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows at the University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery, Toowoomba, Australia. 
Cheers,
Kathryn

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

VISUALISING THE INVISIBLE

 

Normally Invisible  Oil on linen 50 x 122cm 2024


I've not posted for some time. I've been busy! Firstly some news about an event and a couple of publications, then at the bottom of the post a few words about my new painting, Normally Invisible (above).


EVENT

Deakin University, Law School, Centre for Law as Protection

On Friday 9th August I attended the launch of Deakin University Law School's new Centre for Law as Protection. I was thrilled to be invited to speak about my research, and to hold an exhibition - a pop-up show that I carried in my luggage from Brisbane to Melbourne, and back to Brisbane. I hung and labelled the show, before the launch event started, in about 90 minutes, and took it down about 9 hours later. Years of hanging my own shows, improvising, planning ahead, and early professional curatorial work all help this kind of frantic activity!

I am also thrilled that my painting Target (2016) is the image for the new Centre's website. Plus, the Centre has included a separate Art of Protection online exhibition of a selection of my paintings. You can view this on the Centre website.

I am so very grateful for Professor Shiri Krebs, co-director of the Centre for Law as Protection, for her enthusiasm for my art and research. The vision for the Centre is inspiring, 


The Centre for Law as Protection is building a scholarly community to study the idea of protection, shape policy and develop legal tools to protect people, animals and the environment.  

 

The keynote speaker for the Centre's launch was Professor Matilda Arvidsson from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her presentation was inspiring. She introduced us to a  history of data collection practices, including early warnings about automating data collection. She brought us into the present with a discussion about the digital shadows we generate, and more. I keep thinking about her presentation. 

View of exhibition at the launch for Deakin University Law School's new 
Centre for the Law as Protection, August 9, 2024.

The first two paintings in the row of paintings, in the photo above, included painted binary code 'instructing' MILITARY LAWYER. Theatre of War: Law and Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction .


               Me with Professor Shiri Krebs, co-Director of the Centre for Law as Protection, Deakin University.

The paintings on the wall in the photograph above all included my version of the tree-of-life, along with various militarised technologies. The tree-of-life represents all life, and in my paintings can be considered as a symbol of a collective or an individual. 


PUBLICATIONS

Digital War Journal
In case you missed it, my commentary piece, "Light-speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review", in Digital War Journal, was published in May this year. It's open access, so it's accessible for everyone at this link or copy and paste - https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-024-00091-2 

I was thrilled when the editors encouraged me to include two of my paintings. 

Drones in Society. Social Visualities
And, I have a visual essay chapter "Imaginational Metaveillance, Creative Painting Practice, and the Airborne Drone" in a new book Drones in Society. New Visual Aesthetics, edited by Elisa Serafinelli. Palgrave Macmillan. This is not open access, but you can view details at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56984-5_8 


                                                                      Normally Invisible 

I have been painting too!

Normally Invisible (photo at the top of this post) is one of a few new works. I chose to include it in this post because it links with the idea of protection. The painting is a continuation of earlier works - Force Multiplication , Ghost Sky and Ghost Shadows.

In Normally Invisible, two scapes seem to vie for attention, the landscape in the background, and the signal-scape that seems to net or web the background landscape. The background landscape, a physical scape, is normally visible, but the signal-scape depicts normally invisible conduits of connectivity and interconnectivity. Is the normally invisible scape protective or does it pose threats? The signal-scape is visualised as a web or net to indicate its insidious occupation of our environment. The lines linking various ambiguous shapes generate geometric contours that contrast with the physical contours of mountains, valleys, plains, sky, waterways and more.

The small red shape could be interpreted as a glitch - or it could be you holding your mobile phone, a node in signal-matrix - what do you think? 

The background landscape was inspired by my childhood experiences growing up in western Queensland, Australia, where my father, a grain-grower, was also a keen ham: amateur radio. operator. I often write about my father's ham radio passion. When he died in 2016, I wrote Two Paintings of my Dad.

I will post again soon,
Kathryn

Saturday, May 18, 2024

OUR COSMOLOGICAL HISTORY

Our Cosmological History Gouache on paper 56 x76 cm unframed 2024


I have not posted for some time! But, there's news! A painting in an exhibition, and a published commentary piece in Digital War Journal. As the commentary piece, "Light-speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review", is open access, I invite you to read it at this linkhttps://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-024-00091-2 
I was thrilled when the editors encouraged me to include two of my paintings. 

THE EXHIBITION
Our Cosmological History (above) is a new painting. It is currently in an exhibition Duality - an artistic exploration of quantum science, in Sydney at Flow Studios, Camperdown, until May 20, 2024. The exhibition is hosted by The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS)

The exhibition includes the finalists and winners of the EQUS 'Quantum Art Competition', plus other selected artworks from entries. Very happy to say, Our Cosmological History is in the selected group. The finalist works and the extra selected works look like a high quality, engaging group of artworks, all responding to EQUS's invitation to "artists to explore quantum science through their medium of choice, drawing inspiration from the competition theme, ‘duality’".

More information about the competition and the exhibition, plus talks and workshops, is available at the EQUS exhibition webpage.

This is the artist's statement I sent when I entered the competition.

‘Our Cosmological History’ is a painting that tries to envisage the universal history of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), and humankind’s increasing reliance upon EMS frequencies for accelerating civilian and military technological needs. The red firecracker-like markings represent the Big Bang, and the ‘birth’ of photons within ten seconds. The dotted wavy lines represent the dual particle-wave nature of photons. I have painted seven wavy lines, from longer waves to shorter waves, to indicate EMS frequencies from radio to gamma waves, all travelling at lightspeed. This visualisation of normally invisible EMS frequencies (except the light spectrum) is augmented by painted symbols for photons (y) and lightspeed (c). A swathe of stars provides a background for a universal cosmic-scape that reveals macro and micro forces. The stars and the painted EMS frequencies appear to continue beyond the painting’s edges. This is my way of visualising that the universe and the EMS are around us, and continue beyond us, including into future history. 

Humankind’s sphere of influence, from Earth to orbiting satellites, is apparent. The pale blue dot (after Sagan) is a focal point. The sphere around the dot-Earth represents the commons where humankind harnesses the lightspeed forces of the EMS to enable connectivity, interconnectivity, operability, and interoperability of a bourgeoning array of civilian and military
technological systems and devices. ‘Our Cosmological History’, painted for EQUS, expresses awe at the wonders of the universe. At the same time, it questions how we harness powerful natural resources in an increasingly connected and volatile world.

Cheers, Kathryn


Friday, January 19, 2024

AI GHOSTS

AI Ghosts Gouache on paper 56 x 75 cm 2024
 


This painting was inspired by thinking about AI generated avatars, replicas, proxies, simulations and fakes. I've tried to write more, but like our looping - if not loopy - world - I kept on going in circles. And, endless looping is not helpful, so I broke it!

It's now up to you to ask the questions! Indeed, the painted binary code at the bottom of the painting 'instructs' multiple question marks (?). 


Cheers, Kathryn