HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

HUMAN and a Tree Oil on linen 25 x 20 cm 2019 

NEWS:

• Thursday 14 November, at the IMA, Brisbane, I am on a panel "Landscape and Computer Generated Imagery" with Baden Pailthorpe. The panel discussion will be facilitated by curator, Kyle Weise. A screening of Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV will follow the discussion. More details are available HERE

HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

Related previous post is PAINTED ALGORITHMS

As regular readers know I often incorporate strings of colourful binary code into my paintings. I see this as a playfully subversive way to comment on our increasing reliance on digital and cyber systems. I see it as a way to draw attention to data gathering and capture activities that enable the formation of what I call proxy identities. That data assists in targeting activities undertaken by advertisers, governments and social media companies is a concern. Of greater concern is targeting for attack by state and non-state militarised organisations. I am reminded of something Jean Baudrillard wrote when he described a digitally coded destiny where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1". (1) And, this recent article "The Captured City The “smart city” makes infrastructure and surveillance indistinguishable" by Jathan Sadowski, highlights concerns about data capture and how data is used. 

HUMAN - Human

Over the years I have created a few paintings that include the word HUMAN or Human 'instructed' in binary code. Lots of ideas have gone, and still go, through my mind when I paint these images. My latest painting is HUMAN and a Tree (above). The 'human' is the string of red zeros and ones 'instructing' HUMAN. Is this a sign of a human being targeted by software that allows autonomous identification and potential action? Is the code a representation of human species demise, its remnant data remains stored in 'surviving' digital systems? 

A human body when it dies returns to the Earth, either in burial or as ash. What happens to our digital data after we die? In HUMAN and a Tree I have also included a tree. As regular readers know, this is my interpretation of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life. The tree in this painting is also red, blood red. It draws attention to the mimicry and subterfuge of the instructed HUMAN code. The tree stands as a beacon on the distant horizon. What kind of warning is it sending?

TREE-OF-LIFE

The tree-of-life is also an important element in HUMAN [below]. This painting parodies a computer screen, perhaps a remote drone pilot's screen, a gun or camera scope. The computer graphic-like lines and markings clearly indicate that a targeting exercise is under way. The binary code at the bottom of the painting 'instructs' HUMAN. While the painting may portray individual human figures, the larger question is - is humanity under siege? 

Unusually for me I have depicted human figures. They are under immanent attack, the cross hairs just need to lock-on. However, the tree-of-life shadows provide some kind of hope. They indicate, to me, that the targeting systems cannot detect or identify everything that constitutes a human being - imagination, love, desire and more. This painting has three types of human identification - the figures, the trees-of-life and the binary code. Which one/s is/are real? You can read more about this painting HERE on a previous post.  

HUMAN Oil on linen 30 x 35 cm 2019

TWO HUMANS IN AMBIGUOUS LANDSCAPES

Two Humans (below) is a 'landscape' with two 'humans' forming unusual topographies in the landscape. The strings of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human' attempt to occupy the landscape, albeit an ambiguous one. This painting sold recently to someone who totally 'got' it. I get so very excited when people 'get' the parody, the visual puns, the subversive intent!

Both Two Humans and Two Humans: Uploaded [below Two Humans] playfully critique ideas about posthuman uploading of - well - posthuman entities. They critique ideas of data identification, data proxy, life in the algorithmic 21st century.  YOu can read more about the inspiration for these two paintings on a previous post HERE.

Two Humans Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

Two Humans: Uploaded Gouache on paper 24 x 32 cm 2015

AND, NOW TO MY POSTHUMANS!

In both these paintings binary code 'instructs' 'Human'. This code forms part of the posthumans' 'bodies', and in the case of My Future Posthuman [below] it also forms the posthuman's 'head' in the shape of a question mark.

I had so much fun with my posthuman series, painted a few years ago now.

My Future Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

 Is this a Posthuman?  Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

[1] Jean Baudrillard, Passwords, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 76.


Cheers,
Kathryn
Podcast interview with lead researcher of the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK

FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON: SMALL PAINTINGS 2015-2019

Look Again At That Dot (After Carl Sagan) Oil on linen 27 x 33 cm 2017 $800 AUD
This painting has a simple timber frame.

Before I launch into the rest of this post, some news:

• On Thursday 14 November, a the IMA, Brisbane, I am on a panel "Landscape and Computer Generated Imagery" with Baden Pailthorpe. The panel discussion will be facilitated by Kyle Weise. A screening of Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV will follow the discussion. More details are available HERE
• Podcast interview with the lead researcher, Dr. Beryl Pong, of the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Recent exhibition Occupied Landscapes: Evidence of Drones 

AND NOW:
With the holiday season just over the horizon, I have curated an online exhibition of small paintings that were completed between 2015-2019. These oil paintings and framed works on paper are priced from $600  - $3000 AUD. An original painting is a perfect gift!

Keen to buy, but want a closer look - I can send you a high res image of any of the paintings in this post. Please contact me via the contact form in the right column of this post, for an image or a possible studio viewing.

DELIVERY
If you live in Brisbane, I can arrange delivery. However, if you live beyond Brisbane I will pack the painting and send it via courier or art freighter. This cost + insurance will be added to the painting's purchase price.

OTHER PAINTINGS
And, I hasten to add, if there are any other paintings you see on this blog, on my Instagram account or website that you would like to buy, please contact me.


I will keep this post live until just after Christmas, and then take it down. Prices are current until 27 December 2019.

Gamed Landscape Oil on linen Oil on linen 23 x 62 cm 2019 $1500 AUD
This painting is very new and has not been exhibited.

HUMAN and a Tree Oil on linen 25 x 20 cm 2019 $600 AUD

This painting is very new and has not been exhibited.

Ghost Landscapes Oil on linen 23 x 40 cm 2019 $950 AUD

This painting is very new and has not been exhibited.

Sensored oil on linen 50 x 50 cm 2017 $2000 AUD

Australian Landscape: Cutout Oil on linen 50 x 70 cm 2015 $3000 AUD

Seeing Through the Fake Window Oil on linen 30 cm x 46 cm 2018 $1100

Dissolving Into A Flood Of Ripples Oil on linen 40 cm x 56 cm 2018 $2000 AUD

Operational Landscape oil on linen 41 cm x 56 cm 2018 $2000 AUD

Drones and Code: Future Now Oil on linen 40 x 56 2018 $2000

Drone Ghost Oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm $760 AUD

Beware the Shadow Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2018 $840

Scopic Gaze Oil on linen 36 x 36 cm 2018 $990 

Catastrophe of Civilisation oil on linen 61 x 61 cm 2019 $3000
See this painting hanging in the next image.

Catastrophe of Civilisation (R) hanging with Ubiquitous Surveillance: An Invisible Landscape (L)

Nowhere to Hide Oil on canvas 30 x 30 cm 2018 $860 AUD

See  Nowhere to Hide hanging beside Mission Capable Landscape below.

Nowhere to Hide (R) hanging beside Mission Capable Landscape (L)

False Star Oil on canvas 20 x 30 cm 2018 $630 AUD

SELECTED FRAMED WORKS ON PAPER

Top L - R: Drone Zones and Red Rain

Bottom: Pay Attention : The Drones Are Here 

$990 each Framed.

Images of each painting are below.

Red rain, Drone Zones and Pay Attention : The Drones Are Here hanging with some larger unframed works on paper (priced at $2200 AUD unframed)

Drone Zones Gouache on paper - paper size 30 x 42 cm

Red Rain Gouache on paper - paper size 30 x 42 2016 cm 

Pay Attention : The Drones Are Here  Gouache on paper - paper size 30 x 42 cm 2019

Cheers,
Kathryn

GAMED LANDSCAPE

Gamed Landscape Oil on linen 23 x 62 cm 2019

REORIENTATION OF LANDSCAPE

I was thinking about  my last post Stealthy Techno-Colonising Forces and my claim that invisible signals occupy landscape and environment in a manner that colonises it. While visualising normally invisible signals is one of my aims, so is examining how screen-based graphics reorient notions of landscape. That some screen-based graphics are informed and generated by data delivered by signals cannot be ignored. For example, data and imagery received from an airborne drone is managed by a remote pilot via a screen, or a number of screens. The image on the screen is overlaid with lines, circles, numbers and letters indicating orientation, targeting, speed, direction, scale and more.

Does a reliance on screen-based delivery of information, images, data, communications etc, change our perception and experience of landscape and environment? Do computer games change or mediate how we think about landscape? Does a GPS in a car or on a phone mediate our experience of landscape? Regarding the latter, there are, for example, odd stories about people driving off the end of jetties because they have relied on GPS directions that were wrong. What happened to looking out the window, identifying landmarks, critically thinking about a terrain? Here, I am reminded of cultural theorist Paul Virilio's suggestion that an outcome of screen-based technologies is "sightless vision" the "production of intense blindness that will become the latest and last form of industrialisation: the industrialisation of the non-gaze". (1)

GAMED LANDSCAPE

This brings me to my new painting Gamed Landscape. I have painted a landscape overlaid with the new topographies of the industrialised image. This painting is inspired by a few things, and regular readers will recognise that it is reminiscent of some other recent paintings, for example Lethal Landscape: False Horizons, HUMAN and Mission Capable Landscape . However, recent investigations of computer games stimulated by watching Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV * got me thinking about gaming. And, perversely, a new film called  Hustlers  got me thinking about being gamed. Farocki's film is a short history of how computer generated imagery for computer games has developed since the 1980s. It demonstrates how CGI manipulates landscape and how figures move through strangely real, but unreal, environments. Hustlers is the story of strippers who, during the GFC, devised a way to 'game' - by flattering, flirting with and drugging -  rich men into spending massive amounts of money. 

Just as targeting graphics impose a lethality and a status of mission capability onto landscape, orienting graphics, whether imposed on a real or computer gnerated landscape, gamble and play games. That the history of computer games is entwined with military training techniques cannot be ignored. Here, Virilio's "industrialisation of the non-gaze", reaches out into every pixel, amalgamated with others, to produce an image. The industrialised non-gaze is, perhaps, exemplified in the notion of machine vision or drone vision, the production and surveillance of pixel data. Human beings are the consumers of this data - consumed via the screen. Is this the ultimate hustle of industrialised "sightless vision"?

In Gamed Landscape, red and white lines mimic computer graphics. Along with these lines, an orienting compass, creates a net-like shroud across the landscape. This is a form of occupation. That compass-like graphics are often visible in computer games is an intriguing thing. On the flat surface of the screen, the compass is, for me, the exemplar of a subterfuge, the pretense of dimension. The pretend virtual compass is the clue to the game - of being gamed. 

Have you noticed how many people have no idea of where north, south, east and west are - in the real environment? 

_________________________________________________________________

* Thursday 14 November, at the IMA, Brisbane, I am on a panel "Landscape and Computer Generated Imagery" with Baden Pailthorpe. The panel discussion will be facilitated by curator, Kyle Weise. A screening of Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV will follow the discussion. More details are available HERE

1. Paul Virilio, The Vision Machine (London and Bloomington: British Film Institute, 1994), 73.

Cheers,

Kathryn

* Please contact me through the 'contact form', upper right of blog, for any inquiries about this or other paintings. 

STEALTHY TECHNO-COLONISING FORCES - SEVEN PAINTINGS

Space Net Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

INTER-CONNECTIVITY AND NETWORKING
A recent article "Weapons Makers Unveil A Herd of Robotanks— As the Army Worries About Battlefield Bandwidth" in Defense One caught my attention. Why? Because, it discussed how inter-connectivity and networking are vitally important for militarised technological operation and functioning. It discussed the US Army's plans for increasingly interconnected militarised hardware and systems, including air-based and ground-based robots, gadgets and weapons carried by human soldiers, autonomous systems and relay stations. However, the article highlighted a problem - networked systems that are not necessarily consistently reliable. In the military case, this is exacerbated by increasing demands for inter-connectivity, such as sharing data, and speedy transmission. So, ideas for robotised and autonomous, motile and stationary, scaffolding technologies to ensure signal relay reliability and speed, are planned.

SIGNALS
I have been writing and painting about signals, and humanity's reliance upon them, for some time. I have a particular interest in the way signals enable contemporary militarised technology, and the appropriation of civilian technologies by militarised forces, state and non-state. I have made the argument that signals ricocheting from node to node, device to device, occupy landscape and environment, from land to orbiting satellites. I 'see' this occupation as a stealthy techno-colonisation that enables new modes of empire, and therefore, power. The invisibility of signals means we pay attention to visible hardware, placing significance on advances in hardware, and not always taking into account that without signals most hardware is rendered inert. 

A reliance on signaling, networking and inter-connectivity for militarised purposes, that can appropriate and use civilian systems, builds capacity and acts as a force multiplier. However, this reliance is also a vulnerability. Risks of deliberate interventions such as hacking and jamming, unintended consequences and phenomena such as severe solar storms, can all cause havoc and cascading systemic consequences. 

SIGNAL-SCAPES
In this post I have uploaded a few of my paintings that visualise or make visible, invisible signals. I argue that by making them visible, we can see how they impose new types of  topographies. I say topographies because signals map the environment with transmission pathways or highways, they build domains that are invisible to the human being, they create terrains that enable or disable, they manifest new full spectrum spaces for battle.

 Code Empire Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Lethal Landscape Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2018

 Mission Capable Landscape Oil  on linen 72 x 137 cm 2018

Lethal Landscape - False Horizons Oil on line 70 x 100 cm 2018

 Charting the Invisible Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

Martial Map Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

IMAGINATIONAL METAVEILLANCE - ONLINE EXHIBITION

 Drone Life Shadow Play Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

I have been thinking about surveillance and sousveillance. And, I have also been thinking about metaveillance. Surveillance is commonly used to describe monitoring, spying and watching, normally in a clandestine or discrete way, often an activity of oversight from above. Sousveillance is a monitoring from below, normally undertaken by someone wearing a device. According to Steve Mann, Professor of Computer Engineering at University of Toronto and 'father of wearable computing', "Surveillance happens when we’re being watched and sousveillance happens when we do the watching", and metaveillance is "seeing sight itself". In technical terms all three types of veillance involve digital, cyber or electronic technologies, for example, cameras and sensors, that can be fixed, or moving.

DRONES
Regular readers will know why I am interested in surveillance, sousveillance and metaveillance. Yes, the airborne militarised drone's surveillance capabilities are increasingly persistent and penetrative. Imaging technology enables surveillance and targeting, but is the image really needed if software is the scrutiniser of data? We can monitor the drone using devices on land and in space, but the monitoring is reliant on sensors, using the same signal-reliant digital and cyber platforms as the drone. To me, this seems like a loop.

IMAGINATIONAL METAVEILLANCE
Imaginational metaveillance - maybe it should be imaginational veillance - is a way to monitor without using digital, cyber or electronic platforms, but with these platforms firmly in 'sight'. By inviting viewers of my paintings to fly, in imagination, below, beside and above airborne drones and/or indications of their presence, surveillance and sousveillance do not seem adequate terms to describe what we might 'see'. And, when we fly above the drones, it's not only into the sky, but into the cosmic reaches of outer space where we can 'monitor' not only the drones, but also their ground-based and space-based support infrastructure against a backdrop of the 'pale blue dot'. Also, by making visible the invisible signals that ricochet from node to node, device to device, we can 'see' how landscape and environment are occupied by stealthy techno-colonising forces. When we fly below the drones, the obscuring or part-obscuring of the universal background indicates a loss of perspective, even, perhaps a hostage-like situation.

If metaveillance is "seeing sight itself" I think the imaginational metaveillance opens a way to something more, an embrace of vision in the broadest human sense - not only seeing with eyeball and pupil, but also 'seeing' in imagination, in dreams, in nightmares, in visionary and speculative thinking. 

I could write more, but I'll leave the paintings to do the rest of the work!

In this online exhibition I have included various paintings where you are invited to 'fly'.

Imagine yourself below or above, or in front of the droned landscapes or skyscapes, netted with signals and punctuated with hardware.

 Droned Landscape Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Are you above a netted landscape, or below a netted sky or viewing a cross-section of landscape volumetrically occupied? 

 Drone Clouds Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

With imaginational metaveillance swarms of drones become fake clouds, and act of stealth.

 Remote Control Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

The tree-of-life is under attack. The tree-of-life escapes, perhaps? With imaginational metaveillance, life itself is 'seen'.

 What if? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

We 'witness' more than what can be seen!

 $urveillance Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

With imaginational metaveillance we 'see' the military industrial estate. The sunshine-like rays are painted with small $ signs. Fake sunshine, real surveillance.

 Drone Zones Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2017

New Sky? Gouache o paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

The 'new sky' is formed by pixellated blue drones. What is real?

 Sky - Drone - Net Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Signals, a false star, a net obscuring the sky - or - landscape. It depends where you think you are - above the drone or below it?

 Life and the Drone Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

The battle of the 21st century?

 Ubiquitous Surveillance - An Invisible Landscape Oil on linen 60 x 110 cm 2017

 Anomaly Detection 2 Oil on linen 120 x 180 cm 2017

Pixellated weaponised drones hover over the pale blue dot - Earth.

 Sensored Oil on linen 50 x 50 cm 2017

The sky is occupied by sensors and their enabling signals. A false star extends beyond the edges of the painting....

 New Horizons Oil on linen 97 x 112 2018

Computer-like graphics impose new horizons and false perspective. A drone's wingspan cuts the landscape.

 Mission Capable Landscape Oil on linen 72 x 137 cm 2018

Multi Mission Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019