Friday, December 28, 2018

LOYALTY TO EARTH AND HUMANKIND

It's Everything Oil on linen 50 x 50 cm 

Historian, Yuval Noah Harari has written an article, "Moving Beyond Nationalism: Three global problems create a need for loyalty to humankind and to planet Earth"published by The Economist. The three global problems Harari identifies are "nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption." That these three issues require global attention and co-operation is clear. Each pose major risks, even existential risks, to humanity and the planet. Combined, they pose a hellish picture of the future. 

As Harari notes, a retreat into nationalism does not protect nations from risks posed by nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption. He writes "We need to create a global identity and encourage people to be loyal to humankind and to planet Earth in addition to their particular nation."

LOYALTY
I like the idea of being "loyal to humankind and to planet Earth." Regular readers of this blog will know that this kind of sentiment underlies much of my work. My use of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life, depictions of Earth as a pale blue dot, and my use of cosmic perspectives, coupled with visual signs and metaphors of contemporary risks, are attempts to focus attention on humanity and the Earth. Visual questions about militarised technology and the militarise-ability of technology, pose questions about the future of humanity and the planet.

The medium of painting moves thinking away from what artist and writer James Bridle in his fascinating book [do buy it!] The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future calls "computational thinking" eg: data driven computation, computer simulation/modelling. The act of painting and the medium of painting can help remind us of alternative ways of thinking. Ways that may assist us in creating a loyalty to humankind and Earth. Ways that can critique contemporary technology - without using it for creation, exhibition and storage.*     

FOR THE ARRIVAL OF 2019
So, for the arrival of 2019 just a few days away, I have decided to upload a selection of my paintings where, variously, the tree-of-life, the pale blue dot, cosmic perspectives and images of airborne weaponised drones may induce thoughts about loyalty to humankind and Earth. 




 Future Oil on linen 91 x 102 2015


 Australian Landscape Cutout Oil on linen 55 x 80 cm 2015
This painting is a reflection upon how nationalism might work, or not work, in the 21st century. It reminds us that all nations share the one planet.


 Beacon Oil on linen 92 x 102 2014


The Birth of Landscape oil on linen 138 x 168 cm 2014
A small tree-of-life is cradled by the emergent landscape, at Earth's beginning. Ultimately life, including humankind and the planet are entangled.  


 Pale Blue Dot Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm 2014

Reading/viewing the painting above with the two below triggers a few questions about what kinds of risky anomalies are we not noticing. I propose human imagination can take us to revelatory perspectives.


 Anomaly Detection [No 2] Oil on linen 120 x 180 cm 2017


Anomaly Detection Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017



Happy New Year,
Kathryn



Saturday, December 22, 2018

DRONED 21ST CENTURY VISION

Droned 21st Century Vision oil on linen 40 x 50 cm 2018



DRONE VISION Vs DRONED VISION
The term 'drone vision' is different to 'droned vision'. 'Drone vision' ascribes vision capabilities to a drone, a machine. This is something I have previously critiqued.* The latter, 'droned vision', is about how human vision is changed as a result of ubiquitous images viewed on screens, for example, camera screens, mobile phones and computers. The flattening of an image, the pixellation of an image, the cross-haired focussing to generate and view an image, all contribute to 'droned vision'. The simulation of perspective is a trickery that implodes both literal and metaphoric perspective. The latter should be the ability to cast critical eyes and intellect to penetrate the digital data that makes up 21st century imagery. I fear this has been eroded. 

DRONED 21ST CENTURY VISION
In Droned 21st Century Vision the red overlay presents a flattened perspective, the orienting lines mimicking surveillance and targeting co-ordinates. The grid of squares, that seemingly continue beyond the painting, establish zones of reference, a kind of pixellation of space that enables extraction of data. Here I expose the way new and invisible topographies are imposed on the landscape. These new topographies include invisible signals that ricochet around the world and into space, from node to node. Signals enable increasing surveillance as they wrap the planet in nets that we cannot see, but hold us hostage.

Are the cross-hairs those of a camera viewing screen or do they represent a weapon? The dual-use nature of contemporary technology, however, blurs the separation between civilian/domestic and militarised use and intention. The hostage situation becomes clearer! The very recent deliberate disruption of Gatwick airport by civilian drones demonstrates that no contemporary technology can claim to be neutral. 

In Droned 21st Century Vision I have placed two trees-of-life, one pale night-vision green and the other red, within the flattened plane of gridded squares. Another tree-of-life, a white one, is positioned on a hillside in the background landscape. This tree reveals the insidious trickery of droned perspective. It represents a resistance to the norming of droned vision. It stands as a beacon, both as a warning and a guiding light. It retrieves real landscape and the depth it provides - perspective - from the 21st century simulation.



* One example post is The Drone: Do Not Embody
                                        -------------------------------------------------------

On a more happy note. I wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas, and a happy 2019.

Cheers,
Kathryn


Friday, December 14, 2018

LIFE + RISK + LEAVES

 Cosmic Testimony Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017


As I mentioned in my last post, I am on crutches with a full leg brace. It is difficult to stand and sit at a desk for a long period of time, let alone sit in a car. I am 1.8 m tall with long legs and when one of these legs cannot bend and the other has a slight injury, even simple things are difficult. I hope to get back to my studio practice asap though!

LEAVES
In this post I present three paintings from 2017. Each of the paintings includes leaves. In my mind they are leaves that have fallen from the tree-of-life. Each of these paintings also include figures. As regular readers know I do not often include figures as I am careful not to appropriate other people's stories. However, the tree-of-life is often my figure substitute, a symbolic representation of human life and all life, at the same time.


The Leaves are Leaving Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017


Each of the three paintings also include radiating lines that appear like the rays of the sun. But, are they? Well, they could be, if that's what you want to believe. However, for me, they are the surveillance and targeting signals of an airborne drone.That the signals take on a fake sunshine appearance is deliberate.

I ask, what are we not noticing? What risks are we oblivious to? Are we noticing the effects of ubiquitous surveillance? Are we noticing what is happening to the leaves of the tree-of-life?

Leaves can fall off a tree because the tree is deciduous. The fallen leaves provide mulch on the ground. A cycle of life continues as the tree, in springtime, sprouts new leaves. But, leaves can fall off a tree due to lack of water, heat stress or poisoning. The leaves fall as the tree dies.

The leaves in my paintings are metaphors.........................................

Cheers,
Kathryn


Can the Leaves Still Dance? Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Monday, December 03, 2018

SCOPIC GAZE - 21ST CENTURY

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century Oil on linen 36 x 36 cm 2018


I have fractured my left patella and injured other parts of my body too. Long story involving a cat, a ledge and a flight of stairs. It is difficult to sit at a desk with one leg up. Thus this post will not be too long. 

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century connects to my last two posts and paintings Fake Eyes: In The Sky and Seeing Through the Fake Window. It also connects with a number of other posts and paintings where I reflect on ideas of 'drone vision', 'machine vision' and other anthropomorphic terms applied to contemporary machines and systems, particularly militarised and militarise-able ones. 

The scopic perspective is offered by cameras and guns. Cross-hairs and other focusing mechanisms scope space to identify targets to capture, to shoot. Both words, capture and shoot, apply to cameras and weapons! When cameras and weapons are combined, for example in an airborne drone, the capturing and shooting are amplified.

In the 21st century we are increasingly accustomed to images, more often than not, viewed on a screen of some sort. The edges of the screen render the peripheral unseen, in a way mimicking the scopic gaze of the camera and weapon. Digital images on screens comprise multitudes of pixels, tricking us into believing what we see. Yet, each pixel is bordered by its edges. Without companion pixels the image disintegrates. Each pixel is like a micro - scope capturing data that is only meaningful when positioned with other scopic - pixels. Do we really see or are we detecting?

Does the 21st century scopic gaze, which we are incessantly exposed to, change the way we see, what we believe, how we imagine and dream? Does it condition us to view the screen as a window - albeit a fake one? 

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century depicts a blood red tree-of-life as a target. Is it a camera targeting to take a shot, or a weapon targeting to take a shot? What if it is both camera and weapon? 

There are a lot of questions I ask myself as I write my post and paint my paintings. But, underlying everything I love that painting can visually pose and penetrate questions - without employing the the digital and cyber systems used by scopic mechanisms. 

Oh, and the tree-of-life is always a symbol of hope!

Cheers,
Kathryn

Saturday, November 24, 2018

FAKE EYES: IN THE SKY

Fake Eyes-In-The-Sky Oil on linen 30 x 45 cm 2018


EYE IN THE SKY
An airborne drone is sometimes called an 'eye in the sky'. In fact, there is a movie called  Eye In The Sky . Starring Helen Mirren the movie presents various dilemmas associated with targeting and attack decision making by remote drone operators and other defence personnel. 

What sort of questions are posed by calling an unmanned air vehicle, which is remotely piloted and weaponised, an eye in the sky? Firstly there are questions about attributing the machine with animal, human or a non-human, abilities ie: seeing. Can a drone really see? Is imaging technology really representative of an eye, or a set of eyes? Is machine vision, in terms of autonomous reviewing of image data collected by a drone feed, another kind of seeing? What are the existential implications if we ascribe human abilities to increasingly autonomous machine systems? Do we inadvertently relinquish something?

I have previously written about the  the word 'vision' used in terms such as 'drone vision' and 'machine vision'. Vision, when associated with human vision, is not only about seeing, but also dreaming, imagining and visionary thinking. For example,. I 'see'pictures in my head when i read a book, even a non-fiction book! Can a drone dream, imagine or come up with some kind of visionary idea? The answer is no. Can machine vision, tasked with reviewing image data, imagine or dream? No, it scopes rather than sees. If anomalies are detected does machine vision then imagine outcome scenarios of what might happen, like a human would imagine? 

BLINDNESS
Ascribing human abilities of seeing and vision to the machine may, paradoxically, blind us! That poses the question, if a drone can see, is drone blindness also possible? This, I think, really penetrates the question, can a drone see, because blindness is about not seeing rather than being turned off or being dead. Human blindness does not exclude other kinds of vision - dreaming, imagining and visionary thinking. That a drone cannot dream, imagine or come up with visionary ideas indicates a kind of blindness that raises further questions about ascribing human abilities of sight and vision to the machine. 

There must be alternative words to describe a drone's imaging capabilities and machine vision capabilities - the one I have come up with is scoping. Scoping does not indicate abilities to imagine or dream, but it does indicate abilities to target and attack. 

Fake Eyes-In-The-Sky
In my painting Fake Eyes-In-The-Sky two fake eyes hover, each painted with small 'pixels'. The red and green colours indicate night scoping and infrared technologies. Drones are not 'eyes-in-the-sky, they are scope-in-the-sky! Each fake eyes' pupils are centred in a scope's cross hairs. These eye-drones are clearly scopes, camera and/or weapon, their signals aimed at the tree-of-life, a white beacon in the distance. 

That the tree provides perspective is indicative of hope. 

Fake Eyes-In-The-Sky is another dronescape, plus it is a cosmicscape. Apart from being an exploration of contemporary weaponised technology, it is also a landscape. 

____________________________________________________

My last post was called Seeing Through the Fake Window
You might also like to read The Drone: Do Not Embody

Cheers,
Kathryn

Friday, November 16, 2018

SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW

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

FAKE STUFF
Fake stuff is happening everywhere! Fake news, fake videos, and now there is a thing called "deep fake". "Deep Fake" uses artificial intelligence to create images or videos the depict seemingly real events, with depictions of real people, sometimes even with fake people. So, for example, videos of politicians saying and doing things they have not said or done. Here are two interesting articles that discuss fake phenomena and artificial intelligence, and "deep fake":  You Thought Fake News Was Bad? Deep Fakes is Where Truth Goes to Die by Oscar Schwartz in The Guardian, and What You Have to Fear from Artificial Intelligence  by Ryan Metz in Current Affairs: A magazine of Politics and Culture.

Paul Metz writes: "If you think “fake news” is a problem now, just wait. When an image can be generated of literally anyone doing literally anything with perfect realism, truth is going to get a whole lot slipperier."

Fake news clearly has political, social and security issues, but "deep fake" takes these issues even further. Used indiscriminately, "deep fake', to my mind, is a threat to civilisation as we know it. 

"DEEP FAKE"
Fake news, and particularly "deep fake" are intrinsically linked to digital and cyber technology generally, and the screen more specifically. The screen is the "third" or "cathode window", as Paul Virilio, called it in interviews and text. Jean Baudrillard also proposed a loss of reality delivered by the screen. His "perfect crime", the death of reality, may reach its ultimate prosecution in "deep fake". 

SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW
So, to my new painting Seeing Through the Fake Window. Obviously I am playing into the news about fake phenomena. I am also playing into the idea of the screen being a window, a fake one. Without the ubiquity of the screen would fake news and "deep fake" pose threats to the fabric of society? The screen is ubiquitous because it is the computer screen, mobile phone screen, or other device screen. The screen is, however, also associated with the camera and the weapon, surveillance and targeting. 

In Seeing Through the Fake Window. you can imagine yourself looking through a fake window, aka screen. Maybe it is an airborne drone screen, one of its many multispectral cameras perhaps ? Or, maybe you are looking at a remote drone pilot's screen. Or maybe, you are looking at a television screen, watching news of a true or fake story about a true of fake drone strike? I have painted a dark blue square in the middle of the night- vision green 'cloud'. Is that a new window? Maybe, maybe not.

Seeing Through the Fake Window is not only about giving an impression of looking through a window, a fake window. It is also about exposing the fakery, critiquing the fake window that delivers fake news into our private and public lives. 

FAKE LANDSCAPE
As with many of my paintings, I have painted lines that crisscross a landscape. These lines are signals and computer graphic-like markings. They create a new landscape topography, one which is normally invisible, except perhaps on a screen, maybe a remote drone pilot's screen. It is a fake landscape! As I have previously written, nets of signals that enable connectivity and networking, wrap the planet, extending from land to satellites in space. Theses signals transmit news, stories and images - real and fake - around the world. 

"Deep fake" is a potentially disastrous 21st century tactical weapon, deployable via our nets of signals.

On that happy note!

Cheers,
Kathryn

Thursday, November 08, 2018

BEWARE THE SHADOW

Beware the Shadow Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2018


As a metaphor, the shadow represents the dark side. 

In my painting Beware the Shadow a shadow drone appears to be armed. The dark side, armed!  Does this mean that the shadow reveals the truth, that the white drone is weaponised with concealed technology that can target and kill? Does the shadow reveal a blindness to reality? In Beware the Shadow, the weapons are metaphors too.

If you stand back from your screen, this painting appears very 3D!


I have previously written about drone shadows, for example, Shadowy Drone Play and Drone Life Shadow Play


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


Shadowy Drone Play Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016



Cheers,
Kathryn




Thursday, November 01, 2018

PAINTED ALGORITHMS

 Coded Landscape Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 2015


Recently an AI generated portrait "Portrait of Edmond Belamy" was sold at Christies for nearly 45 times the expected amount. The work sold for over $400,000. You can read about it on Christies' site HERE . A collective called Obvious is behind the production. This is the first time an AI generated artwork has sold at a major public auction. The portrait and the sale have generated a lot of discussion [do Google it]. The fact that the product was promoted and sold by Christies certainly assisted its worthiness as news, and perceived value.

The AI program was fed "with a data set of 15,000 portraits painted between the 14th century to the 20th." (1) From my understanding, machine learning processes detected patterns in formal portrait characteristics. These then assisted the program to formulate a portrait which is meant to look human-made. This end-product is then printed onto a canvas. 

If you Google 'AI portrait', 'Portrait of Edmond Belamy' or other searches, you will find more information. You can then make your own critical judgments.


PAINTED ALGORITHMS
For a few years I have included painted algorithms, albeit simple ones, in my paintings. In this post I present a selection of these paintings, including some posthuman figures/portraits.


                                              Unseen Oil on linen 90 x 80 cm 2015


Strings of 'instructional' binary code help me form my paintings. These strings introduce colour, contour, shape, but they are also subject matter, complex subject matter. For example, binary code instructing the word LIFE forms the landscape contour in Coded Landscape [top]. Subject matter is multi-faceted - code, landscape, life. As a landscape, LIFE, depicted in code, poses questions about life in the era of the algorithm, the age of simulation - the 21st century. What is real and what is not real? 

Unseen [above] depicts a tree of life, one branch cascading around the canvas. This branch is a string of colourful binary code repeating the word LIFE. That instructional code is normally invisible is the key to this painting [in fact all of my 'code' paintings]. In Unseen, I have exposed code by hand-painting it in multiple colours. Each zero and one is different, not perfect. Human touch and gesture presents a subversive exposure! Rather than pretending to be human made, it actually is!

In Combat Proven, Long Range, Long Dwell [below], painted binary code for LIFE is targeted by an airborne weaponised drone. The drone's signals, exposed as radiating lines, detect and target LIFE. But, there is a twist, is LIFE easily targeted because so much of it relies on digital devices, cyber networking, online services and so on? The Grey Eagle drone is 'decorated' with binary code 'instructing' DRONE. Again, what is real, what is simulated, what is unreal?



Combat Proven, Long Range, Long Dwell Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2016



CODED POSTHUMAN FIGURES AND PORTRAITS


My Future Post Human Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

A portrait as a question mark?

"So - in My Future Posthuman I've painted a figure with tree-like appendages, a multicoloured heart and a head shaped like a question mark - but the question mark is formed from two rows of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human'. Hence, the question mark!" From my previous post My Future Posthuman 


Imagining the Posthuman Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016


This posthuman's spine is binary code 00111111 'instructing' a question mark ie: ?

The posthuman's head is a tree?



Is This a Post Human? Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016


Vascular System for Post Humans Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016


Vascular System for Posthumans actually has a 'face'. Two eyes, or are they two zeros? The 'vascular' system is coded with a repeated question AM I ? Certainly a portrait is something that is meant to disclose something about the AM I ? type of question.

Am I  - what - who - where?

Cheers,
Kathryn















Wednesday, October 24, 2018

MISSION CAPABLE LANDSCAPE

Mission Capable Landscape Oil on linen 72 x 137 cm 2018


EXPOSING SIGNALS
In Mission Capable Landscape I continue with my interest in exposing signals that wrap the planet, extend into the sky and space. I 'see' these invisible signals as a new layer of landscape, volumetrically occupying and colonising landscape from land into space. In the 21st century, signals operatively enable militarised technology, such as airborne drone surveillance, targeting and attack. Additionally, the dual-use nature of technological infrastructure, such as communication and GPS satellites, blurs military, policing and security activities. I am interested in not only militarised technology, but also militarise-able civilian technology. The latter includes such things as mobile phones, appropriation of social media data, and cyber technology used in homes and businesses. 

Thus, at the extreme, all signals are militarised or militarisable. If a system is deliberately isolated from general connectivity, this action demonstrates a defensive position that co-opts it into the militarise-ability of security. 

MISSION CAPABLE LANDSCAPE
In Mission Capable Landscape I have painted a landscape overlaid with lines. These lines mimic various signalling, scoping and targeting graphics seen on computer screens, such as those of a remote drone pilot. The lines mimic perspective, layering, bridging, fences, furrowed paddocks, roads, landing strips and more. Note the scoping cross-hairs fixed on the green circle [centre left]! At one instant the viewer may feel like a remote pilot, at another instant maybe even a drone, even a satellite. Are you coming into land, are you leveling on a target, are you simply surveilling and collecting data? What are you scoping? Is it all real? 

However, let us take back the human gaze! Let us turn human surveillance back onto the occupying signals. Let's expose them - for all to see!

HYBRID WAR
As I painted Mission Capable Landscape I was thinking about a lot of things, including the notion of hybrid war. What is hybrid war? It is a military strategy that tactically blends conventional methods of war with activities such as perpetrating cyber threats, manipulating of social media, de-stabilising elections, infiltrating government online infrastructure for essential services, promulgating fake news and so on. Contemporary hybrid war needs networked systems and inter-connectivity to enable its tactics. It needs signals! It is a subversive act to expose them!

HYBRID LANDSCAPE
In a sense Mission Capable Landscape is a hybrid landscape. There is more than one landscape in this painting, including the conventional one and the new landscape of signals. The latter stealthily colonises and occupies the conventional landscape cloaking it with a persistent readiness for offensive and defensive actions. Are we perpetually, and everywhere, in a state of low grade war? A war that can be amplified when triggers are hit. The conventional landscape is rendered permanently 'mission capable' by its virtual non-identical 'mission capable' twin. Conventional landscape, and all its living creatures, are held hostage - it's just that we do not realise it. A creeping occupation of landscape by invisible signals is actually hard to detect - what an insidious strategy! That's why we need to expose them!

But, is there a vulnerability lurking within the new landscape of signals? I argue that its vulnerability may lie within its strength - invisible speedy networked inter-connectivity. As its networking insidiously weaves layer upon layer of enabling signals it presents as an invisible but impenetrable ubiquitous force. But, is it? 

What can we metaphorically or literally unplug to expose its underbelly? I leave you to think about it.


Cheers,
Kathryn
* I have previously written about being taken hostage by signals HOSTAGE
  


Tuesday, October 16, 2018

DRONES - NO DRONES - DRONES - NO DRONES: ONLINE EXHIBITION



PLAYFUL EXERCISE?

This online exhibition is an exercise. It plays with the positioning of images. 

I have placed a non-drone painting, then a weaponised airborne drone painting, one after the other. 

What happens when I position paintings that do not depict drones, or indications of their presence, with images of weaponised drones? Are the non-drone paintings of trees-of-life, Australia, and the sun, colonised by the drone images? Or, do the paintings depicting trees-of-life, Australia and the sun remind us of life in the face of  destructive technologies? In a sense, do they combat the drone images? 

If you took the non-drone paintings away from the images of weaponised drones, are they different paintings? Without a militarised context, do they lose agency or gain it? Or, if you have seen them positioned with the paintings depicting militarised technology, can you ever forget - unsee?

The last two paintings depict human figures, Through the Mist of Time and Forever Watched. The latter does not depict a weaponised drone, but it does indicate surveillance - or does it? As I placed these last two paintings, I saw that Through the Mists of Time could provide another perspective for Forever Watched? A perspective that was not militarised. What do you think? 

COSMIC LANDSCAPES
All the paintings are landscapes - cosmic landscapes, landscapes where you too can fly. This poses even more questions, but I will leave them for you to ask.

All the paintings in this post are from 2016 and 2017, and they are all gouache on paper. 

Cheers,
Kathryn



 Across Time and Space







Future and Past



 A New Sun, A New Day - Somewhere







Sunday, October 07, 2018

FALSE LAWN: VIRTUAL LANDING STRIP

False Lawn: Virtual Landing Strip Oil on linen 71 x 91 cm 2018

YUVAL NOAH HARARI AND LAWNS
I am reading Yuval Noah Harari's massive book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Quite early on in the book he has a section titled "A Brief History of Lawns". In this section he explains why lawns are associated with "political power, social status and economic wealth". The well kept green lawn at the "entrance to private residences and public buildings was born in the castles of French and English aristocrats in the late Middle Ages. In the early modern age this habit struck deep roots, and became a trademark of the nobility." He goes onto describe how lawns indicate land ownership and that well maintained lawns indicate the ability to pay for upkeep. The adoption of the lawn in the nineteenth century by the rising middle classes entrenched its cache. Harari also gives a brief insight into lawns and sport. 

Additionally, Harari makes observations about the contemporary adoption of impressive lawns in the Middle East, using Doha in Qatar as an example. I have witnessed the greening of places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi with, for example, acres of green golf courses and large gardens framing massive and luxurious hotels. This greening is enabled by desalinated water and irrigation technology. From the air the patches of green end where the irrigation stops, and the desert takes over. 

THE GREEN GLOW OF NIGHT VISION
But, while Harari's discussion of the history of the lawn got me thinking about the various lawns I have known, I started to think about the virtual lawn, the green screen, and scoping with night vision surveillance technology. Night vision devices intensify existing light, converting photos into electrons, which are then re-converted to photons by a phospher screen imbedded in the device. This screen is coloured green because the "human eye can differentiate more shades of green that other phospher colours". 

Whenever I see a photograph or a film where night vision devices show us the saturated green glow of surveillance, I am struck by a mismatch between the colour green and the danger that is often conveyed. 

FALSE LAWN: VIRTUAL LANDING
False Lawn: Virtual Landing, was inspired by Harari's short history of lawns, and my reactions to it. The metaphor of the green lawn applied to the saturated glow of night vision green provides a novel approach to analyse contemporary militarised power and its structures. In the painting the green screen replaces the lawn, the night vision green saturation providing new indicators of power and economic wealth. Not only new indicators, but also new kinds of power wielded through networked digital and cyber technologies that operate at near light speeds. 

In the painting an airborne weaponised drone appears to be attempting to land, co-ordinates assisting the process. The window/screen is central to a space of action and speed, a cyber superhighway perhaps? I quite like that the painting could be a vast landscape/cosmicscape, or a peek into the interior world of signals. 

I can think of lots more to write, but I will leave it up to you to ponder more.

Cheers,
Kathryn  



[1] Defense Industry Daily, Through a Glass, Darkly: Night Vision Gives US Troops Edge, accessed August, 26, 2016,
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/through-a-glass-darkly-night-vision-gives-us-troops-edge-06047/More information is available at Stanford Computer Optics, Image Intensifier: Phosphor Screen, accessed August 30, 2016,

Thursday, September 27, 2018

LETHAL LANDSCAPE: FALSE HORIZONS

Lethal Landscape: False Horizons Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons I have again tried to expose signals that enable interconnected militarised and militarise-able systems. Signals that ricochet around the world, into the sky and space are invisible, yet they net the planet. I 'see' this netting as an insidious new topography which colonises and occupies landscape in ways that transform environments. Horizons are obliterated by this volumetric occupation, yet false horizons appear on computer screens as lines that map and orient for surveillance and targeting purposes. 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons a ground-based satellite antenna sends a signal into space, while another signal is either sent or received by a weaponised airborne drone. The drone's wide area surveillance sends out rays of signals, making the drone look almost like a star...a false star. Other markings indicate a landscape infiltrated by multiple arrays of signals, including targeting signals. I have painted a few areas with small red or green squares, to mimic pixels that make up digital images. These areas either indicate a process of pixelation or perhaps de-pixelation - of reality returning or reality disappearing. Here, let's think about Paul Virilio who died earlier this month "matter is now being exterminated by means of acceleration, the specular bomb of screens, those mirrors of time that cancel out the horizon." The original Accident, trans Julie Rose (Cambridge UK, Malden US, Polity, 2007), pp. 49-50.

Cheers,
Kathryn