Artificial Trees: Pulling the Future Towards Us Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2021
Read about my new painting below my recent news:
Read about my new painting below my recent news:
Recent News
A lot has happened in the last few weeks.
The four paintings I had hanging at the Australian Defence College (ADC), Canberra, as part of the College's launch of Arts@ADC are now home. I wrote about the ADC program two posts ago. You can read about it HERE. You can also read about it in an official Department of Defence article by Jess Spry Tacking Defence Issues Creatively.
There is further news! I was very lucky to meet the Governor General of New Zealand, Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy GNZM, QSO and His Excellency Sir David Gascoigne KNZM, CBE, when they visited the ADC. It was a great opportunity for COL Richard Barrett, Director of the ADC Centre for Leadership and Ethics and founder of Arts@ADC, plus being a sculptor, to speak about his sculptures and Arts@ADC. I was also able to speak about my paintings. Both the Governor General and her husband are keenly interested in the arts, so were a great audience for COL Barrett and me.
L - R Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, COL Richard Barrett, Her Excellency The Rt Hon Dame Patsy Reddy GNZM, QSO and His Excellency Sir David Gascoigne KNZM, CBE and CDRE Peter Leavy. COL Barrett is talking about his two sculptures Redacted and Homo ex Machina. You can read about them in this Defence briefing Tackling Defence Issues Creatively Photo: Lauren Larking Copyright: Commonwealth of Australia
I am also super pleased that my paintings have triggered questions and prompted more enquiries about engaging with my work and me. Shall keep you posted.
Artificial Trees: Pulling the Future Towards Us
This new painting relates to a previous painting called Not Waiting For The Future (2018) where I respond to the Chief of the Australian Army, Lt Gen Rick Burr's, 2018 Accelerated Warfare: Futures Statement For an Army in Motion. In the last paragraph he wrote We must pull the future towards us rather than wait for it;
In my new painting I have included a cascading tree-of-life. The foreground depicts a swarm of Loyal Wingman drones* flying over what appears to be farmland planted with rows of some kind of 'crop'. Are the drones swarming 'pests'? However, these radiating lines are, in fact (?), geolocating graphics guiding the drones' flight paths. Fake or artificial trees sprout from this 'landscape'. These trees take on the appearance of computer chip-board circuitry, key enablers of contemporary technology. Three rectangles enclose yellow trees-of-life, indicating that life is being monitored, identified and possibly targeted by surveillance technology. Is another human even watching?
BUT, there appears to be some hope! A branch of the cascading tree-of-life seeks a new path - maybe?
The fake or artificial trees herald a future of technological speed and acceleration, where algorithms, machine learning and AI mediate human life in realms beyond human access. The Pale Blue Dot observes....
Collisions and Accidents?
If we think about Paul Virilio and his theories of speed and accidents - Collisions occur when speed cannot be controlled - what about a collision of the present with the future?
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* A previous post called Wingman might interest you.
Update: the Wingman drone is now called the MQ-28 Ghost Bat. You can see more of the Wingman/Ghost Bat drones on my online exhibition
WINGMAN (MQ-28 GHOST BAT): ONLINE EXHIBITION
Cheers,
Kathryn
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