Cloudy War Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2022
CLOUDY?
You may have guessed that cloudy, in the title of this painting, does not mean atmospheric cloudiness, but rather, the encompassing cloudnet that is the 21st century techno-cloud, commonly called The Cloud. Regular readers will know I have created a number of paintings where I try to make visible the invisible aspects of contemporary militarised technology and war. By war, I mean not only kinetic warfare, but also information, hybrid, cyber and grey-zone warfare. The techno-cloud of interconnected and interoperable systems provides seeming instant access and connectivity to information, updates, news cycles, social media posts and posting and more. This is enabled by light-speed or near light-speed signal transmissions carried by frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). Speed is now an expectation.
Cloudy War
In Cloudy War I have painted strings of binary code 'instructing' the word CLOUD. Circles of dotted lines carry the fake cloud theme further. And, yet more circles containing wave patterns reveal the underlying signalic character of this 'cloudy' war painting. Why waves? All frequencies in the EMS are made up of photons travelling in wave form at light speed. Radio waves have the longest wave lengths and gamma waves have the shortest. The radio to microwave frequencies are the most commonly used for transmission of signals that enable contemporary hardware and systems technologies. Congestion and contestation of bandwidths is prompting experimentation with other frequencies. Additionally AI systems are being developed to optimise bandwidth access, especially for the military.
Peeping out from behind the techno-cloud are hints of various militarised hardware - airborne drones, ground-based aerial nodes, a tank, a robotic quadruped, a ship, indications of satellites. And, of course there are other hidden elements - you just have to imagine them!
The 'fog of war' is now electromagnetically induced.
I could go on, but I'll leave you to ponder.
Cheers,
Kathryn
