THEATRE OF WAR: SENSORATION

Theatre of War: Sensoration Oil on linen 122 x 153 cm 2022

Sensorium?

This new painting Theatre of War: Sensoration was inspired by thinking about arrays of sensors eg: for surveillance, detection, tracking, data sorting, airport security etc. I am particularly interested why arrays of sensors are often called sensoriums, or considered part of the general natural world sensorium of senses and sensing. I have an issue with this! While the word sensorium does contain the word sensor, sensorium is normally applied to the human or natural world sensorium, where different senses, from sight, to hearing, touch, hindsight, emotion, feeling, even sixth sense, are experienced. So, to apply sensorium to arrays of technological sensors implies an attribution of a range of senses that sensors do not have. 

To avoid anthropomorphising technology we must pay closer attention to the language used to describe capabilities. My suggestion for the sensorium conundrum is to turn the noun sensor into a verb. Thus, the scoping and detection activities of sensors are acts of sensoring, not sensing. And, thus an array of sensors could be called a sensoration (like association, or delegation). 

PhD

I add here that my thoughts are part of a broader PhD creative practice-led research project (Curtin University, Western Australia) examining increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum, as an enabler of technology, a type of fires (weapon), a manoeuvre space (tactics) and a domain (strategy). 

Registering

I do realise that human beings share the world with an ever increasing array of technological sensors, and therefore there is a relationship, whether clear or not to human beings. I add here that I doubt that sensors 'know' there is a relationship! Eyal Weizman (Founder of Forensic Architecture) and Matthew Fuller  write about the sensor-sensing-human relational characteristic of contemporary life in their very thought provoking book Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth (2021). While using the word sensorium to encompass the sensor-human relationship, they do not scrutinise its anthropomorphising attributes. 

Weizman and Fuller do, however, mention the act of registering - of registration. The idea of registering/registration provided a way for me to think through the conundrum of using the word sensorium to encompass sensors and human/natural world sensing. I propose that both sensors and human beings register, and that this is the relational link between the sensor sensoration and the human sensorium. A sensor will register the presence of a human being and relay or store data relating to the human being's actions, condition etc. A human being may register the presence of sensors and mediate behaviour, or possibly not care. But, a human being's act of registering a sensor, or anything else for that matter, can entail an emotional reaction - even not caring is an emotional reaction. Whereas, a sensor is incapable of caring or not caring - full stop. 

Theatre of War: Sensoration
Using the symbol for light-speed ie: c, and the symbol for photon ie: y, I have painted two outer circles. Each symbol in each circle is connected by a wavy line. These lines indicate wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. This implies sensor signal connectivity and interconnectivity. An inner circle of cross-hairs coveys the idea of surveillance and monitoring, and the central cross-hair conveys the idea of targeting. This targeting could be by advertisers, information warfare bots, surveillance cameras, a drone's imaging technology or even the scoping lens of a weapon. 

Without depicting actual sensors Theatre of War: Sensoration visually critiques the idea that an array of sensors, or an environment of sensors, is a sensorium. I chose to use red and white to suggest that the sensoration - not sensorium - is a shared military and civilian space. The reliance on speed of light signal connectivity to relay data and instructions, in an network-centric world renders the civilian world of sensors ie sensoration militarise-able. 

I invite you to 'fly', in imagination, above, behind and around the sensoration. The cosmic background scape creates a distance into which you can soar. What do you see?

Cheers,

Kathryn