Visualising the Invisible Oil on linen 50 x 122cm 2024
I've not posted for some time. I've been busy! Firstly some news about an event and a couple of publications, then at the bottom of the post a few words about my new painting, Visualising the Invisible (above).
EVENT
Deakin University, Law School, Centre for Law as Protection
On Friday 9th August I attended the launch of Deakin University Law School's new Centre for Law as Protection. I was thrilled to be invited to speak about my research, and to hold an exhibition - a pop-up show that I carried in my luggage from Brisbane to Melbourne, and back to Brisbane. I hung and labelled the show, before the launch event started, in about 90 minutes, and took it down about 9 hours later. Years of hanging my own shows, improvising, planning ahead, and early professional curatorial work all help this kind of frantic activity!
I am also thrilled that my painting Target (2016) is the image for the new Centre's website. Plus, the Centre has included a separate Art of Protection online exhibition of a selection of my paintings. You can view this on the Centre website.
I am so very grateful for Professor Shiri Krebs, co-director of the Centre for Law as Protection, for her enthusiasm for my art and research. The vision for the Centre is inspiring,
The Centre for Law as Protection is building a scholarly community to study the idea of protection, shape policy and develop legal tools to protect people, animals and the environment.
The keynote speaker for the Centre's launch was Professor Matilda Arvidsson from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her presentation was inspiring. She introduced us to a history of data collection practices, including early warnings about automating data collection. She brought us into the present with a discussion about the digital shadows we generate, and more. I keep thinking about her presentation.
View of exhibition at the launch for Deakin University Law School's new
Centre for the Law as Protection, August 9, 2024.
The first two paintings in the row of paintings, in the photo above, included painted binary code 'instructing' MILITARY LAWYER. Theatre of War: Law and Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction .
The paintings on the wall in the photograph above all included my version of the tree-of-life, along with various militarised technologies. The tree-of-life represents all life, and in my paintings can be considered as a symbol of a collective or an individual.
PUBLICATIONS
Digital War Journal
In case you missed it, my commentary piece, "Light-speed, Contemporary War, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review", in Digital War Journal, was published in May this year. It's open access, so it's accessible for everyone at this link or copy and paste - https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-024-00091-2
I was thrilled when the editors encouraged me to include two of my paintings.
Drones in Society. Social Visualities
And, I have a visual essay chapter "Imaginational Metaveillance, Creative Painting Practice, and the Airborne Drone" in a new book Drones in Society. New Visual Aesthetics, edited by Elisa Serafinelli. Palgrave Macmillan. This is not open access, but you can view details at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56984-5_8
Visualising the Invisible
I have been painting too!
Visualising the Invisible (photo at the top of this post) is one of a few new works. I chose to include it in this post because it links with the idea of protection. The painting is a continuation of earlier works - Force Multiplication , Ghost Sky and Ghost Shadows.
In Visualising the Invisible, two scapes seem to vie for attention, the landscape in the background, and the signal-scape that seems to net or web the background landscape. The background landscape, a physical scape, is normally visible, but the signal-scape depicts normally invisible conduits of connectivity and interconnectivity. Is the normally invisible scape protective or does it pose threats? The signal-scape is visualised as a web or net to indicate its insidious occupation of our environment. The lines linking various ambiguous shapes generate geometric contours that contrast with the physical contours of mountains, valleys, plains, sky, waterways and more.
The small red shape could be interpreted as a glitch - or it could be you holding your mobile phone, a node in signal-matrix - what do you think?
The background landscape was inspired by my childhood experiences growing up in western Queensland, Australia, where my father, a grain-grower, was also a keen ham: amateur radio. operator. I often write about my father's ham radio passion. When he died in 2016, I wrote Two Paintings of my Dad.
I will post again soon,
Kathryn
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