HOLDING ON OR LETTING GO?

Beliefs and Battlefields Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2024.

NEWS!

New article, Surrendering to 'too powerful' technologies: from the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone, published in Media, War, and Conflict journal.

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HOLDING ON OR LETTING GO?  
Beliefs and Battlefields (above) and An Unfolding Story (below) were inspired by the work of Jacquelyn Schneider and Julia MacDonald, co-authors of a new book The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Military Arsenal (2024 online, 2025 print). The third painting, Another Unfolding Story (bottom), was inspired by creating the first two paintings. Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and is the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative. Julia MacDonald is Director, Research and Engagement Asia New Zealand Foundation, NZ. 

Having previously read some of Jacquelyn Schneider's work, when I read the early edition of this new book's Introduction, I was inspired. From a US perspective, the book examines various issues dealing with human beliefs about the conduct of war, including "technological determinism and military revolutions, force protection and casualty aversion, and service identities"(abstract). 

PAINTINGS

In each painting I have painted outlines of human hands. In Beliefs and Battlefields small squares painted on three of the hands and some of the military devices mimic pixels. These pixels reference digital technology, computer graphics, and aspirational concepts of human-machine teaming. Four shadow-like hands seem to hover in the background, their white forms are ghostly. Perhaps they are reminders of human history and its drive for technological advancement. For example, the Futurists of the early twentieth century embraced the idea of industrial speed - the automobile, the train, and the airplane. Against a backdrop of the First World War and industrial inventions, the Futurists enthusiastically applauded mechanical and industrial speed as a sign of progress. 

In the late twentieth century Paul Virilio observed that during the first Gulf War (1990-1991) the “real environment for all important military action is no longer so much the geographic environment, be it desert or other terrain, but rather the electromagnetic domain” (Virilio, Desert Screen, War at the Speed of Light, 1991, 88). Invisible signals, travelling at lightspeed (or near lightspeed) transmitted images from surveillance drones to remote operators, at the same time images of war were transmitted to television sets around the world. Lightspeed, unlike mechanical speed, operates beyond human perceptions of sight, sound, feeling, and time. Since the first Gulf War the systems and machines of war are increasingly unmanned, remotely operated, autonomous, interconnected, and interoperable. Beliefs and Battlefields depicts how terrain, from earth to orbiting satellites, is enfolded into the invisible "electromagnetic domain". In the painting, unmanned and autonomous robotic systems are connected via painted lines that represent normally invisible signalic connectivity, interconnectivity and interoperability.

 

In Beliefs and Battlefields, the pixel-hands, seem instrumental. The shadow-hands, however, seem to be reaching out, perhaps from the past to the future, which is now. While contemporary war zones remind us that physical battlefields still exist, other kinds of 'battlefields' - cyber, information, political, electromagnetic - generate complexity. The term battlefield is an intriguing one. With my research into increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in mind, a quote from United States Department of Defense’s (USDoD) October 2020 Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy raises concerns. The document describes the EMS operational (EMSO) environment - Virilio's "electromagnetic domain" - as a "battlespace, a place where competition and warfare, as well as commerce and other nonmilitary activities, are conducted". (USDoD, 3) The earth-to-orbiting satellite environment, therefore, is a largely invisible battlespace/field that embroils both civilian and military technologies. This sense of an encompassing volumetric battlespace, from Earth to satellites, is evident in both Beliefs and Battlefields and An Unfolding Story. 

In An Unfolding Story, I have painted interconnecting circles, rather than lines, to indicate interconnectivity. These circles form a cloud-like mesh - the 'cloud'. Like the shadow-hands in Beliefs and Battlefields, the hands in this painting seem to hover between being there and not. Are they holding on or letting go? What are they holding onto or letting go of? Could it be beliefs?

An Unfolding Story, Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2024.

Another Unfolding Story (below), painted some months after Beliefs and Battlefields and An Unfolding Story, is a departure from the other two paintings. However, I probably would not have painted it without the experience of thinking through and creating the other two paintings. I think there might be more to come too! Thank you Jacquelyn and Julia!

Again, hands feature, but I will let you ponder alone.
(the binary code 'instructs' repeated questions marks ?????

The painting echoes previous work On the Edge of Being and Where's The Beating Heart?. Both paintings channel the aesthetics of Douglas Hofstadter's invention, the ambigram. Check out the linked titles for more details. 

Cheers, Kathryn.

Another Unfolding Story, Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2025.