PROMPT-SCAPE

 Prompt-Scape Gouache on paper 28 x 32cm 2025

This image of Prompt-Scape (above) is a photographic documentation of a real painting, not an AI generated image erroneously called a 'painting.' Prompt-Scape visually reveals the plunder that a prompt to generate an image or text triggers. I use the word trigger deliberately! Is a prompt like a trigger, setting into motion algorithmic processes that target data to detect the statistical correlations most likely to produce what has been prompted/triggered?

I'll let you all have some fun thinking about this painting. I don't think I need to write much more about it! I will, however, leave two provocations.

1. Can the concept of surrender help us think about life in the age of AI? My article Surrendering to 'Too Powerful' technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone' in Media, War, and Conflict journal.

2. In September I gave a seminar War in Our Hyperconnected World: Exposing the Invisible Battlespace, for colleagues in the School of Communication and Arts, and the University of Queensland, Australia. Below is one of my slides from the talk. Like Prompt-Scape it channels ideas of targeting in the Earth-to-satellite environment. The painting in the slide is Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction (2022). 

Here's a quote about Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction from my PhD thesis Drones, Signals, and the Techno-Colonisation of Landscape (2023). 

"The painted zeros and ones disembody the organic and strip the non-organic by visually reducing them to the same instructional code. This visual reduction to equivalence exposes insidious relationships, questions forces of techno-homogenisation, and raises issues of aesthetic homogenisation in an age of increasing generative AI."

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

THE CLOUD: ONLINE EXHIBITION

Strange Cloud Watercolour on paper 2020

Strange Cloud (above) is a dark cloud, seemingly impenetrable. An array of multi-coloured drones, acting as sentinels, are both protectors and deliverers of data. The drones' colours bely the darkness of the cloud as it dominates the scene. The cloud's vascular-like growth sucks from the environment, now a metaphor for data. A lone tree-of-life stands as a beacon for the commons and humanity on a distant horizon. 

_______________________________________________________

THE CLOUD: ONLINE EXHIBITION

I was inspired to 'curate' this exhibition after listening to globally recognised artist, author and technologist, James Bridle's recent BBC presentation Under the Cloud. In this twenty-eight minute presentation Bridle "navigates the history and politics of the cloud". With inputs from other commentators, questions are raised about the cloud as a "metaphor of the internet, ethereal and fluffy - but what is it hiding?" Do listen to the presentation - it triggers a lot of questions about how we live our lives now and how we are likely to live our lives in the future.

Cloud Eyes Oil on linen 40 x 40 cm 2017

This online exhibition is a collection of paintings, where over the last few years, I have painted clouds in colours and compositions where their fluffiness is obviously a foil, a subterfuge, perhaps even a potentially dangerous seduction. Many of the paintings address some of the issues raised or alluded to in the BBC presentation. 

With my interest in militarised and militarise-able technology, my paintings depicting clouds reference surveillance, tracking and monitoring, They also speak to vulnerabilities of networked systems where platforms that are owned by a few major companies compel use and compliance under guises of ease of access, swift retrieval of data, enhanced security, speed of light transactions and more. As our awe of the system, and compliance to it, transforms into need, markets are ensured. 

Where does that place freedom? 

Cloud Eyes (Above)

Night vision green clouds clearly indicate augmented entities/systems, capturing data to be stored, analysed, and at some stage, acted upon. The eyes in Cloud Eyes are unblinking - they are not human. Here, I challenge ascribing notions of vision or seeing to machine, digital and cyber technologies - drones. They do not see, they do not have vision [literal, imaginational, dreaming] - instead - they SCOPE! And, when you think about it, 'scoping' befits the contingencies of surveillance ie: monitoring, targeting, manhunting and attack, much better than vision and seeing.... 

Follow Me, Says the Tree Oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm 2017

In Follow Me, Says the Tree I have depicted an eye painted in the sky. Its pupil is a shade of night vision green. It is an unblinking false eye, with 'lashes' that appear to be more like components from a computer circuit board. The signals that radiate from the eye penetrate through a surveillance net which is scaffolded by a night vision green CLOUD - a false cloud. 

However, what of the tree? It also penetrates the net of surveillance and the CLOUD, by reaching upwards towards the stars. It re-establishes perspective - the kind that can take humanity's endeavours into interstellar space. The tree's branching appearance contrasts with the clean lines of surveillance and targeting signals. Randomness, or seeming randomness, is presented as a complex decoy - but isn't that just LIFE! The tree not only erupts through the surveillance net, it also send roots underground. Where there's life there's hope it seems to say.

The New Clouds Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

In The New Clouds I have painted airborne drone swarms as fake clouds. Just as they mimic swarming which occurs in the natural environment, they also mimic clouds. In other words fake clouds that potentially, over time, change our relationship to landscape and environment. The potential militarise-ability of The Cloud is visually and clearly inferred. Here,  targeting, based on data, includes the benign opportunism of advertisers to the more mortally important targeting by militarised forces or aberrant actors. 

______________________________

From  2017 blog post:

"That THE Cloud's operations actually exist and occur as a result of material infrastructure belies the notion of fluffy vapourous clouds. Data is deposited onto multiple massive servers that require space in huge buildings. Servers suck energy - for continuous operation and cooling. And, to ensure backup, rerouting and instantaneous reaction they need connection and interconnection with cables that cross continents and oceans - the internet. The harnessing of space-based assets to assist connectivity adds another layer of material infrastructure beyond Earth's atmosphere. And, in one way or another, all this infrastructure can be used for both civilian and military purposes, thus blurring the lines between battlefield and city/home." 

Drone Clouds Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Painted over four years ago Drone Clouds (above) was inspired by thinking about how the increasing use of militarised drones creates a kind of artificial 'ceiling' in the sky. This can be viewed as both a literal and a psychological 'ceiling'. If we develop a fearful mentality that the sky is a place of threat, what happens to the beauty of cosmological perspectives? Regular readers know I have a fascination with cosmology, and the close and far distances it reveals. Threat from the sky is something that limits a fearless desire to look beyond horizons - earthly, universal and metaphoric.  What happens if we become fearful of The Cloud?

Topography of Signals Oil on linen 57 x 57 cm 2019 

Topography of Signals

A fluffy fake cloud, painted a light shade of night vision viridian green, hovers at the bottom right of Topography of Signals . Militarised and civilian technological hardware are connected by lines that indicate signal connections - the networked society - the militarise-ability of civilian technology. I have used red and night vision green lines to indicate augmented and dangerous surveillance capabilities, and therefore, vulnerabilites. Green screens, green car windows and green credit card chips all indicate data outflow to The Cloud, seemingly benign in all its fluffiness! 

As cultural scholar Paul Virilio notes the “more powerful and high performance the invention, the more dramatic the accident.”
Paul Virilio, The Original Accident, trans. Julie Rose (Cambridge, and Malden, MA: Polity, 2007), 31.

Ubiquitous Surveillance - An Invisible Landscape Oil on linen 60 cm x 110cm 2017

In Ubiquitous Surveillance: An Invisible Landscape I have visually suggested a new topographical layer of the sky, yet it could also be a new topography of the land. As with many of my paintings the viewer could be above the clouds looking down or below the clouds, looking up. As the viewer oscillates from one perspective to another, the new landscape of signals and scopic trajectories suddenly becomes an amorphous entity, capable of palpitating in multiple dimensions. Like a shadow, the viewer cannot escape it. No matter where you are the surveillance follows or perhaps catches you in its virtual web.

The presence of The Cloud is clear.

So, what do you think about Tactics, below?

                                       

                                  Tactics Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2017  

 

 

Data Data Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Data Data and Cloud Storage were both painted in 2016. In Data Data signals are being received and transmitted by an ambiguous vessel-like thing - is it a cloud? In Cloud Storage (below) little boxes try to assimilate with the fluffy clouds - they are unsuccessful. Or, are they - why is one cloud outlined in red? Is it a good or bad sign? 
 

                                    

Cloud Storage Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

And then, Data Heaven ...

At the centre of the square, in the centre of the cloud, binary code ‘instructs’ the word DATA. The fifth line of code, ‘instructing’ the letter D, indicates algorithmic continuity. The cloud looks like an eye, with DATA as its ‘pupil’. I am playing with ideas relating to THE CLOUD, big data and humanity’s increasing reliance on digital and cyber technologies. That we can exist virtually across multiple technological platforms/systems while alive is one thing, but that this virtual existence can continue after mortal death, is indicative of  - DATA Heaven, or perhaps - DATA Hell?

Data Heaven Oil on linen 100 x 120 cm 2017

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

MACHINE UNREADABLE

Machine Unreadable Oil on linen 56 x 76 cm 2020

Machine Unreadable was started not long after I returned from the UK in mid February, and it is now finished. I had gone to the UK to attend and present at the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare conference, University of Sheffield. One of my fellow presenters Mark Reinhardt, Professor of American Civilization at Williams College, gave an interesting talk "Killing Aesthetics? Theora, Automated War, and the Paradox of Drone Visuality" that posed questions about machine to machine scrutiny of images, or rather, their constituent data.* Here, for the machine, the data does not necessarily need to manifest into an image for human eyes. 

Reinhardt's questions intersected with concerns I have expressed in talks, and here on this blog, about attributing the ability of 'vision' to a machine eg: machine vision, drone vision. Vision as a human capability is far more than seeing with eyeball and pupil. Human vision is also about imagination, daydreaming, dreaming, visionary thinking. A machine cannot see or imagine - a machine does, however, scope. Machines that examine image data represent a removal of the human being, and therefore, even the need for an image, or as Reinhardt notes a "killing of aesthetics as both human judgement and human perception."** 

During Prof Reinhardt's presentation he mentioned the term 'machine unreadable' and suddenly I had pictures bouncing around in my head - imagination! Although I had heard the term before, I think the contexts of the talk and the conference opened a different appreciation of the term's meaning. It was one of those moments, which I love, when inspiration is sparked. 

And,

Machine Unreadable is the result.

In Machine Unreadable I have painted a 'corrupted', colourful and incomplete QR Code-like design  over a landscape. The QR Code almost becomes a landscape itself, its dispersed geometry acting like pixels that might, if completed, make up a digital image. The overlay of colourful squares and rectangles obscures the landscape behind. Is this an attempt to make the landscape unreadable? If so, who or what cannot read the landscape? Or, is the landscape the 'destination' image, if the QR Code could be scanned by a mobile phone or other digital devices? 

The 'corrupted' QR Code also acts as a camouflage, perhaps a bit like the dazzle camouflage used on British ships during World War I. Geometric patterns were painted on ships to confuse German submarine officers about the size and shape of ships, plus their speed and direction of travel. If the QR Code is a camouflage, what secrets does it hide? What might it be protecting? Is it confusing? The camouflage could be a metaphoric protection of event the idea of the image, a visual double-play where both the camouflage and the landscape are images that combine to create another image.

Machine Unreadable can be 'read' by a human being, drawing upon imagination, curiosity, experiences, knowledge, memories. This 'reading' can result in multiple interpretations that might be satisfying, enjoyable, or maybe even spark new ideas. A 'reading' could also result in disinterest! Some people might not recognise the geometric pattern as being like a QR Code, but that doesn't matter because the aesthetic response to a colourfully presented pattern incongruously laid over a landscape is likely to induce wonder. How does a machine's scoping capability compare with wonder, imagination, a sense of curiosity, and the ability to dream, daydream or even have nightmares. 

Maybe the machine is the nightmare? 

So much to think about.

Cheers,

Kathryn

  

* Check out the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare conference booklet  page 56-57 for details on Prof Reinhardt's presentation. And, then check out all the bios and abstracts!

** Ibid., P. 56. 

And, another recent post with imagination as a core topic Strange Times and Imagination

HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

HUMAN and a Tree Oil on linen 25 x 20 cm 2019 

NEWS:

• Thursday 14 November, at the IMA, Brisbane, I am on a panel "Landscape and Computer Generated Imagery" with Baden Pailthorpe. The panel discussion will be facilitated by curator, Kyle Weise. A screening of Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV will follow the discussion. More details are available HERE

HUMAN OR ALGORITHM?

Related previous post is PAINTED ALGORITHMS

As regular readers know I often incorporate strings of colourful binary code into my paintings. I see this as a playfully subversive way to comment on our increasing reliance on digital and cyber systems. I see it as a way to draw attention to data gathering and capture activities that enable the formation of what I call proxy identities. That data assists in targeting activities undertaken by advertisers, governments and social media companies is a concern. Of greater concern is targeting for attack by state and non-state militarised organisations. I am reminded of something Jean Baudrillard wrote when he described a digitally coded destiny where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1". (1) And, this recent article "The Captured City The “smart city” makes infrastructure and surveillance indistinguishable" by Jathan Sadowski, highlights concerns about data capture and how data is used. 

HUMAN - Human

Over the years I have created a few paintings that include the word HUMAN or Human 'instructed' in binary code. Lots of ideas have gone, and still go, through my mind when I paint these images. My latest painting is HUMAN and a Tree (above). The 'human' is the string of red zeros and ones, 'instructing' HUMAN. Is this a sign of a human being targeted by software that allows autonomous identification and potential action? Is the code a representation of human species demise, its remnant data-remains stored in 'surviving' digital systems? 

A human body when it dies returns to the Earth, either in burial or as ash. What happens to our digital data after we die? In HUMAN and a Tree I have also included a tree. As regular readers know, this is my interpretation of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life. The tree in this painting is also red, blood red. It draws attention to the mimicry and subterfuge of the instructed HUMAN code. The tree stands as a beacon on the distant horizon. What kind of warning is it sending?

TREE-OF-LIFE

The tree-of-life is also an important element in HUMAN [below]. This painting parodies a computer screen, perhaps a remote drone pilot's screen, a gun or camera scope. The computer graphic-like lines and markings clearly indicate that a targeting exercise is under way. The binary code at the bottom of the painting 'instructs' HUMAN. While the painting may portray individual human figures, the larger question is - is humanity under siege? 

Unusually for me I have depicted human figures. They are under immanent attack, the cross hairs just need to lock-on. However, the tree-of-life shadows provide some kind of hope. They indicate, to me, that the targeting systems cannot detect or identify everything that constitutes a human being - imagination, love, desire and more. This painting has three types of human identification - the figures, the trees-of-life and the binary code. Which one/s is/are real? You can read more about this painting HERE on a previous post.  

HUMAN Oil on linen 30 x 35 cm 2019

TWO HUMANS IN AMBIGUOUS LANDSCAPES

Two Humans (below) is a 'landscape' with two 'humans' forming unusual topographies in the landscape. The strings of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human' attempt to occupy the landscape, albeit an ambiguous one. This painting sold recently to someone who totally 'got' it. I get so very excited when people 'get' the parody, the visual puns, the subversive intent!

Both Two Humans and Two Humans: Uploaded [below Two Humans] playfully critique ideas about posthuman uploading of - well - posthuman entities. Things like uploading human minds or memories, so a person can 'exist' forever. Both paintings critique ideas of data identification, data proxy, life in the algorithmic 21st century and discussions about posthuman futures.  

You can read more about the inspiration for these two paintings on a previous post HERE.

Two Humans Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

Two Humans: Uploaded Gouache on paper 24 x 32 cm 2015

AND, NOW TO MY POSTHUMANS!

In both these paintings binary code 'instructs' 'Human'. This code forms part of the posthumans' 'bodies', and in the case of My Future Posthuman [below] it also forms the posthuman's 'head' in the shape of a question mark.

I had so much fun with my posthuman series, painted a few years ago now.

My Future Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

 Is this a Posthuman?  Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

[1] Jean Baudrillard, Passwords, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 76.


Cheers,
Kathryn
Podcast interview with lead researcher of the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK

DATA HEAVEN

Data Heaven? Oil on linen 100 x 120 cm 2017

I painted Data Heaven last year. I present it to you as a landscape, cosmicscape, dronescape, datascape, futurescape, codescape!

At the centre of the square, in the centre of the cloud, binary code ‘instructs’ the word DATA. The fifth line of code, ‘instructing’ the letter D, indicates algorithmic continuity. The cloud looks like an eye, with DATA as its ‘pupil’. I am playing with ideas relating to THE CLOUD, big data and humanity’s increasing reliance on digital and cyber technologies. That we can exist virtually across multiple technological platforms/systems while alive is one thing, but that this virtual existence can continue after mortal death, is indicative of  -  DATA Heaven, or perhaps - DATA Hell?

The white cloud-eye is surrounded by fiery ‘lashes’ that lick the cosmos. Is the fire destructive or a symbol of renewal? The binary code is painted white, like the cloud, to reveal subterfuge – DATA is used for scoping, surveillance and targeting purposes. The code is positioned at the centre of red cross-hairs to indicate the replacement of human sight/vision by algorithms, scoping for targets – to sell something to – or to kill. Here, the cloud becomes a visual metaphor for the airborne weaponised drone, its persistent surveillance and increasingly autonomous capabilities.

VISION?

I am particularly interested in making a critical comment about the use of 'vision' as a word to describe machine imaging technology. In a few of my recent paintings I play with images that look like an eye, but on closer inspection are not really eyes. To ascribe a machine, no matter how advanced, with powers of vision, reduces human capacities of vision - in it broadest sense ie: not only seeing with eye-ball and pupil, but also with a mind's eye/imagination, in dreams, and visionary thinking. A scoping machine, such as a drone, cannot imagine, dream or generate visionary thoughts/thinking. Let's not give away human capacities that may actually be useful for us in the future! Relinquishing them too soon, and normalising things like machine vision - for me - poses an existential risk [can you 'see' this too?].

Data Heaven? poses questions about the future of humanity – its mortal and digital existence.

BACK IN THE STUDIO

After winding down from my wonderful trip overseas, I have returned to the studio. The photo shows me preparing the early stages of a painting. And, there's Data Heaven? in the back of the studio. Another new painting sits on the desk to the right. 

Please read about my trip, speaking engagements, conferences etc in my last post: Please click on the heading below.

BRISBANE - SAN FRANCISCO - NY - LONDON - CAMBRIDGE - HK

Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox  Studio 

Cheers,

Kathryn

21st CENTURY CLOUD FANTASY

21st Century Cloud Fantasy Oil on canvas 67 76 cm 2017

SURVEILLANCE
Regular readers will know that 21st Century Cloud Fantasy relates to contemporary surveillance in the broadest sense - visual surveillance, data collection and mining, online behaviour monitoring, physical tracking and so on. It also relates to the way I attempt to turn the surveillance back upon itself, by placing the viewer in multiple orientations, even simultaneously. Like with many of my paintings over the years, 21st Century Cloud Fantasy takes a cosmic perspective which has the ability to oscillate at multiple close and far distances. Cosmology, the scientific study of the universe across all spatial and temporal scales, informs my visual oscillation. 

For example, are you looking down, as if gazing at something microscopically, but enlarged by some kind of vision device. Or, are you looking up into an endless sky? Or, are you Voyager 1 with its camera turned back towards Earth - like it did in February 1990 as it left the solar system - one last photo Pale Blue Dot before its camera was turned off, and it embarked on its continuing interstellar journey. Are you being propelled away from the pale blue dot, or are you falling towards it?

But, I was thinking of more! 

Clouds have featured a fair bit in my recent paintings. But, whilst they look like atmospheric clouds, I am playing with the idea of The Cloud ie: multiple servers designed to store computer generated information and data in ways where it is retrievable by possibly an array of systems or people. Is anything secure? 

MANY THOUGHTS
There were so many thoughts going through my head when I painted 21st Century Cloud Fantasy. The choice of colours is deliberate, the targeting appearance is also, as is the positioning of radiating lines with the fluffiness of the clouds. I'll let you think about the painting. However, you might like to read some of my previous posts, where I position militarised systems, like airborne drones - with clouds!

LANDSCAPE
Oh - and - yes, this painting is also a continuation of my attempt to renegotiate what landscape means in the 21st century. A century where the real and the virtual collide - and - where at the same time as humanity has succeeded in sending human-made technology into interstellar space, we also have people in conflict zones who are afraid of the sky - a droned sky. 

Cheers,
Kathryn

THE BODY POLITIC

The Body Politic Gouache on paper 76 x 56 cm 2017

THE TERM 'THE BODY POLITIC'

The term 'the body politic' is used as a metaphor to describe a nation, a sovereignty, or a corporation where people are organised and considered as a group. In these iterations individual people, societal institutions, and corporations are subjected to laws pertaining to notions of citizenry. 

In a globalised world 'the body politic' can be considered as being all of us. 

The notion of a body to describe a group of people, and the systems that organise them, is intriguing. There is a fascinating history - but that's another post! 

THE HUMAN SECURITY FORUM

I've been stimulated to think about 'the body politic' after attending a terrific one day workshop "The Human Security Forum" hosted by Griffith University and facilitated by Dr. Samid Suliman, here in Brisbane, Australia. One of the presenters was a visiting scholar, Dr. Stefanie Fishel, from Alabama University, USA. Her book The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politic  is launched this month. [Check it out for the historical and philosophical background to ideas of 'the body politic' too]. 

After hearing Dr. Fishel speak at the workshop, and a few days later at an event hosted by the Queensland School of Continental Philosophy, the metaphoric capabilities of the body [human and non-human] were expanded, but also made more material. In making the metaphor more material, the body's relationship with its environment became more evidently important - for survival. In the age of the Anthropocene, this opens up more penetrative ways to think about 'the body politic's', ie: humankind's relationship with Earth, the atmosphere and space. As I have previously written, Earth is our home, but the universe is our environment.* By blurring the lines between body and environment, making porosity evident, it becomes evident that they are interchangeable. This interchangeability is metaphoric, but also visceral and corporeal.

Ah, Ha! The spiritual notion of oneness has a catalytic essence, amongst others - of course! 

TREE-OF-LIFE

So, after mulling over ideas that popped into my head as I listened to Dr. Fishel, the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol kept returning to me [regular readers will not be surprised!] as a motif that straddles the nano and the vast, linking body and environment. As the tree's branching appearance mirrors our human body's internal systems it also mirrors water, plant and landscape systems of Earth. The branching phenomena, above and below the ground, is also reflected in our eyes, on the palms of our hands and in finger prints. Other animals share body functioning traits, as they also share this planetary environment with us. Further afield, the tree's branching appearance is reflected in images of space, from nebulae to even large scale computer simulations of the structure of the universe. And, one wonders about multi-universes as branches and roots from a primordial 'tree' of no end or beginning! 

THE PAINTING - THE BODY POLITIC 

In The Body Politic I have painted another of my cosmic landscapes. The 'body' of the 'landscape' is on fire. This 'landscape' represents all kinds of environments, from the body itself - to a personal address - to a cosmic one - and more. The fire could be taken a couple of ways. Is it a destructive fire, or is it symbolic of renewal? The trees-of-life, moving up the centre of the painting, inhabit what I'd imagined as a kind of airway through the fiery 'body/landscape'. Here, the trees act as filtering follicles that keep air moving, making individual and collective breath possible. That trees literally produce oxygen is a key to the osmotic relationship between breathing bodies, the environment and even organisational concepts, such as the 'body politic'.

The Body Politic can be read as a 'landscape' of a human body - even a slice of it - like an x-ray or other internal views, such as a MRI scan. It could also be read as an multi-perspectival view of a literal landscape. Are you looking into this landscape, almost caught? Or are you above it, looking down upon it, like a remote pilot operating a drone, monitoring successful strikes? Or, are you below it, looking up towards a fiery atmospheric battlefield? Maybe it's a cosmic sky - a future 'scape' of the demise of the sun and the solar system, with the trees representing our scattered star dust - the foibles of human politics now meaningless...?

DATA-PROXY 'BODY POLITIC'

From a technological point of view, the branching appearance of the tree, also mirrors human-made systems, such as computer circuitry. In fact, the tree's branching system is used to 'visualise' flows of data, behavioural patterns and other information. Artificial intelligence systems incorporate what is called 'tree-logic', based on ideas of decision and learning trees. In the age of digital and cyber technology, the 'body politic' extends into realms of technology, where the 'body' is no longer living, but is presented, in subterfuge, as a re-assembled data-proxy. That's another post!

Cheers, 

Kathryn

P.S. Check out this article in The Conversation written by Assoc. Prof Anthony Bourke and Assoc Prof. Stefanie Fishel Politics for the Planet: Why Nature and Wildlife Need Their Own Seats at the UN.

* Selection of other posts where home and environment are mentioned.

HOME 

NEW WORLD HABITABILITY: VACATION ANYONE? 

STORM 

COSMIC ADDRESS

NET - SURVEILLANCE

 Sky - Drone - Net gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Surveillance is a hot topic. Cyber-hacking, data collection, Big Data, device monitoring, video surveillance, tracking by GPS systems, drone surveillance and lordy knows what other kinds! We have stories of the recent US election being influenced by another foreign country's surveillance, hacking, stealth! And, closer to home, after browsing the internet for holiday accommodation, I have social media sites advertising special deals in the very same places. There are some hot deals in Port MacQuarie!  Oh, and we now have a tracking device that we can attach to our cat, the one who thinks he is a person and sometimes a bird. This device can be monitored by a mobile phone. Even pets are subject to surveillance! Actually, this is going to make life a lot easier - I hope...

In this post I have two surveillance paintings. As regular readers know I am fascinated by the figure of the unmanned airborne military drone. Its surveillance, monitoring and attack capabilities are both sophisticated and alarming.There are many moral and ethical questions associated with remotely piloted unmanned drones, especially as autonomy in many of their operative systems increases. Political questions collide with moral and ethical ones. Various interests and debates seem to fall into a quagmire, but research and development into increasing autonomy, stealth capability, non-reliance on GPS or communications satellites etc continues. Politics, and definitely the law, play a game of constant catch-up!

In the meantime the public is subject to persistent surveillance. In some parts of the world ie: Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, this surveillance takes on life and death perspectives.

I imagine an array of signals forming a net across the sky. Here, I take cultural critic Mark Andrejevic's idea of "the droning of experience" and call our contemporary skies "droned skies". In my imagination the sky is diminished, its endlessness restricted as fear mingles with the signals to create a tight and opaque 'net' the obscures perspective, distance, imagination.

Now that does not seem such a happy note to end this post on!

Please focus on my two paintings Sky - Drone - Net and Swarm Surveillance. In both it is unclear whether you are above or below the net of signals. There's hope! 
  

Swarm Surveillance Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

$URVEILLANCE

$urveillance Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 76.5 cm 2016

$$$$$

Surveillance is big business - the collection, storage, evaluating and packaging of data; developing and implementing surveillance systems of all kinds; developing and implementing security systems to thwart surveillance by known or unknown infiltrators; ensuring the delivery of cyber updates for ongoing security...and more.

The use of GPS and communications space assets [satellites] to enable civilian and military surveillance draws attention to the dual-use nature of contemporary technology. Regular readers will know of my interest in airborne drones used by the military for surveillance, targeting and attack purposes. Drone operations currently rely on both GPS and communications satellites. [Check out many of my recent posts for more on drones.]

$URVEILLANCE

In this large work on paper I have painted small $ signs to create emanating surveillance signals. I have done this to contest ideas of value. The 'value' flow goes up and down or from one place to another, demonstrating the financial gains delivered to the developers and operators of surveillance technology AND the 'value', to governments, advertisers, the military and others [malign and benign], of the collected data. Technology to collect data is like a 'data harvester' - the harvester collects the 'golden grain'. Yes, I am a farmer's daughter!

The small $ sign-signals could represent proxy rays of 'sunshine' - the new 'sun' in our new 'sky' of surveillance sensors! Yet, they could also represent the perspective of a 'ploughed' field - of data. Or, perhaps 'landing' lights on a 'runway' of data! The electromagnetic spectrum is the new techno-empire frontier!

The 'play' with perspective is a deliberate ploy - one I employ often in my work. The 'landscape' is undetermined and the viewer's orientation is also. Are you above, below, in front, or all simultaneously? 

Be aware!

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com 

REGROWTH + DRONE STAR

Regrowth Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

NEWS

I am very happy to report that my entry Where There's Life There's... is a finalist in the $15,000 Redland Art Award. This award is biennial. You can read more about it and see the list of finalists etc HERE I shall keep you up to date - winner announced 14 October. 

And, at the bottom of this post I have news about the Tattersall's Landscape Art Prize. 

REGROWTH + DRONE STAR

As you can see I am still fixated on the figure of the drone - the drone in the landscape to be more precise. Both Regrowth and Drone Star  depict a drone with emanating signals that create a star-like appearance. These signals are representative of a drone's sensors which receive and transmit data. 

In Regrowth the drone's signals contrast with the emanating branches of the tree-of-life.  This age-old transcultural/religious symbol is the drone's target - for data and perhaps attack. The red box - kill box- around the lone tree indicates that it is a target. Yet, the tree defies the intrusion by sending down new roots. In my mind it acts subversively, but then again, having seen Australian bush regrowth, I know that where and when it can, life re-emerges. 

Drone Star plays with the viewer's sense of orientation. Are you above the drone looking down onto the ground or are you below the drone looking up to a sky. In either case the drone's signals have taken over, hijacked even, the landscape - skyscape. The vibrant colours act as a kind of camouflage sending a message of benign, or even fun, intent. But, is this really the case? 

As regular readers know, I have a delight in playing with perspective and orientation. The drone is giving me ample inspiration in so many ways. 

Here are links to some more of my recent DRONE paintings:

DRONESCAPES

DRONE EXHAUST 

STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE - DRONED

DATA DATA - SKY OF EYES

DRONE LIFE SHADOW PLAY

Drone Star Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

TATTERSALLS'S LANDSCAPE ART AWARD UPDATE

And, here's the news on the Tattersall's $30,000 Landscape Art Prize. The winner was announced on Wednesday last week. AND, congratulations to Ann Thomson for her win with Breakwater. Highly Commended to Melissa Egan and Guy Warren, Commended to Margaret Loy Pula and Members' Choice Award to Michael McWilliams. The exhibition will continue from 12 September to 23 September at the Riverside Centre, 123 Eagle St, Brisbane. 

My entry Privileged Landscape? [below] received some great comments from people at the opening. 

 Privileged Landscape oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2015

DRONE EXHAUST

Drone Exhaust Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 

DEVICES AND DATA

We all know that various devices and systems collect the data we generate. We generate content data eg: information in 'cloud' storage or stored on our computers that may be accessible by others remotely or in-house. We also generate behavioural pattern data from activities such as:

• how many times we might shop at a certain shopping centre based on various systems such as GPS and WIFI use. 
• whether we access news online.
• how often we fill up our cars based on credit card records or even on-board vehicle systems accessible by others including manufacturers. 
• whether we surf the net at night.
• 'likes' and clicks on social media.                

DATA EXHAUST

"Data Exhaust" is the data that is not core to a particular business or policy agenda - but might be in the future if certain correlations are exposed by algorithmic analysis. "Exhaust Data" is a byproduct that may be useful later. It can exist long after mortal death, so could be resurrected for what may now seem improbable purposes.

The term "Data Exhaust" has been around for awhile - here's an interesting article 5 Things You Need To Know About Data Exhaust that helps explain what it is and some insidious aspects of it.

So "Data Exhaust" got me thinking about drones and their data collection and monitoring capabilities via various sensors. Wide area surveillance systems enable a drone to monitor and collect data over wide areas, 24 hours a day. There must be a huge amount of "Data Exhaust"!

DRONE EXHAUST
So, here is my painting Drone Exhaust where I have made visible - the drone and its multiple sensors, the wide area under surveillance, the significant data and the drone's exhaust data. I imagine a landscape strewn with digital data. A dronescape! Or a datascape!

I wonder what this exhaust might obscure?

NEWS

I have again been invited to be a finalist in the Tattersall's Landscape $30,000 Art Award.

My painting is delivered tomorrow 29 August.

The exhibition will be at the Tattersall's Club, Brisbane 5 - 9 September and then it relocates to Riverside Centre 12 - 23 September. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com