THEATRE OF WAR: PHOTONS DO NOT CARE

Theatre of War: Photons Do Not Care Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2021

 

This is the tenth in my series Theatre of War. It is, however, my first oil on linen in the series. The others have all been works on paper.

The title of the painting was inspired by words written by Maj John Casey in a very interesting 2020 article "Cognitive Electronic Warfare: A Move Towards EMS Maneuver Warfare" for the online journal OTH: Over the Horizon: Multi-Domain Operations and Strategy. Casey wrote "The EMS knows no limits and the photons do not care about threat envelopes, fire support coordination lines, national interests, or boundaries."

PhD

As regular readers know I am currently undertaking a creative practice-lead PhD through Curtin University, Western Australia. My research examines the increasing interest militaries around the world are paying to the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS] as an enabler of technology, a type of fires, a 'maneuver space' and a domain. Given that interconnectivity, networking and interoperability draw EMS-reliant civilian technology into militarised capabilities, I argue - we all need to pay attention. 

All frequencies in the EMS [radio to gamma] are made up of photons, massless particles agitating at different energy levels, but all travelling at the speed of light. Lower energy radio frequencies have longer wave lengths and gamma waves have very short wave lengths. The light spectrum is the only one visible to humans [without tech assistance]. 

Casey's comment that photons "know no limits" reminds us that networked and interconnected technologies utilising the EMS have operative functions that, for example, reach light speed. Photons are quantum particles existing in dimensions of space and time that are beyond human access, but not beyond human desires for optimised tactical advantages. Here, I am reminded of Paul Virilio's comment, 

The fact of having reached the light barrier, the speed of light, is a historic event, one which disorients history and also disorients the relation of human beings to the world. If that point is not stressed, then people are being disinformed, they are being lied to. For it has enormous importance. It poses a threat to geopolitics and geostrategy.*

As Casey reminds us, photons do not care about "national interests, or boundaries". Thus, we need to pay attention to military interest in the EMS as accelerating speeds of technological operation, even light speed operative capacities, are likely, as Virilio warns, to disorient the relation of human beings to the world to the point that geopolitics and geostrategy are threatened. If we are disoriented - will we even notice? 

Theatre of War: Photons Do Not Care 
Stars in the universe sparkle, light indicating their presence and history. Mars and Earth are visible. I have painted four Loyal Wingman drones with small dots to indicate their reliance on spectrum. Are the dots photons? Are they false stars? Whatever they are, maybe they create a false universe, a strange simulation? The dotted geolocating points in the landscape reference a marshalling of natural resources to conform to strategic needs. I remind readers that the EMS is a natural and universal resource, photons appearing in the nano-seconds after the Big Bang. 

I will leave you to ponder more. 

Cheers, Kathryn

P.S. Last Theatre of War post was Theatre of War: Spectrum Access  For other posts use the Search This Blog is available on the right side of this post. 

*Paul Virilio, “Red Alert in Cyberspace,” Radical Philosophy (Nov/Dec 1995): 2.

 

THEATRE OF WAR: GHOSTS WARN

Theatre of War: Ghosts Warn Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2021

This is my sixth Theatre of War painting. The other paintings can be accessed via my post Theatre of War: Spectrum

Clausewitz
Theatre of War: Ghosts Warn is again inspired by thinking about the famous 18th/19th century General Carl von Clausewitz's famous tome On War . In this book Clausewitz regularly refers to the term 'theatre of war', even devoting a chapter to it [Book V, Chapter II]. In the 21st century the concept of 'theatre of war' extends beyond Clausewitz's idea of a "portion of the space over which war prevails as has its boundaries protected, and thus possesses a kind of independence". While the idea of a portion of space, independence and protected boundaries are blurred by new modes of warfare, such as cyberwar, information war, electronic and electromagnetic warfare, I think it is interesting to ponder what the contemporary 'theatre of war' actually might mean.

For a start, Clausewitz describes journeying to a 'theatre of war' and moving within a 'theatre of war'. With contemporary modes of warfare operating across multiple domains in mind, moving to or within theatres becomes problematic, even obsolete in certain circumstances. For example, what if we ask ourselves, are we permanently within the contemporary 'theatre of war'? If so, journeying to the 'theatre' is not possible. Maybe it's more like moving across a stage, sometimes the drama can be wild, and at other times subdued.

Clausewitz also writes about 'our theatre of war' and the enemy's 'theatre of war'. The 'theatre of war' he describes is geographically based, overlaid by strategy, movement of armies, and politics.  While the politics bit remains, geography, strategy and movement of armies are part of a complex matrix of concerns in an equally complex matrix of battle spaces, where notions of 'ours' and 'theirs' are increasingly blurred, if not similar. In a world where technology renders various modes of state and non-state warfighting capabilities as continuously engaged, escalation and de-escalation can potentially occur at light speed. This includes the information war, and its partner social media. Speed is a key ingredient that helps 'conduct' and 'produce' the contemporary everywhere-all-the-time 'theatre of war'. 

Roles Played in the Contemporary Theatre of War
In the contemporary 'theatre of war' we are all wittingly or unwittingly 'playing' roles that change in type, degree and importance. If we own a mobile phone, for example, we could provide a node for a state or non-state actor to appropriate for multiple reasons. With both state and non-state actors having commensurate or near-commensurate technical capabilities, a more synchronised and ubiquitous 'theatre of war' potentially destroys a traditionally understood story arc - declaration of war, duration of war and end of war. My ideas here are informed by cultural critic Paul Virilio's commentaries on technology, Jean Baudrillard's three essays first published in the French newspaper Libération in 1991 ie: “The Gulf War Will Not Take Place”, “The Gulf War is Not Really Taking Place,” and “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,” March 29, 1991, plus David Kilcullen's very interesting recent book The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West [2020].

Ghosts
In Theatre of War: Ghosts Warn I have painted various elements of contemporary war ie: two drones [one a Loyal Wingman drone], parodies of geolocation and terrain visualisation technology, targets, a satellite, indications of built environments, and signals transmitting instructions, information and data. All of these either normally visible or normally invisible aspects of contemporary war create a scape that overlays a background that could be a landscape or a skyscape - are you above or below this 'production' of the contemporary 'theatre of war'? Flipping your perspective could possibly be helpful!

I have also included ghosts. Maybe speed makes everything ghostly? What are these ghosts warning us about?

I'll leave it up to you to ponder.

NEW PODCAST NEWS

I was interviewed by Paris-based Cecilia Poullain for her Brave New Women series of podcasts. She asks me about my PhD, the influences of my parents, my artwork, and about being a single Mum. You can watch it here on YOUTUBE

Cheers,

Kathryn

LIFE, AT THE FRONT

Life, At The Front Oil on linen 56 x 112 cm 2020

Against a current backdrop of tension and disaster, such as the catastrophic fires in Australia, dangerous flooding in Indonesia [and even Dubai], and heightened tensions in the Middle East, there is also an overlay of political dissonance. As belief systems and politics are twisted and provoked by social media and fake news, opinion collapses into binaries of good and bad, right and wrong. It feels like LIFE is on the front-line of a battle. This battle seeps into our homes and workplaces via the screen - computer screens, iPads, mobile phones, and other devices. That these devices are networked and interconnected allows the binaries to accumulate at extremes, where complexity is lost. Near light-speed transmission of news, opinion, data, Tweets, comments [and photos of cats] keeps us on a fast moving treadmill, that goes nowhere. It creates a kind of inertia. 

No time for complexity. 

No time. 

With little time to think what happens?

I am reminded of Paul Virilio when he described the screen in Open Sky (1997) as “the square horizon” that causes “confusion of near and far, of inside and outside, disorders of common perception that will gravely affect the way we think”.(1) 

Life, At The Front and the Screen

In Life, At The Front I have tried to channel the impression of a screen. The orienting white lines mimic those that could be seen on a remote drone pilot's computer screen. Or, perhaps it is a computer gamer's screen? As the title suggests a battlespace exists. Is it real or virtual? Does it really matter? It could be both?

Squares of colour mimic pixels. These 'pixels' provoke questions about how contemporary images are generated, the veracity of images, how we are trained to look at images...and more. Please note my use of the word 'generated', rather than 'created', to describe the production of contemporary images that require screen-based platforms for production, exhibition and storage. 

The ubiquity of digital imagery and its generative digital and cyber processes, requires and causes standardisation, thus enabling the efficiency of streamlined globalised consumption. Here, my thoughts are informed by Virilio's commentary on standardisation and synchronicity in his 2012 book The Great Accelerator, where he also writes about a resultant inertia. He remarks that inertia threatens a "paralysis or, rather, the sudden tetraplegia of the societal body”. (2)

Tree-of-Life

In the painting a multicoloured burning tree - a tree-of-life - seems to be part of the orienting graphic overlay, but this is unclear. Maybe the tree, on fire, is a warning, just like the catastrophic fires in Australia. It warns, not only of fire, but of other catastrophes caused by not paying attention to science, by not thinking in complex ways, by not being prepared, and not looking into a future beyond a political cycle.........................

A red tree - another tree-of-life - sways in the wind on a distant horizon. Perhaps another warning?

Horizons

The landscape beyond the white-lined graphics, tumultuously unfolds into multiple horizons. And, with multiple horizons, there are multiple potential perspectives. Here, I think of horizons and perspective in literal and metaphoric ways. The fake perspective of the white targeting graphics is prosaic by comparison. Virilio again provides a way to critically think about the effects of ubiquitous screen-based technology. He comments, "What is the danger of globalzation? There is no perspective. There is an optical correctness being set up, and there is a generalized tele-surveillance that comes from the military with its drones, etc". (3)

Perspective

The question of perspective is one that has preoccupied me for a couple of decades. It is not a new interrogation. In my cosmic landscapes of the past I have invited viewers to fly in their imaginations, to play with perspective, both literal and metaphoric. 

My recent work dealing with militarised and militarise-able technology still invites viewers to 'fly' into cosmic realms. My work still plays with literal and metaphoric perspective, to re-enliven perspective, to provoke it - as a form of resistance.

1. Paul Virilio, Open Sky, trans. Julie Rose (London and New York: Verso, 1997), 26.

2. Paul Virilio, The Great Accelerator trans. Julie Rose (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2012),18.

3. Paul Virilio and Sylvere Lotringer, The Accident of Art, trans. Michael Taormina (New York and Las Angeles, Semiottext(e), 2005), 74.

NEWS

I am presenting at the

Aesthetics of Drone Warfare

 Interdisciplinary conference 

University of Sheffield, UK 

7-8 February.

My painting New Horizons is the conference image!

Cheers,

Kathryn

GAMED LANDSCAPE

Gamed Landscape Oil on linen 23 x 62 cm 2019

REORIENTATION OF LANDSCAPE

I was thinking about  my last post Stealthy Techno-Colonising Forces and my claim that invisible signals occupy landscape and environment in a manner that colonises it. While visualising normally invisible signals is one of my aims, so is examining how screen-based graphics reorient notions of landscape. That some screen-based graphics are informed and generated by data delivered by signals cannot be ignored. For example, data and imagery received from an airborne drone is managed by a remote pilot via a screen, or a number of screens. The image on the screen is overlaid with lines, circles, numbers and letters indicating orientation, targeting, speed, direction, scale and more.

Does a reliance on screen-based delivery of information, images, data, communications etc, change our perception and experience of landscape and environment? Do computer games change or mediate how we think about landscape? Does a GPS in a car or on a phone mediate our experience of landscape? Regarding the latter, there are, for example, odd stories about people driving off the end of jetties because they have relied on GPS directions that were wrong. What happened to looking out the window, identifying landmarks, critically thinking about a terrain? Here, I am reminded of cultural theorist Paul Virilio's suggestion that an outcome of screen-based technologies is "sightless vision" the "production of intense blindness that will become the latest and last form of industrialisation: the industrialisation of the non-gaze". (1)

GAMED LANDSCAPE

This brings me to my new painting Gamed Landscape. I have painted a landscape overlaid with the new topographies of the industrialised image. This painting is inspired by a few things, and regular readers will recognise that it is reminiscent of some other recent paintings, for example Lethal Landscape: False Horizons, HUMAN and Mission Capable Landscape . However, recent investigations of computer games stimulated by watching Harun Farocki's Parallel I - IV * got me thinking about gaming. And, perversely, a new film called  Hustlers  got me thinking about being gamed. Farocki's film is a short history of how computer generated imagery for computer games has developed since the 1980s. It demonstrates how CGI manipulates landscape and how figures move through strangely real, but unreal, environments. Hustlers is the story of strippers who, during the GFC, devised a way to 'game' - by flattering, flirting with and drugging -  rich men into spending massive amounts of money. 

Just as targeting graphics impose a lethality and a status of mission capability onto landscape, orienting graphics, whether imposed on a real or computer gnerated landscape, gamble and play games. That the history of computer games is entwined with military training techniques cannot be ignored. Here, Virilio's "industrialisation of the non-gaze", reaches out into every pixel, amalgamated with others, to produce an image. The industrialised non-gaze is, perhaps, exemplified in the notion of machine vision or drone vision, the production and surveillance of pixel data. Human beings are the consumers of this data - consumed via the screen. Is this the ultimate hustle of industrialised "sightless vision"?

In Gamed Landscape, red and white lines mimic computer graphics. Along with these lines, an orienting compass, creates a net-like shroud across the landscape. This is a form of occupation. That compass-like graphics are often visible in computer games is an intriguing thing. On the flat surface of the screen, the compass is, for me, the exemplar of a subterfuge, the pretense of dimension. The pretend virtual compass is the clue to the game - of being gamed. 

Have you noticed how many people have no idea of where north, south, east and west are - in the real environment? 

_________________________________________________________________

* 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

1. Paul Virilio, The Vision Machine (London and Bloomington: British Film Institute, 1994), 73.

Cheers,

Kathryn

* Please contact me through the 'contact form', upper right of blog, for any inquiries about this or other paintings. 

SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW

Seeing Through the Fake Window Oil on linen 30 x 46 cm 2018

FAKE STUFF

Fake stuff is happening everywhere! Fake news, fake videos, and now there is a thing called "deep fake". "Deep Fake" uses artificial intelligence to create images or videos the depict seemingly real events, with depictions of real people, sometimes even with fake people. So, for example, videos of politicians saying and doing things they have not said or done. Here are two interesting articles that discuss fake phenomena and artificial intelligence, and "deep fake":  You Thought Fake News Was Bad? Deep Fakes is Where Truth Goes to Die.  by Oscar Schwartz in The Guardian, and What You Have to Fear from Artificial Intelligence  by Ryan Metz in Current Affairs: A magazine of Politics and Culture.

Paul Metz writes: "If you think “fake news” is a problem now, just wait. When an image can be generated of literally anyone doing literally anything with perfect realism, truth is going to get a whole lot slipperier."

Fake news clearly has political, social and security issues, but "deep fake" takes these issues even further. Used indiscriminately, "deep fake', to my mind, is a threat to civilisation as we know it. 

"DEEP FAKE"

Fake news, and particularly "deep fake" are intrinsically linked to digital and cyber technology generally, and the screen more specifically. The screen is the "third" or "cathode window", as Paul Virilio, called it in interviews and text. Jean Baudrillard also proposed a loss of reality delivered by the screen. His "perfect crime", the death of reality, may reach its ultimate prosecution in "deep fake". 

SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW

So, to my new painting Seeing Through the Fake Window. Obviously I am playing into the news about fake phenomena. I am also playing into the idea of the screen being a window, a fake one. Without the ubiquity of the screen would fake news and "deep fake" pose threats to the fabric of society? The screen is ubiquitous because it is the computer screen, mobile phone screen, or other device screen. The screen is, however, also associated with the camera and the weapon, surveillance and targeting. 

In Seeing Through the Fake Window. you can imagine yourself looking through a fake window, aka screen. Maybe it is an airborne drone screen, one of its many multispectral cameras perhaps ? Or, maybe you are looking at a remote drone pilot's screen. Or maybe, you are looking at a television screen, watching news of a true or fake story about a true of fake drone strike? I have painted a dark blue square in the middle of the night- vision green 'cloud'. Is that a new window? Maybe, maybe not.

Seeing Through the Fake Window is not only about giving an impression of looking through a window, a fake window. It is also about exposing the fakery, critiquing the fake window that delivers fake news into our private and public lives. 

FAKE LANDSCAPE

As with many of my paintings, I have painted lines that crisscross a landscape. These lines are signals and computer graphic-like markings. They create a new landscape topography, one which is normally invisible, except perhaps on a screen, maybe a remote drone pilot's screen. It is a fake landscape! As I have previously written, nets of signals that enable connectivity and networking, wrap the planet, extending from land to satellites in space. Theses signals transmit news, stories and images - real and fake - around the world. 

"Deep fake" is a potentially disastrous 21st century tactical weapon, deployable via our nets of signals.

On that happy note!

Cheers,

Kathryn

LETHAL LANDSCAPE: FALSE HORIZONS

Lethal Landscape: False Horizons Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons I have again tried to expose signals that enable interconnected militarised and militarise-able systems. Signals that ricochet around the world, into the sky and space are invisible, yet they net the planet. I 'see' this netting as an insidious new topography which colonises and occupies landscape in ways that transform environments. Horizons are obliterated by this volumetric occupation, yet false horizons appear on computer screens as lines that map and orient for surveillance and targeting purposes. 

In Lethal Landscape: False Horizons a ground-based satellite antenna sends a signal into space, while another signal is either sent or received by a weaponised airborne drone. The drone's wide area surveillance sends out rays of signals, making the drone look almost like a star...a false star. Other markings indicate a landscape infiltrated by multiple arrays of signals, including targeting signals. I have painted a few areas with small red or green squares, to mimic pixels that make up digital images. These areas either indicate a process of pixelation or perhaps de-pixelation - of reality returning or reality disappearing. Here, let's think about Paul Virilio who died earlier this month "matter is now being exterminated by means of acceleration, the specular bomb of screens, those mirrors of time that cancel out the horizon." The original Accident, trans Julie Rose (Cambridge UK, Malden US, Polity, 2007), pp. 49-50.

Cheers,

Kathryn