INTIMATE DISTANCE

Intimate Distance Gouache and Watercolour on paper 56 x 76 cm 2021

 

This painting responds to the times in which we live. Times of pandemic, climate change, individual natural disasters, political decay, and failed wars. Sounds dire I know! Painting, for me, is a way to process what is happening. I hope you find what I 'see' of interest.

As Baudrillard, Virilio and others have noted, the effect of instantaneous delivery, onto our various screens, of news and images from hotspots around the world, draws us all into a kind of intimate experience that collapses distances of time and place. Virilio's "temporal compression" in a world of mayhem is a felt experience - a burden and an anguish. (1) 

Intimate Distance invites you to fly. Are you above or below the drone and the strange eyes? Or are you in front of them or behind them? Can you move from one perspective to another? Are the eyes representative of people or are they fake eyes, representing surveillance technologies and systems? One eye's pupil displays a targeting graphic, another eye displays a screen. What is the relationship between these two eyes? There are a few possibilities. 

Intimate Distance invites you to fly, to experiment with what I call 'imaginational metaveillance', a chance to imaginationally 'view' a big picture - to take yourself away and beyond. What kinds of patterns and anomalies can you 'see'. There is hope in the ability to move between and around different perspectives, both literal and metaphoric. 

Here is an anomaly for you. The scape, whether you are looking up at a skyscape or down upon a landscape, attempts to show another kind of scape, one which is invisible but imposed on our environment. It is the scape of technological interconnectivity, networking and interoperability, enabled by harnessing frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS].  This new imposed 'landscape' of signals and nodes mediates human behaviour in ways that are not simply about material or visible hardware/devices. Are you aware of it? 

And, there is more to think about!

Cheers,

Kathryn

(1.) Paul Virilio, The Original Accident, trans Juli Rose (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, Polity, 2007) p. 13.

 

FIVE EYES AND THE REST

Five Eyes and the Rest Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm

The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance of five countries - Australia, USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand. Its formation stems from a post World War 2 "multilateral agreement for co-operation in signals intelligence (SIGINT), known as the UKUSA Agreement" signed in March 1946. Initially the agreement included the UK and the USA. Canada joined in 1948, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956. You can read more about its history HERE *

I am interested in the use of the word 'eyes', which in the post-war period meant that intelligence gathered by the five countries was for their 'eyes' only. One can assume that this meant human eyes. 

21St Century 'Vision'
In the 21st century, an age of accelerating developments in digital and cyber technology, networking and inter-connectivity, 'eyes' and 'vision' have taken on different kinds of meaning. Both have been assigned to the machine eg: the unmanned aerial vehicle or airborne militarised drone, satellites, machine learning/vision. The unmanned drone, for example, is often referred to as an 'eye in the sky'. Imaging technology used for surveillance and targeting is referred to as 'machine vision', 'drone vision'. Additionally, as autonomous systems, employing artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly employed, scrutiny of data and images for anomalies and patterns is no longer entirely the domain of the human being. That self learning systems can potentially also make 'decisions' based on algorithmic scrutiny begs the questions, where does the human being fit as a critical observer? 

The 21st century concept of vision, is increasingly one of detection, scoping and targeting. This is a concern, because human vision is not only seeing with eyeball and pupil, it is also daydreaming, using imagination, dreaming, and visionary thinking. Plus, we can detect, scope and target too! Jean Baudrillard's observation that "the real vanishes into the concept" helps us think about the implications of endowing machines with capacities of 'vision'. (1) Are we orchestrating our own disappearance? Are we being expelled, as Baudrillard implies, from an artificial world? 

Five Eyes and the Rest
In Five Eyes and the Rest I have used a cosmic perspective. From this perspective can you see any anomalies or patterns that might raise questions about increasingly persistent and pervasive machinic surveillance? Who or what is looking at who or what? 

With your eyes what do you see? I see 'eyes' everywhere! 

Cheers,
Kathryn

* Information about Canada's plans can be found HERE, New Zealand's HERE
Information about the UK's Reaper Drones can be found HERE
I have previously written about Australia's use of drones and future plans Pay Attention: The Drones Are Here
And, the USA's development and use of surveillance and weaponised drones is common knowledge

1. Jean Baudrillard, Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?, trans, Chris Turner ( Seagull Books, London, New York, Calcutta, 2016), 12.

* 

AI: POSING QUESTIONS?

At the Barbican

Last week I attended an event at the Barbican, London. The event was “Collisions” a virtual reality production by Lynette Wallworth. “Collisions” takes the immersed viewer into the traditional lands of Australian indigenous elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan. Without didacticism or preaching, but with great story telling, Wallworth provides insight into Britain’s nuclear testing in Australia. “Collisions” is ‘part of “Life Rewired”, a season at the Barbican exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything’. “Collisions” ends 20 April.

AI

While I was at the Barbican I saw promotion (image above) for a forthcoming program, also part of the ‘Life Rewired’ season. This program is called “AI: more than human”. I wish I was going to still be London for this.

The title “AI: more than human” got me thinking. Without a question mark it presents as an assumption, that artificial intelligence is ‘more than human’, the word ‘more’ indicating abundance, betterment, enhancement. But, what is enhanced or bettered, in abundance? Does it mean the good, the bad, or the good and bad? While I am sure serious questions will be raised by the artists, scientists and researchers involved in the program, I wondered if a simple question mark at the end of the title might have been more speculatively interesting.

Another immediate thought I had, was, why not “AI: other than human”? And, with a question mark, “AI: other than human?”, the speculative possibilities are further opened up.

Then, I got to thinking about a whole range of phrases, with and without question marks, that prompt speculation about AI. I have written some alternative phrases about AI, in the mind-map image below. The question marks in brackets indicate that one could be applied or not. While a question mark subtly changes a phrase, I suggest it prompts further perspectives. I propose that these phrases or questions, highlight the assumptive limitations of  “AI: more than human".

The second mind-map image (below), expresses thoughts that are informed by my research into contemporary militarised and militarise-able technologies. The fact that machine learning and artificial intelligence are already incorporated into aspects of modern surveillance, targeting and weapon capabilities raises questions about the role assumption plays in how we might accept, or not, accelerating developments in, and uses for, artificial intelligence. With this perspective, language that presents assumption is a significant risk. By presenting as a fait accompli, an assumption can blind us to alternative ways of thinking and acting.

In the third mind_map (below) the A and I are returned to full words: ‘artificial’ and ‘intelligence’. This enables a game of word separation and alternative word coupling. Thus, further questions that disarm assumption are posed.

I think we have to be careful with the way we use language to describe contemporary technological capabilities, such as artificial intelligence. Many terms anthropomorphise technology, and in doing so we are drawn into a relationship that may not allow the critical space we need to identify and critique assumption.

I'll leave it up to you now.

Cheers,
Kathryn

ANOMALY DETECTION (NUMBER 2)

Anomaly Detection (Number 2) Oil on linen 120 x 180 cm 2017

The term 'anomaly detection' is a technical one. With contemporary technology and the help of algorithms and artificial intelligence, systems have been devised to detect unusual online behaviours, discrepancies in documentation, weaknesses in cyber systems, and unusual patterns in things like financial transactions and movements of people etc. Anomaly detection enables, in many cases, preemptive action, such as isolating/fixing weaknesses in cyber systems, identifying potentially dangerous activities and malign intent. Anomalies can be detected in image, written and online data that is collected, analysed and stored. 

Where did the idea for Anomaly Detection (Number 2) come from?

The idea came after I saw a drone manufacturer's promotional video that demonstrated anomaly detection capabilities of airborne drones. This is where the drone's wide-area electro-optical surveillance systems can cast such a wide net that, for example, three vehicles travelling at speed and many kilometers apart, could be identified as aiming for the same destination. In the case of war and conflict zones this may indicate that the vehicles are aiming for a target, either to destroy it, deliver insurgents to it, or possibly protect a valuable human asset. The latter, of course, in the eyes of those watching may be considered a high value target - HVT.  

In Anomaly Detection (Number 2) I have turned the surveillance back onto the drones; in this case three weaponised Grey Eagle drones. I am suggesting that imagination can deploy its own wide-area - even cosmic - surveillance capabilities to question whether technologies designed to detect, monitor, surveil and target, are really beneficial for humanity and the planet. In this painting the three drones seem to be aiming for the same destination - the pale blue dot. Here, I am drawing upon Carl Sagan's term for Earth, as it was seen in the famous photograph, 'Pale Blue Dot', taken in February 1990 by the spacecraft Voyager 1 as it started to leave the solar system. The photograph showed Earth as a small pale blue dot situated within and against our celestial environment. The three drones in Anomaly Detection (Number 2) potentially threaten the pale blue dot. 

Anomaly Detection (Number 2) poses a few questions about the vulnerability of humanity and Earth's environment in an age of accelerating technological development. The drones can be seen as literal threats or as metaphors for a society seduced by technology, or exhausted by it. The three drones are painted as if they are pixelated, thus representing their reliance on, and use of, digital and cyber systems. The pixels also suggest a kind of virtual reality, mimicking images seen on computer screens, either those used by drone operators or those used for war games and simulations. There is plenty of room for anomaly detection!

New Sky

The drones are also painted blue to reflect upon the way vertical threat creates a new sky. This is particularly so in places such as Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan where drone operations and attacks have made people fearful of the sky. In an age where Voyager 1 now travels in interstellar space, the fact that people on Earth are afraid of the sky, is an indictment on humanity. 

Dronescape 

Anomaly Detection (Number 2) is another of my dronesscapes, but it is also a cosmic landscape provoking and pushing perspective, of all kinds, beyond Earth, even beyond the solar system - and - possibly this universe!  

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In 2014 I painted Pale Blue Dot [below]

  

 Pale Blue Dot Oil on linen 120 x 160 2014

Anomaly Detection

I recently painted another Anomaly Detection painting [below]. It is a work on paper, depicting three weaponised Reaper drones aiming for the tree-of-life. 

   

Anomaly Detection Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Cheers,

Kathryn

ANOMALY DETECTION

Anomaly Detection Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

The term anomaly detection is a technical one. It is an automatic system for detecting unusual behaviour, patterns or occurrences in, for example, live or stored data, such as film footage. Anomaly detection can allow preemptive actions. Regarding military drones the identification of anomalous behaviour, for example multiple vehicles moving at speed from different directions towards one destination, can trigger an alert for increased surveillance and readiness for potential attack. A drone's wide area surveillance capabilities mean expansive areas can be surveilled, and sophisticated detection and recognition algorithms are employed as another layer of surveillance monitoring. In civilian arenas anomaly detection systems are useful for a variety of monitoring requirements that range from security to environmental protections and more.

In Anomaly Detection I have turned drone surveillance on its head. Here, I have painted the drones as if pixelated, as if a detection and recognition algorithm has detected the anomalous behaviour of three armed drones converging on the tree-of-life hovering at the center of the image. The viewer of the painting could be monitoring the drones from the ground, looking up - or - from the sky/space looking down. In this way the viewer becomes aware of the power of perspective, even in imagination. 

COSMIC PERSPECTIVE

Cosmic perspectives implore us to seek distance, both close and far, as a way to examine ourselves and the planet. From vast distances it becomes obvious that planet Earth, despite discoveries of possible habitable exo-planets, is our only home for the foreseeable [and beyond] future. We need to look after the planet and ourselves. By exploring perspective and engaging with multiple perspectives maybe we'll discover more anomalies that highlight risk in ways that trigger precautionary, preemptive, restorative and pro-actionary activities?

I am really pleased with this painting - I actually think it is quite beautiful - in a way that achingly screams for the tree-of-life's survival in the face of potential destruction.

* Please check out the recent interview Portfolio: Dronescapes by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox with Maggie Barnett from The Centre for the Study of the Drone, Bard College, New York.