SPECTRUM WARFIGHTING: INVISIBILITY

The Tree Whispers, Beware of Fake Clouds Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2021

As I research more about the increasing interest in harnessing the electromagnetic spectrum for strategic and tactical military purposes, I think about how we are mediated and affected by the invisible aspects of contemporary war, conflict, geopolitics and techno-politics.* As invisible signals and wavelengths enable technological operability and interoperability, they also forge techno-political-industrial relationships. In a world of the Internet of Things (IOT) interconnectivity blurs boundaries, potentially collapses dual-use and allows political seepage.

So, I continue to think about what happens when the invisible is made visible? What questions are triggered? What kinds of new maps are revealed - relational maps, topographic maps ie: signal-maps? I continue to take cosmic perspectives where I invite viewers of my paintings to fly, in imagination, around and beyond drones, satellites, visualised signals and more. I call this critical kind of 'flight' imaginational metaveillance. 

With each of these three paintings I wanted to trigger questions, in me and you, about the importance of what we cannot normally see. In two of the paintings, the tree-of-life prods us to probe deeper. 

Can you 'see' anything?

Spectrum Warfighter Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2021

In Spectrum Warfighter, it's what you cannot see that's important. The warfighter, whether robotic, human or other, carries various antennae. What might they be connected to? That you cannot see the bottom half of the warfighter may indicate a simulation - one being generated or one being deactivated...

The Tree Asks, What Can't You See? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2021

In The Tree Asks, What Can't You See?, is the tree asking you or the warfighter what can be seen? What if the warfighter is a robot or an avatar on a screen, a digital metaphor or proxy - if so, does even asking a question about seeing even make sense? 

Cheers,

Kathryn

* There are so many recent articles, military statements, industry information about the increasing use of the electromagnetic spectrum by militaries around the world. Just Google the topic!

Here's an article "The Outcome of Future Conflicts Depends on Who Controls the Electromagnetic Spectrum" from Engineering.com 

And, another "Electronic Warfare Success Hinges on Spectrum Dominance" from the Asia Pacific Defence Reporter 

AND, the DOD's Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations: May 2020

  

CHARTING THE INVISIBLE

Charting the Invisible Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

Charting the Invisible is another of my paintings that 'exposes' how signals operatively enable contemporary technologies to function in a networked and inter-connected manner. Without connectivity, many devices would be useless or near useless. By 'charting' the normally invisible connectivity and inter-connectivity of the modern technological world this painting can be understood as a kind of counter-map. Here, I focus on the 'map' as a subversive exposure and demonstration of the connection between militarised and civilian technologies. When you consider that security and policing activities are increasingly blurred with military activities, the militarise-ability of civilian technologies is an issue. Does this make everything dual-use? Additionally, while security, policing and military activities are generally considered necessary by many, malign entities using networked and inter-connected systems are more than unwanted interlopers. 

NODES AND DEVICES

Like my last painting and post Martial Map I have painted lines that join nodes and devices. These lines represent signal connections. For example, a ground control station is linked to an airborne weaponised drone. This control station is also linked to a communication satellite, which is also linked to the drone. The drone is linked to a mobile phone, also linked to the GPS and communication satellite. The phone is linked, then, to a car, and a computer. Some nodes and devices send signals beyond the edges of the painting, to indicate connection to other devices and nodes. And, there are more connections between all the devices, and some connections are still invisible!

TECHNO-COLONISATION

While the painting can be read as some kind of map, the cosmic landscape background positions the viewer in an ambiguous perspective. Is the viewer above or below, in front or behind, the net of signals? If they are below, the sky is netted, if they are above the planet is netted. If they are in front or behind the nets act as walls. Here, the netted appearance is important to me, as I 'see' this signal-net as an imposition on landscape, an occupier of space and a sign of a new kind of colonistion, a techno colonisation that holds us all hostage. Given the militarise-ability of civilian technology, in addition to designated militarised technology, does this colonisation come with a persistent readiness for defensive and offensive actions? If so, are we in a constant state of war preparedness, where the near light-speed delivery of data and instructions via signals expunges time for peace?  

On that 'happy' note.

Cheers,

Kathryn

MARTIAL MAP

Martial Map Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

I have returned from overseas. In Toronto I presented on a round-table, themed to war preparedness, at the International Studies Association annual conference. I then had meetings in London and Berlin. 

EXHIBITIONS

And, I saw a lot of art, from the Rembrandt exhibition at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, to Is This Tomorrow at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, to Hito Steyerl's Power Plants exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London. Two exhibitions at the KW Institute in Berlin still occupy my thoughts. The exhibitions showed works by David Wojnarowicz and Reza Abdoh. Both artists brutally, honestly and sensorially reflected upon the AIDS crisis of the 1980s/early 1990s. I saw a number of exhibitions in Berlin, including Cian Dayrit's thought provoking counter mapping/cartography exhibition Beyond the Gods Eye at Nome Gallery. And, at C/O Gallery I saw two provocative photographic exhibitions - Double Take by duo Cortis and Sonderegger, and Before Sleeping/ After Drinking, a survey show of work by Boris Mikhailov. Matthew Day Jackson's exhibition Pathetic Fallacy at Hauser and Wirth, Somerset was a highlight. This quote from the gallery site gives you an idea about Day Jackson's motivation in this exhibition, "The overarching conceit is an interest in our compulsion to document, map and systemise our natural world as a method for understanding nature." Day Jackson's exhibition and Dayrit's exhibition were both highlights.

COUNTER MAPPING?

Since returning home the idea of counter cartography or mapping has occupied my thoughts. Are my paintings, where I expose signals that enable drone operations, a kind of counter mapping? In many of my paintings I paint proliferating nets of signals as imposed topographies that occupy landscape, from land into space. This volumetric occupation, I 'see', as a techno-colonisation of landscape and environment, facilitating an insidious control and manipulation of human behaviour and movement. I call my paintings 'new landscapes in the drone age'.

By exposing the nets of signals that enable militarised and militarise-able technologies I manifest a kind of map. These paintings expose the invisible, thus resisting techno-military forces by drawing attention to the insidiousness of inter-connectivity and networking. Additionally, the medium of painting enables the exposure of signals without relying on contemporary technologies that utilise connectivity, networking, for example, cloud storage, downloaded software - the internet. While I might upload images, the process of creation remains discrete. 

Martial Map 

The idea for Martial Map was inspired by reflecting upon IR scholar Antoine Bousquet's book Eye of War: Military Perception from the Telescope to the Drone. In this book Bousquet provides a compelling historical perspective on what he calls the development of the "martial gaze", the human eye's conscription into surveillance, targeting and destruction. But, the human eye cannot see signals. Yet, once Heinrich Hertz first transmitted and received radio waves in 1886, radio communication opened the door to modern day connectivity and networking, the enabling signal forces of contemporary militarised and militarise-able technologies. 

The word 'martial' describes something that is related to or suitable for war, related to military life or inclined to war. Martial Map shows how various nodes can be linked, and inter-linked. I have painted various nodes; GPS and communication satellites, credit cards with chips, a cruise liner, home security technology, a digital tv, a drone's ground control station, human beings holding a mobile phone, a car, 'cloud' storage in the form of a huge building, a fitbit, a street surveillance camera, airport security apparatus, a relay aerial and three weaponised airborne drones. The painting suggests how civilian technologies can be conscripted into the militarised network. Dual-use is clearly  a highly problematic and diffused concept in the contemporary world. 

Cheers,

Kathryn