DRONE GHOST

Drone Ghost oil on  canvas 25 x 25 cm 2017

Drone Ghost is a small painting. But, the drone looms large. 

Is the drone actually a ghost - are you looking back to a past? If so, from this imagined future, what kinds of advanced technologies now exist? What might have replaced the drone? 

Alternatively, is the 'drone ghost' a subterfuge, a mechanism of stealth? Even though the white ghostly drone seems submerged in water, or obscured by mist, this may be a deliberate ploy. Indeed, its weapons are neither submerged nor obscured. Rather, they are 'ripe' for rapid response firing. The four red Hellfire missiles and two guided missiles 'scream' their ready intent. 

I have played, again, with perspective - as a viewer, are you above the 'drone ghost' looking down upon it or are you below the drone looking up towards it? Are you, in fact, flying around it, turning the monitoring and surveillance back onto the drone - its subterfuge, its stealth exposed?

The ripe red of the tree-of-life also 'screams' its readiness to stand guard, to withhold, to protect. It also takes on a disguise, a potential counter-subterfuge - appearing as a tree, a river system, perhaps a mountain range, or even a vascular system or a cross section of some kind of viscera.  

Is there a winner, a victor?

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Please read A Droned Future? An Online Visual Essay This is my response to the release of Slaughterbots a short film about a potential future dominated by threats posed by lethal autonomous
weapons.

Cheers,

Kathryn

LAUNCHING THE NEW HORIZON

Launching The New Horizon Oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm 2017

NEWS

ART PRIZE

Delighted to report that my painting Drone Spiral [below] won the Drone Art Prize at the inaugural World of Drones Congress held in Brisbane, August/September this year. The press release announcing the prize can be viewed HERE or by clicking "Press Release" on the World of drones website.

Dr. Catherine Ball, scientist, and drone entrepreneur commented

“Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox’s work provided a visual interpretation of the juxtaposition between the drone technology we see most in mainstream media, and its inherently complicated relationship with human beings."

Drone Spiral Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [unframed] 2016

STUDIO UPDATE

Also, my latest e-Studio Update with a recap of 2017 is available HERE

Launching The New Horizon

Launching The New Horizon [at top of page] continues my interest in how contemporary technologies re-calibrating landscape and our responses to it. As regular readers know I am particularly interested in airborne militarised drones, surveillance and targeting signals associated with ubiquitous surveillance, and increasingly autonomous systems. 

In this painting a weaponised drone's wing-span creates a new horizon line. Long range, long dwell and long endurance capabilities of militarised drones enable a kind of loitering that could be described as an occupation of the sky. Weaponised drones don't simply travel through or across a sky like a fighter jet. That drone swarm technology has hastened over the last couple of years, poses another way for skies to be occupied or colonised - an infiltration of 'new clouds'. As instruments of surveillance, targeting and destruction militarised drones are embedded in the environment in ways that re-orient how we might look at and think about the sky. This is fearfully experienced by people who live in conflict zones situated under droned skies eg: Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia and others. 

In Launching The New Horizon the drone's surveillance net is visible. I've painted it to appear porous to indicate that it may have other meanings. For example could this net, be a span of light illuminating a landing strip? Or, as a visual metaphor, maybe it indicates a landing on our subconscious? Or, maybe the drone presages the arrival of an event horizon, one where humans and machines merge in a singularity, or one where we arrive on the precipice between life and extinction? The latter refers to the event horizon as the zone around a black hole from which there is no escape. The cosmic background of the painting is - very deliberate.

I'll let you continue to ponder. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

P.S. You might like to read Drone: Enduring Presence [Meta Landing]. 

PERSISTENT SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

Persistent Situational Awareness Oil on linen 100 x 70 cm 2017

'Persistent situational awareness' is a term used by the military for devices that enable integrated, real-time spatial and temporal awareness of an environment. The environment can be multifaceted ie: from the cyber 'environment', to the physical battlefield and broader locales. The word 'persistent' indicates that the situational awareness persists- unabated. It is clearly associated with capabilities that ensure persistent surveillance. 

One of the important capabilities of militarised unmanned air vehicles [UAV], commonly called drones, is the technology that enables 'persistent situational awareness'. Technology includes sensor and data connectivity with various systems on the aircraft, and inter-connectivity with support infrastructure, including, but not limited to, ground control stations and satellites. The fact that drones are capable of long range, long endurance operations requires capabilities of persistent situational awareness. 

With my new painting Persistent Situational Awareness I have played with ideas of environment and surveillance. 

Maybe the green ball is a planet emitting signals that transmit and collect data that assists in the planet's 'persistent situational awareness', placing it in a position of tactical and attack readiness. In a sense a militarised planet - maybe Earth, maybe not...

Or, maybe my 'landscape' is actually a close-up image of an eye, with the green ball representing a pupil. The blue could be a section of the iris, and the red could be the lip of the lower eye-lid. The clouds could be pterygiums-like, ie; benign growths on the eye, semi-obscuring vision! Now, that's an interesting metaphor. Or the clouds could, in fact, be clouds reflected on the eye as it incessantly gazes, gathering and transmitting data and instructions. Reality, glimpsed in reflection....

If it is an eye, then it is obviously not a normal eye... 

I am also playing with the idea of the airborne drone being colloquially called an 'eye-in-the-sky'. The green-eye/pupil indicating the drone's night vision capabilities - perhaps the red, indicating its thermal imaging capabilities, or any number of other bloody things. The idea of the 'green-eyed monster' plays into my thoughts - a term coined by Shakespeare in Othello [Act 3: Scene 3] it apparently refers to a cat toying with its prey, before devouring it. Iago to Othello says:

Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on. 

The idea that a green-eyed monster mocks death, feeding upon its victims, is a salient one to ponder as the weapons for contemporary battles become more asymmetrically, insidiously and persistently deployed and 'aware'. 

MICRO AND MACRO - 21st CENTURY LANDSCAPE

Persistent Situational Awareness intersects with my interest in creating images that can be interpreted as something vast, and at the next instance, as something small. An oscillating dance between the micro and the macro is a theme which runs through my work. 

At the end of the day, Persistent Situational Awareness is a landscape, but I propose it offers a renegotiated idea of what landscape might mean in the 21st century.

Cheers,

Kathryn

TACTICS

Tactics oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2017

I wrote another post called Tactics very recently. You can access it HERE  . 

Tactics, above, is the same painting I previously discussed. However, a few weeks ago I decided to add clouds. The white clouds give more clues to the drone's tactics of camouflage and subterfuge. They alert us to a 'droning' of the sky, where new layers are artificially created by pervasive technology, its apparatus and signals. Indeed, the white drone seemingly attempts to mimic a cloud! 

But, strategic tactics are not only evidenced in the actions and appearance of the drone!

The red cloud 'cries'. It cries tears of blood. But, like the 'tactics' of the tree-of-life as it sends roots and new shoots underground, the cloud's tears might also be a way to preserve life. By shedding tears of blood, LIFE can seep into the universal matrix, for resurrection at some other time or place.  

Detail Tactics 

Here is an extract from my previous post Tactics:

"The airborne weaponised drone is targeting the tree-of-life. The tree is isolated in a 'kill box', a virtual three dimensional graphic that delineates a zone around an identified target. Emanating rays above the tree-of-life indicate ongoing surveillance by another drone or maybe a control base of some kind. Whatever it is, the signals represent persistent surveillance by manned and unmanned entities. At the end of each white signal-ray, a small red box indicates potential further targeting.

BUT

The tree-of-life has sent its roots under the 'kill box'. A survival tactic subverting the digital reach! The tree's roots seek out places that a drone cannot penetrate - maybe literal subterranean places, but maybe spiritual realms? The tree succeeds in sending out new green shoots, to bring forth life. BUT, it may not represent human life - and - it may not be on this planet - or - even in the universe! This may sound loopy, but I am thinking of theories about multiverses, and I am also thinking about a future where humanity/life may have left planet Earth. Indeed, we humans are already planning settlements on Mars. But, Mars is still in our solar system. What about humanity/life in other solar systems, even galaxies? An extreme escape!"

Cheers,

Kathryn

STAR BLOOD

Star Blood Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

The Cosmos is crying.

Tears of star blood.

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Are you below or above the tears?

For clues 

DRONESCAPES

and 

PORTFOLIO: Dronescapes by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

Cheers,

Kathryn

CAMOUFLAGE

Camouflage Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

RESEARCH

As regular readers know, I am currently an M. Phil candidate in the School of Communications and Arts at the University of Queensland. My degree is a research one, thus I spend a lot of time reading and writing. My research topic came out of my own work as an artist and now the research is feeding back into my work. My practice is not part of the degree as it is not a practice lead degree. However, by the time I finish it I will have a large body of work that will reflect the research trajectory. Part of my studies includes research into militarised technology, particularly night vision capabilities and unmanned air vehicles [UAV], commonly called drones. Hence, my predilection for drones in recent paintings.

AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS

The initial impetus for my research came from my interest in existential risk posed by emerging technologies ie: those technologies not yet fully developed or even embarked upon. Whilst risk might be small, the possible outcomes could be cataclysmic. Thus, the risk is worthy of attention. For instance, there is risk in the coupling of AI or AGI with the development of autonomous weapons. Voila! You have a reason for why I am studying militarised technology...

CAMOUFLAGE

Camouflage is normally associated with military tactics-uniforms, colouration and patterning on vehicles, decoys, undercover work and so on. It is a tactic taken from nature where animals and some plants change in order not to be eaten by predators- think stick insects, for example. In a sense even trying to humanise AI is a kind of camouflage, albeit a tricky and potentially dangerous one. Just think of Ava in the recent movie Ex Machina. By making her human-like normal safety alerts and boundaries became vulnerable to erosion because humans emotionally connected with her.

TREE-OF-LIFE

Ideas of camouflage intersect with my very long interest in the tree-of-life, an age-old transcultural/religious symbol. Its branching appearance is repeated across life, land and the universe in seen and unseen forces and things. For example, think about our vascular system and river networks, think about leaves and ice flows on cold planets. I wonder if the tree holds clues to the template for the universe? Its repeating patterns are far more than mimicry or camouflage. 

I have painted the weaponised drone in Camouflage [above-detail below] the same colours as the two cascading trees-of-life to suggest a warning.  

Detail

DRONESCAPE

This painting is another of my dronescapes. They represent a sub-theme of my quest to re-consider what landscape means in the 21 st century. I suggest we need to untether landscape from earth-bound horizons by launching ourselves into universal distances, where we can evaluate Earth and humanity from new and multiple perspectives. The droning of the landscape, where surveillance mechanisms and infrastructure proliferate, is just but one of my considerations. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

STRATEGIC LANDSCAPE - DRONED?

 Strategic Landscape Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Broadly speaking the term 'strategic landscape' has both civilian and military connotations. The word 'strategic' signposts that agendas are inherent. These agendas deal with issues such as safety, security, economic advantage, future intentions and mitigations, demographics and so on. The use of the word 'landscape' can either refer to a literal landscape [eg: currently occurring issues in the Sth China Sea] or a metaphoric one [eg: political landscape].

Regular readers will immediately identify my interest in the 'landscape' focus. As a painter of landscapes I am intensely interested in how we think about landscape, especially in a cosmological age. By this I mean an age where the close and far distances of the universe are being explored by a variety of the sciences, including astronomy, nanoscience, astrobiology, astrophysics, quantum physics and more. 

So, I ask, if we speak about 'strategic landscape' are we containing ourselves to planet Earth and its geopolitical 'landscape'? If we think of the universe as a 'landscape' can 'strategic landscape' be expanded to include questions about how we use space, space assets such as satellites, optimal orbits, other planetary assets such as potential mineral deposits? Will space become a contested place where a military 'strategic landscape' draws forth a future where conflict, defensive and offensive systems are developed and deployed beyond Earth's atmosphere? 

• Google "strategic landscape - defence - military" or similar and you will see that the phrase is used by the defence departments and those who provide academic, political or journalistic commentary on international relations, peace and conflict studies and military activities.  

 My painting Strategic Landscape [above] uses the figure of the drone to symbolise the ubiquity of 21st century surveillance, monitoring, data gathering and targeting. The drone is a conduit connected to ground-based nodes as well as satellites. Thus, it represents the space between the landscape of Earth and the 'landscape' of space. In my painting the scoping 'rays' of the drone's camera cast pathways across and landscape of land and sky. Yet, the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life casts its twisted and connected branches across the land and sky too. The tree is multicoloured to symbolise the nuances of life that cannot be detected by the drone's scoping devices. Things like desire, humour and soul are embraced by the colour and held close - safe. The boxes and cubes, perhaps representing individual lives, float amongst the drones scoping rays and the tree's branches. They are coloured too and I wonder why? 

Maybe scoping, which I propose is implied in the word 'strategic', means that agendas contained in 'strategic landscape' imperatives miss a lot? 

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com