THEATRE OF WAR

Theatre of War Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 76 cm 2020

 

This new work Theatre of War was inspired by thinking about Derek Gregory's idea of 'everywhere war'. If war is everywhere, then the whole world is a 'theatre of war'. Everywhere means just that - geographical landscape, cyber and digital worlds, space and everything in-between. It can also mean time. This is possible if you think of everywhere as being about space/place as well as time/history. 

Readers of General Carl von Clausewitz's famous book On War will be aware that he writes consistently about the 'Theatre of War'. Written during the early nineteenth century, and published posthumously by his wife in 1832, it is clear von Clausewitz's 'Theatre of War' differs from twenty-first century ideas of war operation. For von Clausewitz the 'Theatre of War' was a defined geographical situation or place. Depending on offensive or defensive actions, landscape and topography played important roles in strategy, preparation, and battle.

In the twenty-first century war has morphed beyond earthly geography and topography into discrete spaces of the cyber world, algorithms, and light speed signal transmission. It has also extended into space, where orbiting satellites are now drawn into war's network. The network helps to blur the lines between military, policing and security activities. As civilian activities collapse into militarised zones, war insidiously infiltrates everywhere. The lightspeed signalic interconnected character of contemporary war operation allows for escalation or de-escalation - perhaps war of degrees - not of a duration between declaration and end (Virilio inspiration here!).  

In Theatre of War I have set up a global 'stage' with a sky/space backdrop that could extend beyond the painting, and thus, everywhere. The lines painted over the landscape's foreground 'speak' to computer geolocating graphics. The real and virtual become inseparable. In the distance an array of different types of civilian and military drones 'act' as both audience and actors. As an audience, are the drones watching us perform? This kind of dual witnessing draws everything onto the everywhere war stage/theatre. It is a place where networked systems direct everything and everyone in what could be called a tragic complicity. With war's duration consumed by the everywhere, a curtain is no longer needed. 

Do not be fooled by what might seem beautiful.   

Update September 2022

I've developed a whole series of paintings themed around the idea of 'Theatre of War'. Here are two examples. If you'd like to see more, just type 'theatre of war' into the search tab top left just below website address bar. Thinking about the concept of 'Theatre of war' is also spart of my PhD.

Theatre of War: Terrain Visualisation 

Theatre of War: Spectrum

Cheers,

Kathryn

DRONESCAPE: A CREEPING NORMALISATION

Dronescape: A Creeping Normalisation Oil on linen 36 x 56 cm 2020

As the development and use of airborne drones accelerate, I think about landscape. I think about how landscape is changing, in ways we might not notice.

Creeping normalisation occurs when something happens over a period of time, and thus its impacts accrue slowly. For example, during the COVID-19 there are some concerns about the normalisation of the use of drones and robots for a variety of reasons - surveillance, monitoring, spreading messages, spraying disinfectant, delivering supplies including medicines, and claims that temperature and heart monitoring can be conducted. If these activities are normalised what kinds of intrusion are we accepting now and for the future? 

As time goes on, and military and civilian drone use accelerates, how does landscape change? It changes because invisible signals, used to transmit and receive data and instructions to and from nodes, devices, drones and satellites, infiltrate our environment. While the hardware may be visible, the signals that enable networking, inter-connectivity, operability and interoperability, transmission and reception are invisible. Yet, these signals occupy landscape, as an overlay or net that creates its own 'scape' - a signalscape.  

NEW KIND OF COLONISATION

This 'signalscape' is a sign of a new kind of colonisation of landscape, a stealthy techno-colonisation that disrupts traditional ideas of sovereignty, borders and concepts of Earthly landscape. As invisible signals ricochet from earth-based to sky-based and space-based assets, a volumetric occupation of our extended environment beyond Earth occurs. I often wonder when corridors in this occupied space between Earth and satellites will be commandeered. I often wonder if new titles of ownership will be 'surveyed' in this occupied zone. If commandeering and ownership of the signal-scape occurs, who or what benefits? Will it be individuals, non-state actors, governments, nations, mega corporations and artificial intelligence?

DRONESCAPE: A CREEPING NORMALISATION
In Dronescape: A Creeping Normalisation I have painted four quadcopter drones flying over an ambiguous landscape. The circular lines around each drone indicate the limits of their surveillance and data gathering arcs. These arcs are normally not visible, but here I am trying to demonstrate how signals stealthily occupy landscape. This is an act of imaginational metaveillance - turning human surveillance back onto the machines, without using the digital and cyber platforms the system itself relies upon. 

In Dronescape: A Creeping Normalisation the nets of signals create a new kind of scape, one that imposes itself on the landscape below. In the painting this imposed 'scape' seems to be creeping towards a white tree standing on a distant horizon. It does not appear long until the tree will also be netted. This tree, for me, is the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life, a symbol of life and humanity. What happens to humanity when our environment is cloaked with nets of signals that relay data and instructions between nodes and devices, many with increasingly autonomous functionality? What happens to humanity when the networked and interconnected system - the netted signal-scape - operates at speeds beyond human domains of time and space? If this system is something we rely upon, then we need to think about all of its potential vulnerabilities. 

But, have we even noticed that the occupation of landscape may mean we are already held hostage?

Cheers,
Kathryn

'SAD THINKINGS', RISK AND IMAGINATION

Scary Research?
I am often asked if my research into contemporary militarised or militarise-able technology makes me scared. A few people have said they feel fearful when they see my paintings. I have even had some fearful people say they don't want to hear about my research!

Fortunately for me, most people genuinely appreciate an introduction to issues associated with contemporary militarised and militarise-able technology. If they happen to be already informed about issues, they are interested in how I visually scrutinise drones, signals, connectivity etc. The topic opens up discussions that include, for example, the potential mal-appropriation of militarised technologies by state or non-state protagonists. Many people say they enjoy being challenged by my work. Some quiz me for ages.

But, truthfully, the topic is a sobering one. Through mal-intent, accident or design, contemporary technologies pose potential serious risks, even existential risks*. If they are militarise-able or weaponisable is some form or another, the risks are arguably heightened. Astronomer and cosmologist, Lord Martin Rees in his 2002 book Our Final Century: Will Civilisation Survive the Twenty-First Century? makes a clear argument that like at no other time in human history, 21st century humans are creating technologies that could cause global catastrophic impacts.

Yes, it is a bit scary!

Speed
For me, the scariest aspects of 21st century technology are the speed of technological development and the speed of technological operation. Legal, regulatory, social and cultural responses to technological development have difficulty keeping up. And, when interconnected and networked systems operate at near light speed signaling, human dimensions of time and space are excluded. To keep pace with light speed transmissions, artificial intelligence is increasingly used to monitor, react, respond. After all, it can keep up! So, where will that leave us humans?

My imagination goes into overdrive when I think about these things - and - paintings are created!

* Check out the work being done at the Centre for the Study Of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge.

Occupied Landscape Oil on canvas 76 x 76 cm 2018

POEM

My grandmother D. E Ross, wrote the above poem about me. I suspect I was not having 'sad thinkings', but at nearly four I did not know how to say 'philosophical or existential thinkings'! As a child I remember thinking about the end of life - not just mine - but all life. How far was the universe, what happened after people died, where did they go? Were we humans alone in this vast universe? What was time? I remember being a bit scared by my thoughts. As I tried to imagine, I remember feeling like my imagination would burst!  I am sure many readers remember having similar ponderings.

I love that my grandmother wrote 'long distance in her eyes', because distance is a recurring theme in my life and work. From the literal spatial distance of the landscape of my childhood and its influence on my work, to understanding how distance works in creative painting practice, to inviting viewers to fly with me in imagination in my paintings, to the distance of painting [by a human] from the contemporary technological system ie: painting can be used to critique the contemporary technological system without using digital, cyber or electronic platforms for creation, exhibition and storage.

Maybe this poem is an indication that risk analysis was possibly one of my strengths!

Maybe my grand mother's poem indicates that I would be an artist?

MY EXHIBITION 

OCCUPIED LANDSCAPES: EVIDENCE OF DRONES

DOORS OPEN TUESDAY 27 AUGUST 10 AM

POP Gallery, 381 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.

More details are available HERE

I am getting ready to install the exhibition. So apart from the paintings I also need a tool kit.

 Tool kit ready for installation day 

Some of the smaller paintings packed, ready to go.

Cheers,

Kathryn

PAINTINGS IN CONVERSATION & 13 YEARS BLOGGING

Beware the Shadow Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2018

Look Again At That Dot Oil on linen 23 x 29.5 cm 2018

13 YEAR BLOGGING 

This month is my thirteenth blogging anniversary! I have, mostly, posted once a week for thirteen years. Yes, my middle name is PERSISTENCE! 

I really enjoy blogging. It has become very much part of my creative practice. As I write I think through things differently, and new ideas are triggered. These new ideas become paintings, and the cycle continues. 

Thank-you to my readers and anyone who passes by, even momentarily.

PAINTINGS IN CONVERSATION 

As I gear up for my forthcoming exhibition Occupied Landscapes: Evidence of Drones   I am thinking about how I might hang the paintings in the show. I will be including some paintings that do not depict airborne militarised drones or indications of their presence. This is a deliberate curatorial decision. It provides another layer to the visual conversation the paintings have with each other, as well as the conversation a viewer has with the exhibition. Given that the title of the exhibition includes the word 'evidence' I want people to look for evidence of drones in paintings that do not depict drones or indications of their presence. What they see or not see, is not up to me. 

When a painting without a drone is hung near a painting that does depict a drone, what do you think happens? For example the two paintings above are in 'conversation'. Look Again At That Dot does not depict a drone, whereas Beware the Shadow depicts two drones. 

What happens when you place a painting that depicts both the pale blue dot and drones? For example, Drone Spiral (No 2) below.

I am really looking forward to hanging  Occupied Landscapes: Evidence of Drones  

Tuesday 27 August - Saturday 7 September Open daily 10 am - 4 pm

POP Gallery, 381 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia.

For more details please check out the exhibition page HERE

Drone Spiral (No 2) Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm 2018

NEWS

I have two paintings on loan at the Australian Institute of Biotechnology and Nanotechnology  (AIBN) at the University of Queensland, Australia. 

Last Monday I gave a short presentation to the AIBN Board and academics. It was a fun event.  I thoroughly enjoyed the incredibly stimulating conversations I shared with researchers working at the cutting edge of their various fields.

The two paintings Beginning of Everything and Objects (both below) are great works to have hanging in a research institution focused on biotechnology and nanotechnology. Why? Because, both paintings can be 'read' as either something very large or something very small. For example Beginning of Everything could be a vast landscape formed by the cascading tree-of-life erupting from the bottom left corner. Or, it could be a cross-section of something seen under a microscope. The painting plays with perspective - are you above a vast land form, or below some kind of portal enticing you into another universe, or are you witnessing the beginning of the universe? There are many possibilities - that's why I called it Beginning of Everything. Objects can also be 'read' in a multiple of ways. Are the round balls atoms or planets? Are you above, below or with them? 

Beginning of Everything Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm 2010

Objects Oil on linen 85 x 147 cm 2015

Cheers,

Kathryn

PREPARING FOR "WAR, ART AND VISUAL CULTURE" - SYDNEY SYMPOSIUM

Mission Capable Oil on linen 137 x 72 cm 2018 

Art, War and Visual Culture: Sydney

On Monday 25th February I am one of the speakers presenting at Art, War and Visual Culture, An International Symposium on the Art and Visual Culture of War, Conflict and Political Violence. You can view the conference website HERE. The symposium is taking place in Sydney. A sister symposium will take place in London on May 31, with artist and author James Bridle as a keynote speaker. You can view the London symposium site HERE. 

Art, War and Visual Culture: London

I would love to be able to attend the London symposium, as I have followed James Bridle's work for some time. I recently read his book New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, which I highly recommend. One of the key messages in the book is the identification of the insidious arrival and influence of what Bridle calls "computational thinking". The whole book demonstrates how to expose and resist this kind of thinking. I use the word 'demonstrates' because Bridle does not merely explain, he poses questions that flip the mainstream, thus forcing the reader to confront how they think about the world. For example, he details some historical and current failures of computation, such as US military systems identifying "flocks of migrating birds as incoming Soviet bomber fleets" to "government IT initiatives that fall short of their much-vaunted goals and are superceded by subsequent, better engineered systems before they're even completed, feeding a cycle of obsolescence and permanent revision."[1] He then poses a question, "But what if these stories are the real history of computation: a litany of failures to distinguish between simulation and reality: a chronic failure to identify the conceptual chasm at the heart of computational thinking, of our construction of the world?" [2] Here, he presents us with a critical resistance to the bravura that surrounds contemporary technology.

James Bridle and Jean Baudrillard

Bridle's book gives us tools to bust open and resist the confines that French philosopher Jean Baudrillard warned us about in his 2003 book Passwords. He warned of a digital future where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1.”[3] "Computational thinking" is a symptom of this reductive space...this reductive yardstick that Baudrillard identified. The concept of reduction suggests homogeneity, sameness, uniformity. These, in turn, enable ease of control and management by systems and the entities that operate these systems. It provides a space that perpetuates "computational thinking" and its elevated status.  

This systemic 'landscape' is enabled by signals that ricochet around the world. from subterranean/undersea cabling, to land-based nodes, and into sky and space, via drones and satellites. I 'see' connecting and networked signals as netting the planet, holding us hostage, although we are largely unaware of the hostage situation. And, a hostage situation indicates a reductive space. 

Art and Resistance: New Landscapes in the Drone Age

The title for my Sydney symposium presentation is "Art and Resistance: New Landscapes in the Drone Age". In twenty minutes I will argue that signals net the planet with new kinds of hidden or invisible topographies that enable the scopic intent of contemporary technology. Landscape is reduced, homogenised and made uniform to allow ease of access. I will show paintings, like the two here in this post, to demonstrate how these signals have infiltrated the landscape, in a sense volumetrically colonising it. I sometimes try to mimic a computer screen or lens [camera or weapon] to pose questions about how we view landscape and our environment, the real vs the virtual. The real window or the computer 'window'? More importantly how do the machines that scope life and landscape, for surveillance and targeting purposes, impose new 'landscapes' onto the real, and onto our psyches? 

I am going to talk about how I use cosmic perspectives to take an imaginational reach beyond the drones and satellites, to see if an expansive picture can expose the anomalies that must exist in the reduced space of the signal-net. How can I make visible the invisible? Is a signal-enabled hostage situation a sign of war, a perpetual war and Derek Gregory's "everywhere war'? 

I will let you know how the presentation goes. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

---

1. James Bridle,  New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, (London and Ne York: Verso, 2018) 34.

2. Ibid.

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

New Horizons oil on linen 97 x 112 cm 2018

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

Presenting my talk at the international Studies Association annual conference in San Francisco. 

I have just returned from my month long trip from Brisbane, to San Francisco, to new York, to Cambridge and London and home via Hong Kong. I did not post while I was away - the first time I have missed even one week, let alone four, in nearly twelve years!

ISA

Happy to report that my presentation at the International Studies Association annual conference, San Francisco, was received very well. I was asked to speak about my paintings - my dronescapes - how they resist the insidious [and no so insidious] infiltration of militaristion into everyday life, imagination and the future.  

This conference was a massive one. Every session I went to was stimulating. An array of different topics, approaches, and people from around the world. 

GOLDSMITHS

Happy to also report that my presentation at Goldsmiths, University of London, was also well received. Dr. Claire Reddleman and Dr. Elke Schwartz also spoke. I was asked to speak about my work in reference to issues relating to new landscapes/topographies and drone vision. 

CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EXISTENTIAL RISK, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

A highlight of the trip was attending the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge, annual conference. This was a small conference and I was delighted to be invited to attend. It was two days of fascinating presentations and participatory workshops. The focus was on thinking about strategies to help inform the broader community, policy makers, governments and corporations about existential risk ie: often considered low probability, but high impact events that could cause human species demise or civilisation collapse. Regular readers will know why I was so pleased to attend this conference - I have been interested in existential risk posed by emerging technologies for many years. Ideas associated with existential risk have informed both my creative practice and academic research.

                            

Presenting my talk at the international Studies Association annual conference in San Francisco. 

Presenting at Goldsmiths, University of London

TALKS

In both my talks I questioned the term vision and its application to a machine. I asked, are we relinquishing human vision before we understand the ramifications of doing so? I couched this in reference to vision as an expansive human capacity ie: not only seeing with eye-ball and pupil, but also with our mind's eye/imagination, in dreams and visionary thinking. I argued that a drone cannot dream nor imagine, rather a drone's imaging technology gives it scoping capabilities, not vision capabilities. Are we exposing ourselves to risk by ascribing human capabilities to drones [and other machines, no matter how advanced they are]? 

My way of countering this reduction of vision is to invite people to 'fly' around the drones, or indications of their presence, in my paintings. The cosmic perspective allows for some considerable soaring! Thus, human vision, in all its capacities, is turned back upon the drones........a radical surveillance. 

The poster advertising the talk at Goldsmiths, University of London

  

 View out the window at a workshop for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge. Jesus College courtyard.

The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk conference dinner at Jesus College, Cambridge. 

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE

There were many high points during the trip. One was visiting Forensic Architecture's exhibition Counter Investigations at the Institute of Contemporary Art [ICA], London. I used some of Forensic Architecture's ideas in my M. Phil thesis, particularly in my visual analysis of, Australian artist, Jon Cattapan's paintings. Their Lexicon was very useful for a variety of reasons. So, I was very keen to see Forensic Archicture's work at the ICA. I spent hours at the exhibition. A few days after seeing the show, Forensic Architecture was nominated for the Turner Prize. 

Forensic Architecture is a research group at Goldsmiths, University of London. They investigate sites of atrocity, war crimes, human rights violations and more. They gather a plethora of evidentiary material, which they then piece together. This evidence is presented in layered visual formats, often further overlaid with audio material. Comparative analyses of sounds, photographs, shapes in imagery, timelines, satellite imagery, trajectories of bullets, and more, are provided by computer generated tools presented as visual graphics that provide another visual layer. The outcome is a reconstruction of a site or an event - relived, but also explained. Forensic Architecture's work is complex and compelling, visually/aesthetically, and as evidence. This evidence is used in legal and human rights arenas. Additionally the group exhibits their work in art exhibitions. The bridging between seemingly different worlds is extraordinary. For me, their Lexicon  provides clues to this success. It demonstrates creative thought and the depth of their research - and - thus, the precision of their evidence. As art, it is meaningful.

 Me at Forensic Architecture's exhibition Counter Investigations at the ICA, London.

I will write more about the trip in my next post: 

• The ballet Manon at the Royal Opera House, London.
• Visiting Bletchley, the secret WW 2 code breaking site half an hour out of London. 
• Visiting the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, New York.
• The Imperial War Museum, London, and the special exhibition Art in the Age of Terror
• Revisiting the National Gallery, London
• Revisiting the marvelous Frick Museum, New York
• And More!

Cheers,
Kathryn