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

ARE WE PREPARED?

January 1, 2020, Are We Prepared? Oil on linen 31 x 36 cm

Fire and Smoke

Catastrophic fires continue to burn in Australia, around the continent.* Exhausted fire services and volunteer fire fighters have valiantly fought these ongoing fires, some fires morphing into fire storms that scorch the earth as they shoot flames upwards into trees where the canopy becomes an elevated fast moving fiery hell. Daylight turns to red and then black, smoke drifts across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand, and Australia records some of the worst air quality in the world. 

Were we prepared for the cataclysmic nature of this Summer's fire season? When hundreds of homes are destroyed, lives are lost and emergency evacuations of whole townships happen, we have to address the changing nature of the climate, how the landscape is inhabited and current risk mitigation management systems. Clearly extreme fire risk mitigation management has been lacking or, worryingly, not supported. 

The ongoing dire situation with the fires has revealed a dangerous political disconnect between government and expectations from the population. This disconnect will, likely, continue long after the fires have subsided. Any ensuing political instability will add fuel to unrest, protest, disorder and disappointment. Are we prepared for home-grown extremes of potential political and civil turmoil? 

Risk

The extent and ferocity of the fires have been described as unprecedented. Risk management must include attention to potential worst case scenarios - the unprecedented. With this in mind, what does the current cataclysmic fire situation tell us about other potential cataclysmic or unprecedented risks? Clearly environmental risks such as fire, drought and flood should have taught Australians a lot about risk mitigation. Are there other risks that we remain oblivious to, ignore or find too hard to comprehend? I was thinking about this kind of question when I painted January 1, 2020, Are We Prepared?

January 1, 2020, Are We Prepared?

I finished January 1, 2020, Are We prepared? today - January 1, 2020. I have painted it over the last couple of weeks, as the fires burn around Australia. Most people in Australia will likely know someone directly affected by the fires - I do - for example, as the majority of a family member's property burned, the house was saved by a fuel reduction burn [about 2 hectares of a 10 hectare property] undertaken and organised during the previous Winter. My family member commented on the difference between the surface fire conducted during the fuel reduction burn and the ferocity of the fire that swooped though the property a few weeks ago. The Winter burn did not scorch the soil, the Summer out-of-control burn did.

This morning I listened to a Future of Life Institute podcast conversation between Prof Max Tegmark and Prof Huval Noah Harari. The podcast is an hour long, and it was a great way to start the first day of the new decade. Tegmark and Harari discussed - grounding morality and issues of consciousness, global health, animal suffering, existential risks, nuclear war as a neglected global risk, risks associated with near term AI and longer term artificial general intelligence. They also discussed how to create new stories for the 21st century, risks of big data and AI-enabled human hacking, what does it mean to be human, and what should we want to want. Early on in the conversation Harari asked a question about whether we are prepared for the future. Ah ha, this consolidated my ideas into a title for my new painting!

In January 1, 2020, Are We prepared? a fiery background is a literal reference to the current  Australian fires, and a metaphorical reference to an urgency to think deeply about other potential future risks. Regular readers will know of my long-term interest in existential or catastrophic risk posed by emerging technologies, and my more focused interest in contemporary and emerging militarised and militarise-able technologies. 

January 1, 2020, Are We prepared?, like Australia: December 2019 [below] also refers to the RAAF's confirmation of an order for SkyGuardian weaponisable drones. As weaponisable drones are acquired or manufactured by an increasing number of countries, are we prepared for the kind of war the future 'promises'? (Note added: This order has since been cancelled. However, the RAAF and Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone [previously Loyal Wingman] collaboration continues. The drone will be built at the Wellcamp Aviation and Defence Precinct. This is just outside Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia]

Pixels, Parody and Perspective

In January 1, 2020, Are We prepared? the airborne weaponised drone is painted in small colourful squares that mimic pixels. The colours of the pixels a lolly-like - unreal, but seductive. They contrast with the fiery colours in the background, demonstrating the drone's distance from reality. Is the figure of the drone idealised? If so, what are the risks of idealisation, digital idealisation? The painting also parodies a computer generated image of a drone on a screen, perhaps a remote pilot's screen. It also references the digital imaging technology embedded in a drone's surveillance and targeting systems. Perhaps the fiery background is a war zone, either real or simulated? 

In January 1, 2020, Are We prepared?, are you, the viewer, looking down upon the drone and a fiery landscape below, or are you below the drone looking up at a hellish sky? As you fly, in imagination, around, below and above the drone 'imaginational metaveillance' returns veillance, as a kind of play with perspective, to the human. What kinds of unprecedented risks are revealed when perspective and imagination mingle? Are we prepared to not only to address these risks, but also to look for them?

Australia: December 2019 Oil on linen 23 x 62 cm 2019

* I have not included any links to the fire situation. There are many, and easy to find if you Google.

Kathryn

BEWARE, WHISPERS THE WIND

Beware, Whispers The Wind oil on linen 61 x 97 cm 

Beware, Whispers The Wind 

An armed Reaper drone creates a false horizon across a landscape. The drone's wings slice through the air. Its wide area surveillance system hangs like a bulbous probe below the aircraft's chassis. Four Hellfire missiles and two guided missiles are poised ready for release. 

Orienting graphics impose a virtual map under the drone. This map penetrates the landscape, its virtual presence indicating that it can operate anywhere, everywhere. From screen to screen, its data driven operation isolates kill zones as the drone's sensors harvest more data to facilitate full spectrum dominance.

The drone's sensors are invisibly connected by signals to enabling devices on land and in space. Operational signals instruct the harvesting of data from other networked devices; domestic, civilian and military. An invisible cartography of signals nets planet Earth with instructional codes operating outside human dimensions of space and time.  

With Beware, Whispers The Wind I wanted to play with the tension between reality and virtuality. The white drone and white lines mimic the appearance of computer graphics. Is the painting an image of a computer screen? Or, is the tumultuous and colourful landscape real?  The viewer could be facing the drone, on a screen, from another aircraft or maybe you are a bird? The viewer could also be looking down upon a drone that soars upwards, the orienting graphics creating a virtual abyss. Maybe the drone is coming into land, somewhere on a screen, on a tarmac or on our collective subconscious?

But, on a distant horizon the red tree-of-life stands as a beacon. As it leans to one side it shows us the presence of the wind. Does the wind exist in a virtual world? Is the tree-of-life and the wind sending us a message? 

What do you think?

                                                 NEWS

I am on a roundtable at the International Studies Association annual conference in Toronto. The roundtable will be discussing "Researching War Preparedness: Challenges, theories and inter/disciplinary possibilities". Wednesday 27th 8.15-10 am.

I am thrilled to be talking about my paintings where I suggest that signals represent a techno-colonisation of landscape from land, to sky, and into space! That these signals enable networking and interconnection  across civilian and military systems poses the question - are we in a perpetual state of war preparedness/readiness, for offensive and defensive activities? 

DETAILS 

Researching War Preparedness: Challenges, theories and inter/disciplinary possibilities

Participants:

• Chair: Mark J. Lacy (Lancaster University)
• Discussant: Maria Stern (University of Gothenburg)
• Discussant: Mark J. Lacy (Lancaster University)
• Participant: Christine Agius (Swinburne University)
• Participant: Helen Dexter (The University of Leicester)
• Participant: Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox  (University of Queensland)
• Participant: Victoria M Basham (Cardiff University )
• Participant: Hannah-Marie Chidwick (University of Bristol)
• Participant: Sara Matthews [Wilfrid Laurier] 

Abstract: 
This roundtable examines the possibilities and (interdisciplinary) prospects for advancing knowledge on war preparedness. In international relations and security studies, an overwhelming focus is on conflict and warfare, and while work on conflict prevention has a strong presence, war preparedness if often overlooked or only briefly addressed. War preparedness has been confined to military strategizing and predictive schemas and historicised too, with dominant associations focused on Cold War nuclear planning or civil defence during the Second World War. Preparing for war, however, is not solely an activity or ethos that is authored by state militaries. It requires the inculcation of citizens, public and private spaces and technologies, and is an ever-present part of everyday practices, images, discourses, and ideologies. Understanding war preparedness is vital for grasping how we theorise war and violence over time and space. Importantly, identifying how war preparedness is operationalised and rationalised requires critical engagement with dominant ideologies and material developments. This roundtable will explore the possibilities for theorising war preparedness and how interdisciplinary approaches may inform new approaches to understanding war preparedness and what this can also mean for peace.

Cheers,

Kathryn

CATASTROPHE OF CIVILISATION

Catastrophe of Civilisation oil on linen 61 x 61 cm 2019

War, Art and Visual Culture
I have just returned from Sydney here I attended and presented at the War, Art and Visual Culture symposium.  It was a stimulating symposium with attendees and presenters from around the world. It was a honour to have had my presentation proposal Art and Resistance: New Landscapes in the Drone Age accepted. And, I am very happy with how it was received.

Catastrophe of Civilisation

Imagine you are a space traveler from another solar system or even galaxy. You pass by Earth, what do you see? What vibes do you get from what you see? Is there hope or no hope for this planet and its occupants?

Here are two possibilities, one hopeful, the other not so much. You may think of a few other possibilities.

Possibility one: Yes, you see fire, flood, drought, mass exodus, coral bleaching, pollution, warfare, surveillance. These all indicate perils for the planet and those that live there, human and non-human. They also indicate ongoing and accelerating activities that have exacerbated the erosion of habitat and civilisation. 

But, you also see red trees-of-life seemingly forming a tunnel, a passage that leads to the white circle. Is this a passage to salvation, to a cleaner, friendlier outcome for this planet? Maybe? Like the filtering follicles, or cilia, that line a respiratory system do the trees-of-life promise some kind  of filtering, cleansing process, a second chance? Maybe?  

Possibility two: Yes, you see all the catastrophic events and happenings described above. But, while the trees can still be trees-of-life, do they offer hope? Or, are they witnesses to the demise of civilisation on this planet Earth, as it heads towards the white light, the passover, death? If you believe in some kind of life after death, then this may not be so catastrophic? The alternative is, however, very confronting. The existential threat posed by the collapse of civilisation and planetary habitability, is clear.

As a space traveler, you make a note to yourself to pass by planet Earth in one hundred Earth years, to see how things are going. 

On that note....

Cheers,

Kathryn

Readers might also like to visit posts;

The Body Politic

Anthropocene

Cosmic Testimony

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

SIGNAL-SCAPES & EXISTENTIAL RISK

 Atlantic Currents Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

I look for the hidden and new topographies that exist in our landscape. I look because I have a theory. This theory is that these hidden or invisible new, and proliferating, signal topographies hold us hostage, thus threatening how we live and operate in our environment, even threatening existence as we know it. The latter may seem extreme, but identifying potential existential risks, and thinking about mitigation strategies, is far better than suffering irredeemable circumstances. The risk revealed in these new topographies is the insidious nature of connected and networked systems. While these systems do deliver positive outcomes, there is an underbelly. Here, it is important to think about Paul Virilio's statement “no technology has ever been developed that has not had to struggle against its own specific negativity”.^[1] 

The underbelly of networked and connected systems includes the militarisation and militarise-ability of signals. Designated military networking is one thing. But, security and policing activities, including monitoring such things as cyber terrorism, transnational crime and border security, are increasingly militarised by technologies and devices that are dual-use. This is compounded by the ability of the militarised system, or those with mal-intent, to appropriate civilian technologies, systems and devices into their domains. A simple example is accessibility to mobile phones and the plethora of data they deliver. Surveillance is the lining of the underbelly!

Atlantic Currents and Pacific Currents

Atlantic Currents and Pacific Currents depict sea currents on the left of the image, and undersea cabling maps on the right. Both relay elements of landscape, one is natural, the other is not. Both landscapes influence how we live. Sea currents influence water temperatures, fishing, maritime activities and so on. Undersea cables enable communication, the internet and more. Multi-Mission (bottom) depicts the signalling the enables the operation of militarised airborne drones. Signals travelling at near light speed are conducted via undersea cabling from Creech Airbase in the Nevada Desert, to Ramstein Airbase in Germany, to satellites and then to the drones. The drones sensors capture new data that is delivered back along the connected system. 

These three paintings are part of a larger group of works on paper and oil paintings, where I attempt to expose the occupation of landscape, from subterranean/undersea to land, to the sky and into space. It is a volumentric kind of occupation - a colonisation that enables a persistent readiness for offensive and defensive action. The invisible part of the Derek Gregory's "everywhere war".(2)  

Can you see why I think it indicates an existential risk? Yes, risk lies in the development of, for example, autonomous weapons. But, signals are the ubiquitous enablers. 

I could write more, but I will leave you to look and think.

Cheers,

Kathryn

Previous post Pacific Currents can e viewed HERE

---

[1] Paul Virilio, “Red Alert in Cyberspace,” trans. Malcolm Imrie, Radical Philosophy (Nov/Dec 1995): 2. 

[2] Derek Gregory, “The Everywhere War,” The Geographical Journal 177, no. 3 (2011): 238-50.

Pacific Currents Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

Multi Mission Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

HUMAN: Recognition, Identification, Targeting

HUMAN Oil on linen 31 x 36 cm 2019

In both these paintings, HUMAN  and Where to Hide? (below), I play with ideas of algorithmic human identification, and reasons for this identification. Clearly, as the cross-hairs indicate, I am thinking about targeting. However, reasons for targeting can range from orders to kill, to targeting by entities such as advertisers, pollsters, corporations, and governments. These seemingly benign entities target to seduce buyers, persuade voters, and to muster people into standardised behaviour [particularly online]. In this interconnected and networked age, the data that is collected, however, could/can be used to aid identification and targeting for more deadly purposes.

In both paintings I have appropriated the appearance of a computer screen or lens, giving a sense of removal from the scene eg: similar to remote airborne drone operations. But, is the operator human or machine? The algorithm of binary code 'instructing' HUMAN at the bottom of each painting references the use of machine learning to assist in target identification. Global debates about whether autonomous systems should go further and make the ultimate 'kill' decision have regularly occurred since 2013, eg: CCW at UNOG. However, politics and the law, are fast outpaced by enhancements in technological applications and systems developments.

HUMAN/HUMAN BEING
I purposefully did not 'instruct' in binary code the words HUMAN BEING because I wanted the single word HUMAN to suggest that algorithms identify using data-derived characteristics of humankind. While individuals are certainly targets, humanity is also in the cross-hairs, but do we realise it? Also, while individuals are targeted standardisation of characteristics leads to biases and mistakes, and the possibility of further standardisation. Could standardisation could pose a an existential threat?

TREE-OF-LIFE
I have painted the shadows of the seemingly targeted figures as trees-of-life. For me this indicates things the algorithm cannot access, like imagination and dreams. Each tree-shadow is an individual, representing life in all its array of personal and ancestral history, biology, spirit and soul. Can these all be reduced to data?

But, the tree-of-life represents another kind of 'code' of life, one that also speaks to humanity as a whole. The tree-of-life with its array of branches, twigs and leaves, stands in contrast with the zeros and ones. I am reminded of Jean Baudrillard's observation about a digital destiny where it will be "possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1". (1) Here, standardisation can be viewed as a reductive process to enable the kind of measurement Baudrillard suggests. The tree stands as a resolute beacon of hope!

LANDSCAPE
HUMAN and Where to Hide? are part of my ongoing quest to represent landscape in ways that pose questions about humanity's future and the planet's future. I  think about computer graphics, imaging technology, invisible signals and undersea cables that enable networked operations. Are inter-connectivity and networking processes examples of standardisation? Is targeting made easier in a world netted by militarised and militarise-able signals that perhaps perpetuate standardisation? Is there anywhere to hide in a standardised environment?

There is more to say, but I will leave that up to you.

Cheers,
Kathryn

---

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

Where to Hide? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

LANDSCAPE DECEPTION

 Pacific Currents Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

DECEPTION

What do I mean by 'Landscape Deception", the title of this blog post? I think it can mean a number of things  eg: perhaps landscape itself employs deceptive means, perhaps landscape is hijacked by fake landscapes that deceive? 

Regular readers know of my long-term interest in landscape generally, and my more specific interest in what I call the militarisation of landscape. I see the latter as an insidious occupation of landscape by the signalling systems that enable near light speed operation of miltiarised technology and militarise-able technology. Here, I not only include things like drone operation, but also, things like manipulation of social media, hacking into financial and communication systems, monitoring of personal devices, access to personal data and so on. That militarisable technology includes civilian systems reliant on signals and cables, and their associated infrastructure such as satellites, data centres, relay stations, cannot be ignored.

The three new paintings in this post reflect upon ideas of deceptive landscape, or the deception of landscape. 

PACIFIC CURRENTS

MULTI MISSION

Pacific Currents [above] depicts the flow of Pacific water currents on the left. On the right I have painted a map of the undersea cables that connect across the Pacific ocean. These undersea cables, while tangible, are also essentially invisible. Yet, they enable the operation of 21st century networked technology. 

In Multi Mission [below] cabling from Creech airbase in the Nevada desert connects with the US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany. From there signals sent to and from a satellite enable airborne drones to undertake missions. Signals sent by subterranean and undersea cables, and signals sent by wave frequencies into and from space, are invisible. I 'see' them as creating new 'topographies' that net the planet from underground/sea to space. 

 Multi Mission Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 

DECEPTION PERSPECTIVE

The invisibility of these new 'topographies' can be associated with deception. In Deception Perspective [below] I have painted cross-hairs to create an illusion of perspective. That the cross-hair on a camera or gun helps draw a subject/victim closer cannot be ignored. It is a way of using targeted perspective. 

In the painting I have painted three large red cross-hairs in a row. I have then painted white cross-hairs in diminishing sizes to give the illusion of perspective. These cross-hairs parody the cross-hairs on lenses, computer screens, imaging devices. They are part of the insidiously invisible signaling net that wraps the planet, the new landscape of deception.

So, is landscape deceived or deceiving. Are we deceived or are some of us deceiving? Is anyone even aware of what is happening?

These three paintings are part of my - signalscapes, dronescapes, militarised landscapes work
Cheers,
Kathryn

LOYALTY TO EARTH AND HUMANKIND

It's Everything Oil on linen 50 x 50 cm 

Historian, Yuval Noah Harari has written an article, "Moving Beyond Nationalism: Three global problems create a need for loyalty to humankind and to planet Earth", published by The Economist. The three global problems Harari identifies are "nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption." That these three issues require global attention and co-operation is clear. Each pose major risks, even existential risks, to humanity and the planet. Combined, they pose a hellish picture of the future. 

As Harari notes, a retreat into nationalism does not protect nations from risks posed by nuclear war, climate change and technological disruption. He writes "We need to create a global identity and encourage people to be loyal to humankind and to planet Earth in addition to their particular nation."

LOYALTY

I like the idea of being "loyal to humankind and to planet Earth." Regular readers of this blog will know that this kind of sentiment underlies much of my work. My use of the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life, depictions of Earth as a pale blue dot, and my use of cosmic perspectives, coupled with visual signs and metaphors of contemporary risks, are attempts to focus attention on humanity and the Earth. Visual questions about militarised technology and the militarise-ability of technology, pose questions about the future of humanity and the planet.

The medium of painting moves thinking away from what artist and writer James Bridle in his fascinating book [do buy it!] The New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future calls "computational thinking" eg: data driven computation, computer simulation/modelling. The act of painting and the medium of painting can help remind us of alternative ways of thinking. Ways that may assist us in creating a loyalty to humankind and Earth. Ways that can critique contemporary technology - without using it for creation, exhibition and storage.*     

FOR THE ARRIVAL OF 2019

So, for the arrival of 2019 just a few days away, I have decided to upload a selection of my paintings where, variously, the tree-of-life, the pale blue dot, cosmic perspectives and images of airborne weaponised drones may induce thoughts about loyalty to humankind and Earth. 

* Resistance 

 Future Oil on linen 91 x 102 2015

 Australian Landscape Cutout Oil on linen 55 x 80 cm 2015

This painting is a reflection upon how nationalism might work, or not work, in the 21st century. It reminds us that all nations share the one planet.

 Beacon Oil on linen 92 x 102 2014

The Birth of Landscape oil on linen 138 x 168 cm 2014

A small tree-of-life is cradled by the emergent landscape, at Earth's beginning. Ultimately life, including humankind and the planet are entangled.  

 Pale Blue Dot Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm 2014

Reading/viewing the painting above with the two below triggers a few questions about what kinds of risky anomalies are we not noticing. I propose human imagination can take us to revelatory perspectives.

 Anomaly Detection [No 2] Oil on linen 120 x 180 cm 2017

Anomaly Detection Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Happy New Year,
Kathryn

TWELVE YEARS BLOGGING - TWELVE PAINTINGS

Cosmic Dreaming - Simulation Oil on linen 31 x 56 cm 2018

August 2018 marks twelve years since I started my BLOG. I have posted consistently, about once a week for twelve years. For regular readers I send you many thanks for taking an interest in my work.

To celebrate twelve years, I am uploading one painting for each year from 2006. I am not going to write more than these few sentences. I will let the paintings do the 'talking'. 

Cheers, Kathryn

Launching the New Horizon oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm 2017

Life and the Drone Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2016

Privileged Landscape oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2015

New World Habitability - Vacation Anyone? Oil on linen 70 x 120 cm 2014

Multiple Landscapes Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2013

Cosmic Ouroboros Oil on  linen 120 x 150 cm 2012

Meeting Place of the Mind Oil on linen 100 x 70 cm 2011

Phantom Water Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2010

Halo Oil on linen 81 x 182 cm 2009

Lifeblood Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm 2008

Braid oil on  board 89 x 59 cm 2007

Self portrait

Totally Out There Oil on linen 180 x 120 cm 2006