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

THE WIND ASKS, WHICH DIRECTION?

The Wind Asks, Which Direction? Oil on linen 81 x 102 cm 2019

This new painting The Wind Asks, Which Direction? is connected to another painting called Beware, Whispers the Wind [below]. 

In both paintings I am interested in how virtual landscapes and landscapes with superimposed screen-based computer graphics mediate our relationship with, and understanding of, environment. In The Wind Asks, Which Direction? red and white lines mimic computer graphics overlaid onto a landscape which could be real or not real? Is this an image from a computer game, or maybe an image on a remote drone pilot's computer screen? A compass exposes a tension between the real and not real, its four cardinal points are all 'N'. But does this 'N' mean 'north', or does it mean 'no direction', 'nowhere', 'nihilism', 'nothingness'? The compass has no dial.

Tree-of-life

Red trees-of-life, positioned in the background landscape, sway in the wind. However, one sways one way and the other sways in the opposite direction. Does this mean there is turbulence out in the landscapes of reality, the wind agitating for our attention? Does it indicate that when the wind blows in one place, it can blow another way in a different place - like in real life? Maybe the trees attempt to restore reality by demonstrating that the wind still exists? But, could these trees be sending a warning, that direction is lost in a world where the fake compass, a metaphor for the 21st century, has wielded its influence? The red trees-of-life differ from the white trees 'planted' on the red line graphic. The white trees are the same colour as the compass. The trees are as fake as the fake compass. What are we witnessing?

Pixels

The tension between reality and the virtual is also indicated by the small squares of colour that appear to form parts of the landscape. These squares mimic pixels. Are they indicators that the background landscape is a computer generated image? Or, do they indicate that this landscape pretends to be virtual, as a subterfuge - a strategic measure of exposure. Or, do they warn us that pixels are indicators of images formulated and generated for humans by machines - after all, machine learning and AI tools do not really need a generated image to scope for data?  

Resistance

As a painting The Wind Asks, Which Direction? act as a resistance. It does so by not relying on digital and cyber platforms for creation, exhibition and storage. Although not reliant on these platforms painting can still critique - and - from a distance, where there is room for perspective.

The Wind Asks, Which Direction? and Beware, Whispers the Wind are examples of my attempts to visually think through how militarised and militarise-able systems, platforms and devices occupy,  mediate and militarise landscape and extended environment. 

My Painting I Painted The Wind [bottom] was painted in 2001.

Cheers,

Kathryn

 Beware, Whispers the Wind  Oil on linen 61 x 97 cm 2019

I Painted the Wind Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm 2001

PAY ATTENTION: THE DRONES ARE HERE

 Pay Attention: The Drones Are Here Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

AUSTRALIA AND DRONES

Australia is playing an increasingly active part in the development and procurement of airborne drones for military and associated purposes. Airborne drones are used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance [ISR] purposes, with certain types of drones also capable of carrying weapon payloads.

Examples are::

*MQ 9B Sky Guardian drones have been chosen in favour of MQ 9 Reaper Drones. You can read about this decision HERE in Flight Global. These drones are weaponisable. For background on this decision please check out HERE in an Australian Financial Review article , and HERE is a Defense News: Asia Pacific article.

Triton surveillance drones are also on order. You can read about this news on the Australian Airforce website HERE

And, another drone will be manufactured here in Australia in partnership with Boeing. Currently called the "Loyal Wingman" project, you can read about it on the ABC News site HERE. And, an announcement on the current Defence Minister, Christopher Pyne's website HERE. And, on Boeing's website HERE

Australian defence forces have used surveillance drones for some time. For example the Scan Eagle drone has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can read a 2007 article about the Scan Eagle drone HERE at Defence News. You can also read about a Scan Eagle drone now in the Australian War Memorial's collection HERE

* Updated Dec 3, 2019

 Not Waiting For The Future Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2018

QUESTIONS

As Australia becomes more involved in militarised drone operations, procurement and developments, questions that are already being debated globally need to be debated here too. For example, questions about remote operations - surveillance, targeting and killing. The use of unmanned aircraft with sophisticated ISR capabilities, and possible weapon payloads, raises questions about asymmetric warfare. Increasingly autonomous systems employing machine learning and AI raise questions, for example, about human-in-the-loop decision making and the ethics of machine killing. The contemporary 'warfighter' could be a human being, but also an [semi] autonomous  machine. 

The appropriation of technological infrastructure and systems for surveillance and targeting purposes raises questions about the neutrality, or not, of contemporary interconnected technologies. What part does interconnected technology play in preemptive activities? The increasingly blurred lines between military, security and policing activities raise questions about the nature of  contemporary warfare, and its battle fields and spaces. The accelerating nature of technological development stimulates questions about the future of war, and the future of humanity. Are we in a new arms race? Questions about the role of science and technology come to mind. As do questions about legal and ethical frameworks that can be applied to accelerating developments. The speed of technological operation raises further questions that feed into debates about asymmetric war, human involvement, networked systems, social vulnerability, geopolitics, and more...and more.

Since 2015 I have been thinking about these types of questions. I have also undertaken formal research, completing an M. Phil [University of Queensland] that included research into contemporary militarised technology, particularly airborne drones.  

FIVE PAINTINGS

In this post I have included five paintings that reflect upon Australia and airborne drones. 

Pay Attention: The Drones Are Here [top] is my newest painting. An armed drone is pointed towards an upside-down Australia. Is the drone a new arrival, soon to join its Australian fleet? Maybe it is an Australian drone, maybe not. Australia is upside down on purpose, actually a few purposes! The small squares give the impression of pixels. Is the image a simulation? Are you another drone gazing down upon the scene? Is the painting a screen shot? Or, are you a human engaging your imagination in a way that turns human surveillance back onto the drone? Regular readers will recognise the cosmic perspective I love to use here - like in the other four paintings too. Lots of interesting questions and scenarios!

I'll leave you to ponder now. 

Cheers, Kathryn

 Aeropolitics Imagined Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

 What If? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Hot Spots Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

SCOPIC GAZE - 21ST CENTURY

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century Oil on linen 36 x 36 cm 2018

I have fractured my left patella and injured other parts of my body too. Long story involving a cat, a ledge and a flight of stairs. It is difficult to sit at a desk with one leg up. Thus this post will not be too long. 

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century connects to my last two posts and paintings Fake Eyes: In The Sky and Seeing Through the Fake Window. It also connects with a number of other posts and paintings where I reflect on ideas of 'drone vision', 'machine vision' and other anthropomorphic terms applied to contemporary machines and systems, particularly militarised and militarise-able ones. 

The scopic perspective is offered by cameras and guns. Cross-hairs and other focusing mechanisms scope space to identify targets to capture, to shoot. Both words, capture and shoot, apply to cameras and weapons! When cameras and weapons are combined, for example in an airborne drone, the capturing and shooting are amplified.

In the 21st century we are increasingly accustomed to images, more often than not, viewed on a screen of some sort. The edges of the screen render the peripheral unseen, in a way mimicking the scopic gaze of the camera and weapon. Digital images on screens comprise multitudes of pixels, tricking us into believing what we see. Yet, each pixel is bordered by its edges. Without companion pixels the image disintegrates. Each pixel is like a micro - scope capturing data that is only meaningful when positioned with other scopic - pixels. Do we really see or are we detecting?

Does the 21st century scopic gaze, which we are incessantly exposed to, change the way we see, what we believe, how we imagine and dream? Does it condition us to view the screen as a window - albeit a fake one? 

Scopic Gaze - 21st Century depicts a blood red tree-of-life as a target. Is it a camera targeting to take a shot, or a weapon targeting to take a shot? What if it is both camera and weapon? 

There are a lot of questions I ask myself as I write my post and paint my paintings. But, underlying everything I love that painting can visually pose and penetrate questions - without employing the the digital and cyber systems used by scopic mechanisms. 

Oh, and the tree-of-life is always a symbol of hope!

Cheers,

Kathryn