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

GOD?

GOD? Oil on on linen 41 x 51 cm 2019

No answers

Only questions

Colourful zeros and ones

'Instruct'

The word

GOD

This painting depicts an algorithmic representation of the word GOD:  

01000111 01001111 01000100. 

The painting also depicts an ambiguous landscape with diagonal lines that cut through it.

Is the binary code - the string of colourfully painted zeros and ones - a representation of GOD? Note the question mark in the title of the painting. But, there is no question mark, or instructed binary code question mark - 00111111 - depicted in the painting. Is this GOD a proxy?

  

Here are a few more questions! Is the painting a representation of GOD in a landscape or GOD as landscape? Is it a real landscape or a computer generated landscape? Perhaps the diagonal lines convey orienting graphics on a computer screen, maybe the screen of a remote militarised drone pilot? Maybe it is a computer game? Is there a target?

What does the binary code 'instructing' the word GOD mean? I don't have an answer - there was a lot going on in my head when I painted it! However, this question can, perhaps, be addressed with other questions, such as  - where, what and how is GOD in the age of the algorithm, the era of the drone, and the epoch of ubiquitous surveillance, and increasingly autonomous systems? 

Regular readers will know where these questions come from.

A recent post HUMAN or Algorithm has more of my paintings depicting colourfully painted strings of binary code that playfully, but critically, 'instruct'.

I'll leave it to you now.

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NEWS

Check out the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare project, University of Sheffield, UK

And, particularly check out the project's forthcoming conference, February 2020.

I am speaking.

And, you will notice that my painting New Horizons is the conference image!

Cheers

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

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

GHOST LANDSCAPES

Ghost Landscapes Oil on linen Oil on linen 23 x 40 cm 2019

Ghost Landscapes was triggered by thinking about digital images of landscape - recorded images of real landscapes and computer generated virtual landscapes. Given that landscape is the foundation of our lived real-world environment, does the presentation of landscape on a screen mediate our experience of our real-world environment? For example, I am thinking about GPS assisted graphics on screens, such as embedded screens in a car, or a mobile phone. Being told where to go using screen-based guidance systems [often augmented with audible instructions] reduces the need to fully orient oneself within the environment. By this I mean, looking out a car window or looking up from a phone to identify topographical or built environment cues to assist in getting from one place to another. 

Ghost Landscapes was also inspired by thinking about the increasing habit of using screen-based technology to 'entertain' ourselves while travelling as a passenger. If not 'entertaining' ourselves, we continue to work - email, write or examine reports etc. These diversions also reduce real-world interactions with landscape. Simply looking out the window, except momentarily, is a rarity. 

Ghost Landscapes was also inspired by thinking about targeting and surveillance imaging technology, for example, used on an airborne militarised drone. Viewed through targeting and surveillance devices landscape is preemptively positioned as a site of potential mal-intent, misdemeanor, battle, death-in-waiting and/or necro-site. Overlays of computer graphics, such as orienting and targeting graphics, change landscape with occupying intentions and forces most of us are unaware of. 

So, why give this new painting the title Ghost Landscapes? If landscape is occupied, but this goes unnoticed by over-entertained or over-worked people, does this represent a death of landscape? If screen-based representations of landscape become proxy environments, what happens to considerations of real-world landscape as a foundation for environment? Does increasingly persistent surveillance render real-world landscape a place of hostage? If surveillance leads to targeting to sell or targeting to kill, how can landscape provide places of refuge and safety? 

Landscape is falling away from us...........................................

And, as we fall too, there is more to say ..................................

Maybe the ghosts will catch us?

Cheers,

Kathryn

* Please check out my Small Paintings for the Festive Season  

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SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW

Seeing Through the Fake Window Oil on linen 30 x 46 cm 2018

FAKE STUFF

Fake stuff is happening everywhere! Fake news, fake videos, and now there is a thing called "deep fake". "Deep Fake" uses artificial intelligence to create images or videos the depict seemingly real events, with depictions of real people, sometimes even with fake people. So, for example, videos of politicians saying and doing things they have not said or done. Here are two interesting articles that discuss fake phenomena and artificial intelligence, and "deep fake":  You Thought Fake News Was Bad? Deep Fakes is Where Truth Goes to Die.  by Oscar Schwartz in The Guardian, and What You Have to Fear from Artificial Intelligence  by Ryan Metz in Current Affairs: A magazine of Politics and Culture.

Paul Metz writes: "If you think “fake news” is a problem now, just wait. When an image can be generated of literally anyone doing literally anything with perfect realism, truth is going to get a whole lot slipperier."

Fake news clearly has political, social and security issues, but "deep fake" takes these issues even further. Used indiscriminately, "deep fake', to my mind, is a threat to civilisation as we know it. 

"DEEP FAKE"

Fake news, and particularly "deep fake" are intrinsically linked to digital and cyber technology generally, and the screen more specifically. The screen is the "third" or "cathode window", as Paul Virilio, called it in interviews and text. Jean Baudrillard also proposed a loss of reality delivered by the screen. His "perfect crime", the death of reality, may reach its ultimate prosecution in "deep fake". 

SEEING THROUGH THE FAKE WINDOW

So, to my new painting Seeing Through the Fake Window. Obviously I am playing into the news about fake phenomena. I am also playing into the idea of the screen being a window, a fake one. Without the ubiquity of the screen would fake news and "deep fake" pose threats to the fabric of society? The screen is ubiquitous because it is the computer screen, mobile phone screen, or other device screen. The screen is, however, also associated with the camera and the weapon, surveillance and targeting. 

In Seeing Through the Fake Window. you can imagine yourself looking through a fake window, aka screen. Maybe it is an airborne drone screen, one of its many multispectral cameras perhaps ? Or, maybe you are looking at a remote drone pilot's screen. Or maybe, you are looking at a television screen, watching news of a true or fake story about a true of fake drone strike? I have painted a dark blue square in the middle of the night- vision green 'cloud'. Is that a new window? Maybe, maybe not.

Seeing Through the Fake Window is not only about giving an impression of looking through a window, a fake window. It is also about exposing the fakery, critiquing the fake window that delivers fake news into our private and public lives. 

FAKE LANDSCAPE

As with many of my paintings, I have painted lines that crisscross a landscape. These lines are signals and computer graphic-like markings. They create a new landscape topography, one which is normally invisible, except perhaps on a screen, maybe a remote drone pilot's screen. It is a fake landscape! As I have previously written, nets of signals that enable connectivity and networking, wrap the planet, extending from land to satellites in space. Theses signals transmit news, stories and images - real and fake - around the world. 

"Deep fake" is a potentially disastrous 21st century tactical weapon, deployable via our nets of signals.

On that happy note!

Cheers,

Kathryn