GHOST SHADOWS

Ghost Shadows Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2023

Ghost Shadows is a new painting, inspired by thinking about the Royal Australian Air Force and Boeing collaboration to develop the MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone, previously called the Loyal Wingman drone. I have a number of earlier paintings that also reference the Loyal Wingman/Ghost Bat drone. You can see them in my 2021 online exhibition Wingman (MQ-28 Ghost Bat) Online Exhibition

Ghost Bat

With this new painting I was thinking about the name Ghost Bat, the name of a real Australian bat, applied to a drone. So, that got me thinking about ghosts, bats and shadows, stealth and invisible aspects of contemporary war. I was also thinking about landscape, geographical, technological, military, and other-worldly. As regular readers know I am currently undertaking my creative practice-lead PhD with an examination of increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum. 

I 'see' the technological landscape as mostly an invisible one, a stealthy signalic techno-colonised landscape from Earth to orbiting satellites. My aim, in my work, is to make the invisible 'landscape' visible! Yes, hardware and devices mark and move through our physical environments, but enabling signals are transmitted wirelessly or via discrete cables [eg: undersea internet cables]. I am mostly interested in wireless signaling/transmissions that enable light-speed or near light-speed connectivity, interconnectivity, operability and interoperability of civilian and military systems and devices. 

Shadow or Shadows 

Initially I was going to call the painting Ghost Shadow, but then I decided to make the shadow plural - thus, Ghost Shadows. The plural draws in multiple aspects of drone and robotic technologies - especially the fact that they are nodes in a system. Thinking imaginatively, what kinds of shadows does the militarised techno-system cast? Could the system be a multi-faceted shadow that we don't see - except in my painting? Maybe we should go looking for shadows! If we thought of ourselves as bats, let's lurk in the night, in the dark, using imagination to see things beyond sight. 

Fragmented Force

In  Ghost Shadows a Ghost Bat drone is identified as a fragmented force, a strange craft flying through the sky. This fragmentation 'speaks' to the drone's many capabilities, those disclosed by the developers, and those that have not been disclosed. The fragmentation evident in the whole painting alludes to pixels and the techno-reliance on imaging capabilities for operation, orientation, ISR, and targeting. Yet another interpretation could be that bits of the Ghost Bat drone have been flung into the sky. Has it spawned more bats? Or, has the drone been compromised? The dark large and small fragments might be shadow-indications of more drones or piloted aircraft - after all the Ghost Bat drone has been designed to accompany fighter jets. Thus, is this a scene of a mid-air battle between autonomously flown drones and piloted craft - debris scattered. But, is the debris material, or in an age of accelerating technological development, is it the debris of hopes and dreams?

Lots more to say - but I will leave the painting with you now! What do you think of the red fragments!?

Cheers,

Kathryn

THEATRE OF WAR: SENSORATION

Theatre of War: Sensoration Oil on linen 122 x 153 cm 2022

Sensorium?

This new painting Theatre of War: Sensoration was inspired by thinking about arrays of sensors eg: for surveillance, detection, tracking, data sorting, airport security etc. I am particularly interested why arrays of sensors are often called sensoriums, or considered part of the general natural world sensorium of senses and sensing. I have an issue with this! While the word sensorium does contain the word sensor, sensorium is normally applied to the human or natural world sensorium, where different senses, from sight, to hearing, touch, hindsight, emotion, feeling, even sixth sense, are experienced. So, to apply sensorium to arrays of technological sensors implies an attribution of a range of senses that sensors do not have. 

To avoid anthropomorphising technology we must pay closer attention to the language used to describe capabilities. My suggestion for the sensorium conundrum is to turn the noun sensor into a verb. Thus, the scoping and detection activities of sensors are acts of sensoring, not sensing. And, thus an array of sensors could be called a sensoration (like association, or delegation). 

PhD

I add here that my thoughts are part of a broader PhD creative practice-led research project (Curtin University, Western Australia) examining increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum, as an enabler of technology, a type of fires (weapon), a manoeuvre space (tactics) and a domain (strategy). 

Registering

I do realise that human beings share the world with an ever increasing array of technological sensors, and therefore there is a relationship, whether clear or not to human beings. I add here that I doubt that sensors 'know' there is a relationship! Eyal Weizman (Founder of Forensic Architecture) and Matthew Fuller  write about the sensor-sensing-human relational characteristic of contemporary life in their very thought provoking book Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth (2021). While using the word sensorium to encompass the sensor-human relationship, they do not scrutinise its anthropomorphising attributes. 

Weizman and Fuller do, however, mention the act of registering - of registration. The idea of registering/registration provided a way for me to think through the conundrum of using the word sensorium to encompass sensors and human/natural world sensing. I propose that both sensors and human beings register, and that this is the relational link between the sensor sensoration and the human sensorium. A sensor will register the presence of a human being and relay or store data relating to the human being's actions, condition etc. A human being may register the presence of sensors and mediate behaviour, or possibly not care. But, a human being's act of registering a sensor, or anything else for that matter, can entail an emotional reaction - even not caring is an emotional reaction. Whereas, a sensor is incapable of caring or not caring - full stop. 

Theatre of War: Sensoration
Using the symbol for light-speed ie: c, and the symbol for photon ie: y, I have painted two outer circles. Each symbol in each circle is connected by a wavy line. These lines indicate wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. This implies sensor signal connectivity and interconnectivity. An inner circle of cross-hairs coveys the idea of surveillance and monitoring, and the central cross-hair conveys the idea of targeting. This targeting could be by advertisers, information warfare bots, surveillance cameras, a drone's imaging technology or even the scoping lens of a weapon. 

Without depicting actual sensors Theatre of War: Sensoration visually critiques the idea that an array of sensors, or an environment of sensors, is a sensorium. I chose to use red and white to suggest that the sensoration - not sensorium - is a shared military and civilian space. The reliance on speed of light signal connectivity to relay data and instructions, in an network-centric world renders the civilian world of sensors ie sensoration militarise-able. 

I invite you to 'fly', in imagination, above, behind and around the sensoration. The cosmic background scape creates a distance into which you can soar. What do you see?

Cheers,

Kathryn

LIMINAL OCCUPATION and INTIMATE WAR

Liminal Occupation Gouache on paper 56 x76 cm unframed 2021

Liminal Occupation and Intimate War: Mapped  'speak' to contemporary war, felt acutely by some, peripherally by others. The space between acute and peripheral is also a war zone of lethal potential, its liminality disguising the hurt.   

The paintings speak to:

Scopic intimacies of surveillance, potential lethality and fear.

Landscapes rendered as computational. The drone and its sensors require this after all!

Slipperiness of political accountability. 

Pixels, algorithms, networks, interoperability, increasingly autonomous systems. 

The everywhere stage of the theatre of war, constantly moving from literal war zone, to screen, at speed. 

And lots more.

Intimate War: Mapped Gouache on paper 56 x76 cm unframed 2021

NEWS

On the 23rd September 12 - 1 pm I am moderating a in-conversation event "Good and Evil: The Internet, AI, Law, Ethics and trust" at the University of Queensland Art Museum. Sharing the stage will be excellent panelists:

• Associate Professor Rain Liivoja, School of Law, The University of Queensland
• Dr. Kate Devitt, Chief Scientist of the Trusted Autonomous Systems (TAS), Adjunct Associate Professor Human-Computer Interaction, Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland

Join us, if you can!

Cheers,

Kathryn

ME: PORTRAITURE IN THE AGE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

ME: 01001101 01000101 Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2021

 

ME is a self-portrait. It is a painted self-portrait. It visually parodies facial recognition computer graphics.*

IDENTITY & VERIFICATION
For me, my defining features are my very blue eyes, and my long hair which I wear in a loose, often messy, bun. Despite these defining features appearing in the portrait, further confirmation that ME is me is given with a verification tick generated by facial recognition technology. This is corroborated by the binary code 'instructing' the word ME. I ask, are we heading for a future history where identity is verified only by AI and coding? If identity verification is ubiquitously provided by technology, will human beings stop looking - and - seeing? Maybe - think about the way contemporary motor vehicles have smaller windows, especially at the rear, than years ago. We don't need to look - or see - when sensors are embedded! This is what I have been told by many car salespeople. 

In a world of digital imaging, facial recognition and biometric scanning, this painted self-portrait is possibly not verifiably me, simply because it is a painting and not a computer graphic, generated by facial recognition technology. Which has more authority, a painted self-portrait or a computer generated image? In the age of fakeness, I think the painted self-portrait certainly has authority! As a painting, my self portrait is untethered from reliance on algorithms, signals and an energy source [battery, electrical]. It exists as an independent unit, unconnected and not networked. As a painting, I think it is defiant in the face of such technology!

Are we in danger of being defined and verified by surveillance photography and digital scanning? Given questions around using AI to detect emotions, I think this is a key question, among many. Check out this short article about this topic, by Kate Crawford, in Nature 

PORTRAITURE
As I painted ME I wondered what might happen to portraiture in the age of facial recognition. Will painting survive as a human activity? Will paintings by human beings be influenced by pervasive technologically synchronised and homogenised aesthetics? What might happen to artists who don't fall into the influence of aesthetic homogenisation?

My gambit, with ME, is visual parody.

DRONE
And, for regular readers, there is a drone! The airborne drone gives a clue that facial recognition is being used to monitor my behaviour, identify my person, document my whereabouts. But, there is another way to look at this! As a painting, in reality, you and I have the drone under surveillance, its signaling exposed, and its connection to insidious surveillance revealed. That this information cannot be tracked, hacked, modified or datafied - because it is a painting -  may be scurrilous...how delightful! 

I think this self-portrait says a lot, and more, about ME!  

* Is It Me? is another self-portrait you might like to see and read about.

Cheers,

Kathryn

THE CLOUD: ONLINE EXHIBITION

Strange Cloud Watercolour on paper 2020

Strange Cloud (above) is a dark cloud, seemingly impenetrable. An array of multi-coloured drones, acting as sentinels, are both protectors and deliverers of data. The drones' colours bely the darkness of the cloud as it dominates the scene. The cloud's vascular-like growth sucks from the environment, now a metaphor for data. A lone tree-of-life stands as a beacon for the commons and humanity on a distant horizon. 

_______________________________________________________

THE CLOUD: ONLINE EXHIBITION

I was inspired to 'curate' this exhibition after listening to globally recognised artist, author and technologist, James Bridle's recent BBC presentation Under the Cloud. In this twenty-eight minute presentation Bridle "navigates the history and politics of the cloud". With inputs from other commentators, questions are raised about the cloud as a "metaphor of the internet, ethereal and fluffy - but what is it hiding?" Do listen to the presentation - it triggers a lot of questions about how we live our lives now and how we are likely to live our lives in the future.

Cloud Eyes Oil on linen 40 x 40 cm 2017

This online exhibition is a collection of paintings, where over the last few years, I have painted clouds in colours and compositions where their fluffiness is obviously a foil, a subterfuge, perhaps even a potentially dangerous seduction. Many of the paintings address some of the issues raised or alluded to in the BBC presentation. 

With my interest in militarised and militarise-able technology, my paintings depicting clouds reference surveillance, tracking and monitoring, They also speak to vulnerabilities of networked systems where platforms that are owned by a few major companies compel use and compliance under guises of ease of access, swift retrieval of data, enhanced security, speed of light transactions and more. As our awe of the system, and compliance to it, transforms into need, markets are ensured. 

Where does that place freedom? 

Cloud Eyes (Above)

Night vision green clouds clearly indicate augmented entities/systems, capturing data to be stored, analysed, and at some stage, acted upon. The eyes in Cloud Eyes are unblinking - they are not human. Here, I challenge ascribing notions of vision or seeing to machine, digital and cyber technologies - drones. They do not see, they do not have vision [literal, imaginational, dreaming] - instead - they SCOPE! And, when you think about it, 'scoping' befits the contingencies of surveillance ie: monitoring, targeting, manhunting and attack, much better than vision and seeing.... 

Follow Me, Says the Tree Oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm 2017

In Follow Me, Says the Tree I have depicted an eye painted in the sky. Its pupil is a shade of night vision green. It is an unblinking false eye, with 'lashes' that appear to be more like components from a computer circuit board. The signals that radiate from the eye penetrate through a surveillance net which is scaffolded by a night vision green CLOUD - a false cloud. 

However, what of the tree? It also penetrates the net of surveillance and the CLOUD, by reaching upwards towards the stars. It re-establishes perspective - the kind that can take humanity's endeavours into interstellar space. The tree's branching appearance contrasts with the clean lines of surveillance and targeting signals. Randomness, or seeming randomness, is presented as a complex decoy - but isn't that just LIFE! The tree not only erupts through the surveillance net, it also send roots underground. Where there's life there's hope it seems to say.

The New Clouds Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

In The New Clouds I have painted airborne drone swarms as fake clouds. Just as they mimic swarming which occurs in the natural environment, they also mimic clouds. In other words fake clouds that potentially, over time, change our relationship to landscape and environment. The potential militarise-ability of The Cloud is visually and clearly inferred. Here,  targeting, based on data, includes the benign opportunism of advertisers to the more mortally important targeting by militarised forces or aberrant actors. 

______________________________

From  2017 blog post:

"That THE Cloud's operations actually exist and occur as a result of material infrastructure belies the notion of fluffy vapourous clouds. Data is deposited onto multiple massive servers that require space in huge buildings. Servers suck energy - for continuous operation and cooling. And, to ensure backup, rerouting and instantaneous reaction they need connection and interconnection with cables that cross continents and oceans - the internet. The harnessing of space-based assets to assist connectivity adds another layer of material infrastructure beyond Earth's atmosphere. And, in one way or another, all this infrastructure can be used for both civilian and military purposes, thus blurring the lines between battlefield and city/home." 

Drone Clouds Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Painted over four years ago Drone Clouds (above) was inspired by thinking about how the increasing use of militarised drones creates a kind of artificial 'ceiling' in the sky. This can be viewed as both a literal and a psychological 'ceiling'. If we develop a fearful mentality that the sky is a place of threat, what happens to the beauty of cosmological perspectives? Regular readers know I have a fascination with cosmology, and the close and far distances it reveals. Threat from the sky is something that limits a fearless desire to look beyond horizons - earthly, universal and metaphoric.  What happens if we become fearful of The Cloud?

Topography of Signals Oil on linen 57 x 57 cm 2019 

Topography of Signals

A fluffy fake cloud, painted a light shade of night vision viridian green, hovers at the bottom right of Topography of Signals . Militarised and civilian technological hardware are connected by lines that indicate signal connections - the networked society - the militarise-ability of civilian technology. I have used red and night vision green lines to indicate augmented and dangerous surveillance capabilities, and therefore, vulnerabilites. Green screens, green car windows and green credit card chips all indicate data outflow to The Cloud, seemingly benign in all its fluffiness! 

As cultural scholar Paul Virilio notes the “more powerful and high performance the invention, the more dramatic the accident.”
Paul Virilio, The Original Accident, trans. Julie Rose (Cambridge, and Malden, MA: Polity, 2007), 31.

Ubiquitous Surveillance - An Invisible Landscape Oil on linen 60 cm x 110cm 2017

In Ubiquitous Surveillance: An Invisible Landscape I have visually suggested a new topographical layer of the sky, yet it could also be a new topography of the land. As with many of my paintings the viewer could be above the clouds looking down or below the clouds, looking up. As the viewer oscillates from one perspective to another, the new landscape of signals and scopic trajectories suddenly becomes an amorphous entity, capable of palpitating in multiple dimensions. Like a shadow, the viewer cannot escape it. No matter where you are the surveillance follows or perhaps catches you in its virtual web.

The presence of The Cloud is clear.

So, what do you think about Tactics, below?

                                       

                                  Tactics Oil on linen 70 x 100 cm 2017  

 

 

Data Data Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Data Data and Cloud Storage were both painted in 2016. In Data Data signals are being received and transmitted by an ambiguous vessel-like thing - is it a cloud? In Cloud Storage (below) little boxes try to assimilate with the fluffy clouds - they are unsuccessful. Or, are they - why is one cloud outlined in red? Is it a good or bad sign? 
 

                                    

Cloud Storage Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

And then, Data Heaven ...

At the centre of the square, in the centre of the cloud, binary code ‘instructs’ the word DATA. The fifth line of code, ‘instructing’ the letter D, indicates algorithmic continuity. The cloud looks like an eye, with DATA as its ‘pupil’. I am playing with ideas relating to THE CLOUD, big data and humanity’s increasing reliance on digital and cyber technologies. That we can exist virtually across multiple technological platforms/systems while alive is one thing, but that this virtual existence can continue after mortal death, is indicative of  - DATA Heaven, or perhaps - DATA Hell?

Data Heaven Oil on linen 100 x 120 cm 2017

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

IS IT ME? PORTRAITURE IN THE AGE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

 
                                                      Is it me? oil on linen 51 x 76 cm 2020

I started this self-portrait - or is it? - earlier this year. Although I thought it was finished I have worked on it and have just finished it. 

As regular readers know, during the pandemic I have been responding to media coverage about the use of drones, and problems with creeping normalisation of drone use.* Uses have included monitoring population compliance with COVID19 restrictions, broadcasting instructions and spraying disinfectant. Other uses that have been mooted, but I am unsure if they have actually been carried out, are checking for temperatures and heart beats to assist determination of illness. Issues of facial recognition have escalated over the last few years, and the pandemic, with co-current protests around the world about various issues, has highlighted issues of privacy, AI accuracy, bias and security.

Deep Fake and GAN Technology
While Is it me? intersects with the various issues of facial recognition, drone use and contemporary surveillance, it also triggers questions about portraiture in the age of AI and machine learning. Facial recognition technology uses biometrics scoped from photographs or image data to map facial features. These features are tagged as reference indicators for identity recognition by AI systems. Deep fake technology and generative adversarial networks (GANs) produce images of people. The latter has been used to generate portraits - note I use the word generate, rather than create. A recent controversial example of GAN 'portraiture' is the auction of the Portrait of Edmund Belamy. Sold for $432,500, the image of Belamy, a fictitious person, was generated and printed after the GAN system had been fed a "data set of 15,000 portraits painted between the 14th and 20th centuries". Even thinking about portraiture across centuries being  called a "data set" is unnerving! 

Portrait Painting

With technology changing the ways we identify and portray people, what can portrait painting say?  Is it me? is my attempt to grapple with that question. For me, my two main characteristics are my very blue eyes and my bun at the back of my head. In Is it me? I have featured these two characteristics as dominant, as if they are standing up to the computer graphic biometric indicators that scan my face. With so many images in the media of these kinds of computer graphic markings scanning faces, my inclusion of them is a parody, but also a warning. Like our natural features, will these algorithmically determined indicators become part of our 'portrait', who we are? Historically, though, portrait painting has been far more than simple identity. Good portraits are ones that reveal a personality, a sense of spirit - whether it is joyous or not. Good portraiture can also tell a story about a person. This is often achieved by combined elements such as, whether their skin is rough or smooth, what they might be wearing, the background against which they are portrayed and expression. With abstract approaches to portraiture, recognition and story-telling are bound up in painterly gesture, placement of forms, use of colour. 

Biometric scanning, gait monitoring, and surveillance of online activity and physical movements detected through devices, can be combined to 'tell a story' too. But, the purpose of the story is often linked to tracking and targeting. The 'story' becomes data, accessible for further tracking, surveillance and targeting by civilian, corporate and government entities. In the case of military, terrorist, counter-terrorist or criminal activities, tracking and targeting take on life and death questions. The point here, is that stories imparted by more traditional notions of portraiture are more ambient, and normally less instrumentally invoked.

           

ERROR?

In Is it me? I have also included a civilian drone. Its sensors are obviously scanning my face. This is a direct response to concerns about creeping normalisation of drones used for monitoring/surveillance during the pandemic period. The red ERROR suggests this portrait, according to the facial recognition technology, is not me! A small question mark after ERROR seems to indicate that the ERROR message is wrong. The smallness of the question mark channels a sense of confusion, as if the surveillance system is not sure. The flat horizon of the landscape against which I am painted, is a reference to my story. It is the landscape of my childhood, the flat, naturally treeless, black soil Pirrinuan Plain, outside Dalby on the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. This landscape reference is not just about where I grew up, it is also about me being an artist. The vast landscape of my childhood, where distance was my challenging playground, is still the launching pad for my imaginational flights into the cosmos. It is the foundation for my thoughts about imaginational metaveillance  

There is a lot more to say, but I will leave that up to you to think about! 

                                    Me in 2018 on a visit back to my childhood landscape

* Other posts about creeping normalisation of drone use during the pandemic

Dronescape: A Creeping Normalisation 
Border Crossings 
Watercolours for our Strange Times                                   

NEWS

My submission to present Drones, Art and Risk Analysis at the 2020 World of Drones and Robotics Congress, in Brisbane, in November, has been accepted. I will be presenting with a short film of me talking, rather than in-person. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

BORDER CROSSINGS

 Crossing the Border watercolour on paper 24 x 32 cm 2020 

More watercolour paintings! 
Following on from my last post Watercolours For Our Strange Times: Online Exhibition


Australia
As Australia confronts a renewed wave of COVID-19 infections, particularly in the state of Victoria, borders between states have closed again, or not re-opened. For Queenslanders, the recently re-opened border is now closed to visiting Victorians or people from accelerating hotspots in New South Wales. Many Queenslanders want the state's Premier to shut the borders again, completely.

Issues associated with borders and border controls are global and historical - colonial annexations,  migration control, refugee movement, trade, security and pandemic mitigation. Closing or monitoring borders for pandemic and disease control - for example: state, village, home, urban borders/boundaries - are not new strategies. Across history and the globe, from plague to cholera outbreaks, Spanish Flu to Ebola outbreaks, quarantining by border/boundary control has occurred. It is clearly a sensible method of disease transmission mitigation, especially when there is no known cure.

Drones - COVID-19
I am interested in the increased use of surveillance technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of particular interest is the use of airborne drones for monitoring, crowd control, spraying disinfectant, attempts to gauge temperatures etc. While perhaps laudable in intent, what happens if the use of drones for surveillance and monitoring purposes becomes normalised, and therefore enduring?

Drones Monitoring NSW - Victorian Border
The three watercolour paintings in this post are responses to recent news that police will use airborne drones to monitor the border between Victoria and NSW. This strategy has arisen particularly since the renewed outbreak of COVID-19 in Victoria in July 2020. The drones will monitor parts of the border where people could cross undetected, for instance, by swimming across the Murray River. The river forms the majority of the border and presents ample opportunity to cross if someone was determined. You can read about the use of drones to monitor the NSW - Victorian border by police in articles such as these - one in The Australian  newspaper, another in the Sydney Morning Herald, and another in Australian Aviation.

I wonder if airborne drones are being used  by enforcement authorities to monitor other borders in Australia? I assume they are, or at least, being considered. Australia is a vast country with long, often remote, borders between states and territories.

Border as Metaphor
And, of course, the idea of the border as a metaphor is tantalising, particularly so when rivers are borders. Here, I think about the River Styx, in Greek mythology the border between the underworld and the world of the living. I also think about the Rubicon*. The term 'crossing the Rubicon' relates to Julius Caesar's army crossing the Rubicon River in north east Italy in 49BC. This was considered an act of insurrection and treason, and a declaration of war against the Roman Senate. Metaphorically 'crossing the Rubicon', means there is no return. I ask, what kinds of 'no return' metaphoric borders have we crossed in terms of increasing normalisation of drone use for surveillance and targeting purposes? 

PAINTINGS
Crossing the Border [above] depicts three figures in an ambiguous, but watery, landscape. Are the figures swimming or running? They are clearly in a non-urban environment, and they express a sense of urgency or agitation. Yet, they appear to have not reached their destination. It is as if their bodies link each side of the border - can they return? Here, I am not thinking of a literal return!

 Border Crossing watercolour on paper 24 x 32 cm 2020 

In Border Crossing [above] a human figure and the figure of a dog seem ready to cross a border, a watery border. But, maybe they are already half way across a river, the lines extending downwards from their bodies acting as signs of a watery wake. Or are these elongated limbs or shadows tethering them to a shore, keeping them from reaching the other side?

Monitoring the Murray watercolour on paper 32 x 40cm 2020 

In Monitoring the Murray [above] a human figure has merged with the landscape. The figure's outstretched arm, in freestyle movement, indicates it is swimming. However, the figure has become part of the river, a clever camouflage. As the figure reaches the other side of the river, three drones are surveilling. Are the drones from the underworld? 

Previous painting and post Crossing the Rubicon

Cheers,

Kathryn

WATERCOLOURS FOR OUR STRANGE TIMES: ONLINE EXHIBITION

[Fig.1] Sentinel Watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2020

This post 'exhibits' some of my recent watercolur paintings. These watercolours are a departure from my normal oil paintings. I like having departures because experimenting with different paint mediums creates a space for thought and innovation.

The paintings in this small online exhibition all respond, in one way or another, to living through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Watercolour Medium

The medium of watercolour provides a softness that is important at a time when people are anxious, in mourning, or even angry and frustrated. I use copious amounts of water, and I cannot help but think that there is something soothing about paintings created with water. Although I obviously also use paint and a brush, the water is essentially the creator - I am the vehicle.

Paintings

Sentinel [Fig.1] is a landscape where a tree - a tree-of-life - stands like a sentinel on a distant horizon. I was thinking about how life copes with threats and risks. Here, the horizon is both literal and metaphoric - what horizons do we cross when catastrophe knocks at our front doors? 

Maybe one horizon is the increasing use of surveillance and monitoring technology. What limits are crossed when, for example, the pandemic gives rise to an accelerating use of airborne drones? What kinds of creeping normalisation pave way for future impediments to privacy and freedom? 

In Content Tagging: A Spoof  [Fig.2], human [Fig.3] and Shadows [Fig.4] I visually spoof the way machine learning and AI need to be repeatedly exposed to images of objects, expressions and activities, in order to learn to identify them. Words are used to tag. But, I wonder, for an AI, does the tag become the object too? In Content Tagging: A Spoof I have also referenced the story of a person, in lockdown in Malta, who used a drone to walk their dog. My earlier painting Walking the Dog, In the Drone Age was also inspired by Malta story, a story that speaks to how strangeness can morph into normalcy.

[Fig.2] Content Tagging: A Spoof Watercolur on paper 30 x 42 cm 2020

[Fig.3] human watercolour on paper 24 x 32 cm 2020

[Fig.4] Shadows Watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2020

The three paintings below speak to the effects of isolation during COVID-19. In Watching [Fig.5] two figures are separated by distance, but also by what looks like bars on a window. Lockdown, quarantine and social distancing are mechanisms of isolation, that are monitored in various ways, including the use of drones. That lockdown, quarantine and social distancing are necessary during a pandemic is not disputed. What I query is the way new modes of surveillance, used by security and police forces, collide with those also employed by military forces. In Watching, the drone monitors the figures, as the figures watch each other. Do the figures notice the drone though?

Watching [Fig.5] on paper 30 x 42 cm 2020

In People [Fig.6] a line of figures, are socially distanced, except for two figures on the far left. They maybe a couple? The ambiguous atmosphere of the painting reflects the sense of limbo and uncertainty that permeate societies as they grapple with COVID-19. The sense of limbo and uncertainty also permeates Apart and Together [Fig.7]. I was thinking about how all of us are experiencing the pandemic - that all of us are in this thing together. That our individual behaviour and how we adhere to safeguards, can affect other people, is of paramount importance. Staying apart actually helps to keep us together - alive. 

Do stay safe!

Kathryn

 People [Fig.6] on paper 24 x 32 cm 2020

Apart and Together [Fig.7] on paper 30 x 42 cm 2020

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

ON OUR WATCH

On Our Watch Oil on linen 36 x 56 cm 2020

I've been thinking about our current time of pandemic, protest, political mayhem, global strife and anxiety: I wrote the following, re: protests over historical statues, on Facebook and people seemed to like the idea. 

I've been thinking about the current furore over historical statues of people who are seen as representative of negative aspects of colonialism. Visual art clearly has power. It also offers ways to learn and question, so rather than destroy or discard these historical statues, how about commissioning contemporary artists to create work that responds to them. For example, historical pieces in tight spots could be moved to parks or other open spaces, where some historical statues are already situated, and new contemporary pieces can be placed with them. By doing this the pieces set up a visual dialogue that can inform us of the past, reminding us that the past delivers lessons for the present and the future. These new dialogues could involve historians, futurists & others along with artists. And, not only sculptors or 3D artists, but imagine open-air performances by actors/musicians/poets/dancers that respond to groupings of historical statues and contemporary sculpture/3D works. Imagine light shows, holographic work, or work that encourages audience/viewer participation. I envision a dynamism, that may not be comfortable, but it might potentially mean negative aspects of history help inform critiques and insights of not only the past, but also the present - and potentially - help us pave a positive and sustainable future.

Imagine too, how these kinds of projects would generate work and income for artists of all kinds!

HISTORY AND THE PRESENT

History offers an array of dastardly acts, immoral behaviours, cruel intentions, evil doings, gross discriminations, acts of proprietorial hubris and perverse prejudices. History also offers an array of remarkable achievements, acts of valour and bravery, demonstrations of learning, revelations of science, feats of cultural excellence and intellectual prowess. History offers an array of lessons for a present that can also claim both dastardly acts and commendable behaviours. 

Have we learnt history's lessons? Can we learn history's lessons? How do we learn history's lessons?

ON OUR WATCH

While I was painting my new work On Our Watch I was thinking about how contemporary threats to freedoms, futures, lives, environment and well-being are perpetrated and perpetuated. Unfortunately, I 'see' new modes of empire, created by techno-colonising forces.* These new kinds of empire potentially replicate similar biases, prejudices, acts of usury, violence and control that characterised many of the negative aspects of historical empire building. As invisible or hidden signals connect devices and nodes, they volumetrically occupy territory from land to orbiting satellites. New types of territorial and domestic infiltration, colonisation and empire building pose sovereign and individual threats - election manipulations, cyber-attacks, fake news, identity theft, the dark web, surveillance, targeting of all kinds eg: by advertisers, governments or weaponsied drones. 

In On Our Watch I have painted two Sky Guardian drones. The small blue squares mimic pixels, representing the ubiquity of digital technology. I have deliberately chosen the colour blue to suggest a 'take-over' of landscape/territory by virtual and simulated landscape proxies. Fake landscape! The drones are armed with multi-penile-like red missiles, ready and erect for action. I have chosen Sky Guardian drones because in late 2019 it was announced that this drone is the RAAF's preferred acquisition choice. It was chosen over the MQ-9A Reaper drone because it is "able to be certified to fly in civilian airspace". I will leave you to think about that.

Regular readers will identify the red tree as my version of the transcultural/religious tree-of-life. It represents life and humanity. The tree appears to be on fire. Has it been hit by a real or metaphoric missile? Will the tree recover?

I have previously painted 'pixelated' drones - images below. 

 Anomaly Detection 2 Oil on linen 120 x 180 cm 2017

 Anomaly Detection Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

New Sky? Gouache on paper 57 x 76 cm 2016

Cheers,

Kathryn