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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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

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[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

SOMEWHERE

Somewhere Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

Somewhere may be on Earth, but then again it may not. 

It could, however, be evidence of life on another planet, an exo-planet enticing human beings with promises for life after Earth - or - post-Earth as I like to call it. 

It could be a simulated landscape experienced via virtual reality. The lively colours a distraction from the erosion of our earthly home? Imagine sitting inside your driverless car, windows blackened so you can enjoy your virtual landscape of choice! Looking out the window, what a novelty!

Or, maybe it's a remnant of Earth flung into the universe upon the fiery demise of the sun and the solar system?

SCIENTISTS' EXCITEMENT

Over the last few days I have attended some fascinating events at the second World Science Festival held in Brisbane. I've heard some very excited scientists talking about the future of autonomous vehicles of all kinds, new ways of urban living, robotic companions for the very young and very old, 'fail-safe' artificially intelligent systems and more. The scientists' excitement is infectious. Their expertise and imaginations are to be admired - indeed many scientists seem more imaginative than artists! Somewhere could be a future landscape where the downward emanating rays are signals from benign interconnected systems designed to assist society in a variety of ways [protected from hijacking/hacking by malevolent forces, of course]. The trees may indicate a preserved/restored natural environment, the small crosses could be autonomous vehicle parking and recharging hubs, The upwardly trailing string of variously sized dots could be a holiday route to the Moon! Whether its our Moon or not, is unknown.

CONTESTED FORCES

And, here's another possibility, one where contested forces battle. Regular readers will guess that the trees are my representations of the tree-of-life. As they branch upwards, the downward emanating rays could be the scoping signals of obscured airborne surveillance drones, possibly armed? There are so many though! The small crosses may be target points or the cross-hair markings of unmanned sniper drones? Leaves and small dots cascade across the landscape. What do they 'know'? Are they seeding new life for a safer future - ready to regrow and send up new shoots when the time is right? Is the upwardly trailing constellation of coloured dots and circles a sign of escape or seepage - like blood loss? 

I 'see' Somewhere not as one landscape, but many. Each one presenting lots of questions. I also think there's something about it being quite beautiful. 

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You might be interested in previous posts:

Looking Out The Windows

Looking in the Rear Vision Mirror - Cosmically Speaking

and

my DRONESCAPES

Cheers,

Kathryn

P.S. I also attended a robot programming workshop at the Queensland University of technology [QUT] that was part of the World Science Festival. My team of three programmed our robot to 'draw' a tree. I have a bit of an issue with describing what the robot did as 'draw', but I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. I am working through some thoughts and will probably write about them at some stage.

NEW SKY?

New Sky? Gouache on paper 57 x 76.5 cm 2016

TECH AND THE SKY

New Sky? continues my exploration of the relationship between technology and how we might perceive and understand the sky, consciously and subconsciously, in the 21st century. In an earlier post I contemplated how the sky is now a contested place where surveillance and targeting by weaponised drones limits the freedoms and lives of those who live below them. This limitation is about literal life and death. It is about fearing the sky and what it might deliver.

In this painting,New Sky?, the viewer is unsure whether they are above or below the three weaponised drones. This ambiguity in perspective is a deliberate ploy, one that I have 'played' with for many years in many different paintings...regular readers know.... 

TREES-OF-LIFE

The trees-of-life, some upright and some upside down, enhance the ambiguous perspective. Are we looking up into a cosmic sky, the Universe opened up? Or, are we looking down upon a landscape where life, in many cases, is turned 'upside down'...destroyed?

 What does it mean if the transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol is turned upside down? This question is bigger than me! I know I painted upside down trees-of-life, AND I felt compelled to do so, in this painting and others, but I leave it to you to find your own answers. 

BLUE DRONES

I have painted the drones in shades of blue to suggest their contribution to the 'new sky'. But, the geometric patterning deliberately hints at the artificiality of their sky impressions or camouflage. The geometric patterning becomes synonymous with pixels and virtual reality, algorithms and digital image making. In this way I have channeled the ubiquity of connectivity...the connectivity that contemporary surveillance relies upon. Our devices, personal, work related and incidental, are data suppliers, nodes of information, points of digital reference, markers of behaviour...all of these and more, provide fodder for data collection and analysis ie: metadata. This is used by advertisers, governments, the military and...

But, is it real? Again, you can seek your own answers. 

RED

The Hellfire and guided missile weapons on the Reaper drones in New Sky? are red, the same colour as the trees-of-life. The colour red is fervent, vital, energised. 

The fact that I have painted both the trees-of-life and the weapons red can be interpreted as a bad thing, but it could also be read as a good thing. It depends on which entity you think has the most power - LIFE or the weapons?

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com