MIMICRY AND MEANING IN THE AGE OF AI

Mimicked Meanings Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2023

NEWS

I am speaking on an AI and Creativity panel at the Something Digital Festival, Brisbane, 29-30 August. Please check out the website. I am very excited about being part of the Festival's program.

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Programmed Mimicry

These two new works on paper channel my interests in robotic and AI programmed mimicry of human behaviour. For example, a robotic companion in a childcare centre or a nursing home may display behaviours, through gesture and sounded words, of caring, interest and concern. These displays are designed to ensure that human beings feel cared for, protected, and even that they are experiencing a helpful relationship, albeit an unreciprocated one. 

Deception

BUT, what if we thought of programmed mimicry as programmed deception? For example, what if a robotic medical assistant first responder to an accident detects, via various sensors, that at human being's vital signs indicate death is 90% likely to occur within half an hour? If the injured person asks "Am I going to be ok?", the robot could give a factual statement that the person has a 90% likelihood of dying unless x y or z happens within half an hour. This may, in fact, cause a heart attack due to shock and severe distress - and the person dies before half an hour - before medical intervention can take place. Or, the robot could mimic a caring human being, sounding out words associated with comfort, calming and caring. For example, the robot could sound out the words "You will be ok. The ambulance will be here in very soon. I will hold your hand while we wait."

Sound Out or Speak Out

You may notice that I use the term "sound out" and "sounded words", rather than "speaking" and "spoken words" to indicate an audible robotic response to a situation or a question. I am experimenting with words we use to describe robotic or AI capabilities eg: thinking, creating, seeing, hearing, sensing. Is the use of these kinds of humanising words predisposing us to believing that robots and AI are becoming more like us? "Speaking" and "spoken words", I propose, carry so much more information about the character of being a human being. The term "spoken word" is laden with the multiple attributes of human expression! I add here that I am not excluding words spoken by those human beings who are deliberately manipulative and deceptive. A robot or AI cannot be deliberately deceptive, as that would imply some kind of intention - and intention is another of those words we seem to automatically use to describe robotic or AI capabilities. Intention ascribes a will to do or affect something. I would not describe AI or robots as having a will. Some would say - not yet! 

Warfare

Deception has long been a tactic in warfare. Robotic systems offer opportunities to  mimic human behaviours to deceive an enemy. They could even possibly mimic caring as a form of programmed weaponised deception. Another example is AI-faked social media accounts that deceive, churning misinformation and fake news as tactics of information-warfare. 

Mimicked Meanings and WHO/WHAT CARES?

These new paintings are like visual thought bubbles. I use painted binary code, accompanied with words, to indicate algorithmic mimicry. I paint neural-network-like patterns or computer circuitry as creeping kinds of contagion. In Mimicked Meanings I place a robotic quadruped with a real dog, an eye with scoping crosshairs, and binary code 'instructing' the word EMPATHY with the word EMPATHY. There are other visual entendres indicating synthetic mimicry, but I will let you find them! 

In both Mimicked Meanings and WHO/WHAT CARES? I play with Douglas Hofstadter's idea of the ambigram to suggest that same/same in the age of AI is not a game. In both paintings the background of the painting is marked with evenly spaced dots, clues to a world digitally geo-mapped for robotic systems.

And, the fact that these are paintings, not reliant on digital or AI-assistant technology, is an act of resistance!

There's more to say - but, I will leave it to you now! 😊

WHO/WHAT CARES? Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2023

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

FAKE SKIES, PEOPLE, DOGS & LANDSCAPE - ONLINE EXHIBITION

Fake Landscape HAM electronic parts on RF resistant material 21 x 30 cm 2023

FAKE SKIES, PEOPLE, DOGS & LANDSCAPE 

The five works in this online exhibition are all created using old electronic gear from my father's HAM amateur radio stash. My father died in 2016, leaving behind copious supplies of electronic parts, a multitude of electronic gadgets, a large number of computers and computer parts, arrays of power cords, and various other gadgets and gizmos. Most of his supply has now been sold or given away, including two large aerials. I retrieved a box full of electronic gear. It's only recently that I knew what I needed to do with it! I am sure my PhD research into increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum opened up the opportunity.

You might like to read TWO PAINTINGS OF MY DAD 

So, Here We Are. 

I have created these five works as whimsical critique of AI generated images, particularly fake images. These act as a kind of violence on society. This violence needs addressing. 

The materiality of the five pieces in the exhibition reminds us that AI technology also requires material components, structures and infrastructure. These all entail extractive processes, industrial manipulation, and manufacturing development. Each work is created on radio frequency resistant material, also from my father's stash. I like that the idea that resistance, presented in these analogue critiques of contemporary technology, is materially embedded in the actual works. 

Fake

I have also used some of my father's old stencils, which he would have applied to the various gadgets he made or altered. In Fake Landscape (above) I have stenciled landscape-type words as labels, for example, I chose 'RANGE', used to denote frequency range, to denote a mountain range. 'PITCH' is used to denote the pitch of the mountain. I point out that there is even a fake fence, on the bottom right. This references electronic fencing to fend off wayward drones! In War Zone (below) I have stenciled 'CAUTION' and 'CITIZENS'. Here, I am sure my reasoning is self explanatory. In War Zone the row of five brown capacitors looks like a row of people - citizens. Fake People (further below) is a crowd of 'people', perhaps a crowd in a simulated virtual reality? Maybe a virtual reality war game?

 

War Zone HAM electronic parts on RF resistant material 21 x 30 cm 2023

Fake Sky HAM electronic parts  on RF resistant material 21 x 30 cm 2023 

Fake Sky is an array of blue transmitters and resistors. I was thinking about simulated skies in virtual reality - meta - environments. I was also thinking of blue-sky thinking, and how technology can stimulate, but also how it standardises and homogenises processes in ways that affect human thinking and expectations.

Fake People Capacitors on RF resistant material 21 x 30 cm 2023 

Fake Dogs Capacitors on RF resistant material 21 x 30 cm 2023 

Fake Dogs continues my interest in robotic quadrupeds - I refuse to call them 'dogs'. Robotic quadrupeds are used by military, security and policing forces. Recently I have noticed that the artworld is welcoming them into exhibitions as part of curatorial programming. Here, I hope criticality prevails, but I suspect the entertainment factor will win. Every encounter and activity a robot undertakes is a training experience providing copious amounts of data for their manufacturers and other users. I have a lot more to say about this! 

My fake dogs above could be armed, but maybe they are not...

I have previously written about dogs and robotic quadrupeds. I even created an online exhibition on this BLOG called DOGS, QUADRUPEDS AND ROBOTS

Cheers,

Kathryn

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

WHERE'S THE BEATING HEART?

Where's the Beating Heart? Oil on linen 112 x 92 cm 2022

Photo: Rob Frith

This new painting relates to my last painting On The Edge of Being 

Human-Machine

In both paintings I visually question the human-machine relationship, including increasing developments and expectations of these relationships. Using a visual ambigramatic [after Douglas Hofstadter] ploy in both paintings, I have painted tree-like patterns as if they are about to merge, or maybe even repel each other. It's your choice to decide! An ambigram can be read, with multiple meanings, in both an upside and downside orientation. But, they can also be read as the same....

The tree-like patterns are those of a natural tree or branching system [roots, vascular, leaves, lines on our palms etc], plus tree-like patterns uses in computer science ie: tree logic, neural networks, chip boards etc. In Where's the Beating Heart? the upper oval represents natural life and systems, and the lower oval represents coded systems and their correlative hardware. Like an ambigram, the painting could be turned the other way - maybe orientation depends on aesthetics, but also beliefs about humanity, technology and the future?

Patterns

I am not a computer scientist, nor am I an arborist, but as an artist I like to look for patterns, and I like to present what I see as provocations to prod questions. Regular readers will know that I have a keen interest in technology, undertaking technical research to inform my work. These readers will also know that my current PhD research examines increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS - radio, microwave etc frequencies]. Without consistent uncongested or uncontested access to signal-transmitting frequencies in the EMS, much of our contemporary technology would flounder.  

Theatre of War

Both On the Edge of Being and Where's the Beating Heart? have been inspired by my research, particularly my interest in the idea of 'theatre of war', a phrase often used by 19the century General Carl von Clausewitz in his famous tome On War. Clearly the contemporary  'theatre of war' is different to the 19th century idea of 'theatre of war', but if war is seen as a performance, I do think performativity is still a component of war. We now have 'roles' played by technological systems and hardware that are militarised and militarise-able. Militarise-ability of civilian systems/hardware is a key interest of mine ie: connectivity, interconnectivity and interoperability of systems/hardware, are enabled by signals transmitted via EMS frequencies. New modes of war, such as cyber, information, hybrid, and network-centric warfare draw civilian systems into the 'theatre'. One example is the use of social media for information warfare - there are many other examples.

Heart

Where's the Beating Heart? poses questions about human being-ness and technological utility. As autonomous components are embedded into systems, human speed is bypassed. I ask, isn't human speed, the pace at which we work and think, part of our being-ness? This is just one of many questions I ask myself, and embed in my work. The tree-logic pattern 'pulses' with a predominantly red centre of painted conduits. Is this a fake heart? 

There's more to say, but I will leave that to you! 

Cheers, 

Kathryn

 

ON THE EDGE OF BEING

On The Edge of Being Oil on linen 112 x 92 cm 2022

 

In an age of artificial intelligence, increasingly autonomous systems, technological interconnectivity and interoperability, drones and other robots, what happens to human identity? If our future is one of being human-machine, what kind of being-ness does this impose or require? Do we become more like the machines/systems or do they become more like us? How does algorithmic/machine utility and human being-ness work together? 

On The Edge of Being

This new painting visually poses a possible immanent battle or meeting between the upper section of trees and the lower section of different kinds of 'tree's. It's up to you to ponder whether a battle or a meeting is likely. Or maybe it's something else. The free flowing tree-like branches at the top of the painting are posed with a more standardised neural network tree-like structure in the bottom half of the painting. I was thinking about being-ness vs utility. I was also thinking about trees - for example, computer science tree-logic/hierarchies and the age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life. Both 'coded', but differently. A lot to say here, but I won't go on - and on...!

I have not only painted different tree-structures, but I have used slightly different tones of colour in each section. The green in the top part of the painting is a more real-world tree or plant green, whereas the green in the lower section is a night-vision surveillance green. I have used different yellows and blues in each section, but the same cadmium red. This red dominates as each 'tree-scape' encroaches on the fiery and tumultuous centre. The red could indicate readiness - maybe for battle. The centre section could be a war zone, but it could also indicate fertile ground. Whatever it is, for me it symbolises a rubicon - like crossing the Rubicon River. Maybe there is no way back, especially if we don't pay attention. 

In 2017 I created a painting called Crossing the Rubicon  

PhD - Light Speed

On The Edge of Being came to me as I wrote one of my PhD chapters Speed: Light Speed = c. In an era where light-speed signal transmission enables technological speed, how do expectations of beyond-human dimensions of speed, and therefore, time, impact or influence human being-ness? What metaphoric tree should we grasp onto as speed engulfs?

There is more to say, and think about...

Cheers, Kathryn 

PS: You might be interesting another painting

Artificial Trees: Pulling The Future Towards Us

MAKING CODE VISIBLE: ONLINE EXHIBITION

 1. Unseen Oil on linen 90 x 80 cm 2015

2015-2022

This online exhibition of selected paintings starts with  Unseen (above), painted in 2015. Unseen is one of my first paintings where I depict binary code as part of an overall image. In this case a colourful string of zeros and ones repeatedly instructs the word LIFE. This string of visualised code extends from a branch of the tree, depicted with a colourful array of roots. The tree could be a tree-of-life, offering another kind of 'code'. Like many of my paintings a cosmic-like background helps to create a sense of flight.

Unseen was the source of inspiration for a collaboration with Brisbane-based internationally known jeweler Margot McKinney. The small series includes a fabulous necklace that follows the graphic lines of the tree, and zeros and ones. Square cut and round gems 'form' the binary code. A series of gorgeous earrings were inspired by the spiral of binary code in Picturing the Posthuman (painting number 16). I like the fact that code has been extracted and aestheticised in my paintings and in jewels made from natural geologically formed gemstones.     

LIFE and War

The next 19 paintings start with examples of recent works, ending with other earlier paintings. You will notice that as I experiment with visalising and eastheticising normally invisible code, its relationship with militarised technology and militiarise-able civilian technology becomes more politically charged. In a world where notions of warfare now include information, cyber, hybrid, grey-zone, and network-centric warfare, the key role played by code and algorithms demands attention. 

Various kinds of violence now insidiously play out in networks, enabled by light-speed transmission and reception of signals carried by radio and microwave frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. Signals are tentacular enablers and deliverers of codified data and instructions. 

Text Prompted AI Generated Images

This online exhibition also responds to recent hype surrounding text prompted AI image generation, using datasets of human artists' images scraped from the Internet. I offer my paintings of visualised code as a disruption and resistance to algorithmically generated image making. Painting is not reliant on digital or cyber technology, thus it has a capacity for independent critique, without feeding data back into the system. Interestingly I have discovered that one of my painting, in this online exhibition, has been scraped and used in a dataset - painting number 19 Coded Landscape. The binary code, 'instructing' the word LIFE, forms a landscape-like contour. It's kind of ironic that this painting was scraped. I add here, that the image scraped was a digital image of the painting, not digital artwork. 

A few issues relating to text prompted AI generated images [not I do not call it AI Art!] include:

1. That work created by human artists has been scraped with intent to build datasets, without consent from original artists. 
2. Currently, text prompted AI generated images appear very similar, exhibiting a banality that flags a creeping homogenisation of aesthetics. This is a quiet kind of violence. I am reminded of a statement made by Jean Baudrillard in Passwords (2003), where he describes a digitally coded destiny where it will be “possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1”.
3. While AI generated images might be considered cultural activity, production or performance, it does not mean that all AI generated/assisted images are art. 

* Please click on the hyperlinked titles to take you to the relevant posts on this BLOG. 

2. Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2022

In Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction visualised code is used to used to expose connections between various elements of network-centric warfare - from satellites, to drones, to military AI legal tools, to human targets. 

3.  Interface: Being HUMAN Being   Oil on linen 56 x 112 cm 2022

4. Interface Gouache o paper 56 x 76 cm 2022 

5. Competition Continuum: War  Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2021

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

ME: 01001101 01000101 is a self-portrait that poses questions about portraiture in the age of facial recognition. It also raises questions about identity and verification of identity. Louise Amoore’s concerns about “how algorithms are implicated in new regimes of verification, new forms of identifying a wrong or of truth telling in the world” 'speaks' to the role played by AI in image and identity verification. Could we, weirdly and dangerously, come to a time where verification of identity is only confirmed by a digital tick?

Louise Amoore, Cloud Ethics: Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others, 5-6.

7. GOD? Oil on linen 41 x 51 cm 2019 

8. HUMAN Oil on linen 31 x 36 cm 2019 

9. Drones and Code: Future Now Oil on linen 40 x 56 cm 2018

10. Manhunting Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

11. Fake Tree Oil on linen 25 x 35 cm 2017

12. Data Heaven Oil on linen 100 x 120 cm 2017 

Code 'instructs' the word DATA in the storage centre of the fake cloud. Predominantly painted in night vision green the painting 'speaks' to surveillance and digital data storage - even after mortal death.

13. Combat Proven, Long-Range, Long-Dwell Gouache and watercolour on paper 56 x 76.5 cm 2016

14. I Am A Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 00101110

The code above appears in my new painting I Am A Posthuman. It actually 'forms', or maybe 'performs', or otherwise 'instructs' a structural element to the 'figure'. You can guess the translation for sure!

15. A Human's House and A Posthuman's House Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 12016

16. Two Humans Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

17. I am Am I? Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

18. Picturing the Posthuman Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2015

19. Coded Landscape Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 2015

20. Where There's Life There's... Oil on linen 92 x 102 cm 2015

Where there's life, there's hope or code?

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

CLOUDY WAR

 Cloudy War Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2022

CLOUDY?

You may have guessed that cloudy, in the title of this painting, does not mean atmospheric cloudiness, but rather, the encompassing cloudnet that is the 21st century techno-cloud, commonly called The Cloud. Regular readers will know I have created a number of paintings where I try to make visible the invisible aspects of contemporary militarised technology and war. By war, I mean not only kinetic warfare, but also information, hybrid, cyber and grey-zone warfare. The techno-cloud of interconnected and interoperable systems provides seeming instant access and connectivity to information, updates, news cycles, social media posts and posting and more. This is enabled by light-speed or near light-speed signal transmissions carried by frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). Speed is now an expectation.

Cloudy War

In  Cloudy War I have painted strings of binary code 'instructing' the word CLOUD. Circles of dotted lines carry the fake cloud theme further. And, yet more circles containing wave patterns reveal the underlying signalic character of this 'cloudy' war painting. Why waves? All frequencies in the EMS are made up of photons travelling in wave form at light speed. Radio waves have the longest wave lengths and gamma waves have the shortest. The radio to microwave frequencies are the most commonly used for transmission of signals that enable contemporary hardware and systems technologies. Congestion and contestation of bandwidths is prompting experimentation with other frequencies. Additionally AI systems are being developed to optimise bandwidth access, especially for the military. 

Peeping out from behind the techno-cloud are hints of various militarised hardware - airborne drones, ground-based aerial nodes, a tank, a robotic quadruped, a ship, indications of satellites. And, of course there are other hidden elements - you just have to imagine them! 

The 'fog of war' is now electromagnetically induced. 

I could go on, but I'll leave you to ponder. 

Cheers,

Kathryn

BATTLE CLOUD

Battle Cloud Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2022

IoT, IoBT, IoMT

Regular readers will know of my interest in trying to visualise the 21st century techno-cloud  - often just called The Cloud. Also, the Internet, and even the Internet of Things (IoT). 

But, did you know that the military also have terms like the Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) and the Internet of Military Things (IoMT)

All these 'internets' rely on the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) for connectivity and interconnectivity, plus operability of hardware and systems, as well as inter-operability. The term dual-use, in a world where civilian technologies also rely upon the EMS becomes almost non-sensical. Why? Because in a world of not only kinetic warfare, we now have remotely operated systems, cyber warfare, hybrid warfare and information warfare. These draw civilian technologies into the various physical and cyber battlefields of our time. Our mobile phones, computers, remotely update-able vehicles and appliances, GPS, social media updates, cloud storage, cyber home assistants and more, can be, and in many instances are, tracked, hacked, surveilled, harvested for data, used as nodes and purveyors of viruses. 

What if the Internet of Things is ultimately a subsidiary of its spawned IoBT or IoMT? Where does that place the civilian in terms of complicity, unwitting or not? 

Battle Cloud

My visualisations of 21st century technology and its Cloud are created with paint - oil paint or gouache and watercolour paints. I love using paint to critically examine contemporary militarised and militarise-able technology. Why? Because, unlike the technology I critique and examine, painting is not reliant on the EMS for creation, exhibition or storage. This independence provides a critical distance. It is a form of resistance.

I listened to a fascinating conference hosted earlier in the year by the Disruption Network Lab in Berlin. The conference was called The Kill Cloud. One message from this bluntly titled conference was that the airborne drone needs to considered as part of a network. This resonated with me, and is why my PhD focusses on increasing military interest in the EMS as an enabler of technology, a type of fires (weapon), a manoeuvre space (tactics) and a domain (strategy). Any robotic hardware, whether an airborne drone, or a ground, sea or under-the-sea robotic system, functions as part of a network. The network is enabled by signals transmitted via EMS frequencies. As frequencies become more congested, due to not only increasing military needs, but also civilian needs, there is a heightened sense of urgency for militaries to dominate the EMS. Congestion is only one issue, another is contestation from state and non-state malign entities. 

I chose to paint Battle Cloud in red, after hearing the term 'kill cloud'. Maybe I could have called it Bloody Cloud or That Bloody Cloud. I don't think I need to explain the title any more - you 'get' it.

The washed out text running across the painting is binary code 'instructing' the word CLOUD. I like the way the code seems to dissolve, as if it is actually cloudy. The illusion of connection...

Three Other Cloud Paintings: 

There are actually more than three...scroll through the blog and you will see them. 

Theatre of War: Plague Cloud

Theatre of War: Everywhere Cloud

Theatre of War: Infrared

Cheers,

Kathryn