Hi Roger & all,
Before responding to the other examples proposed for discussion on
Drones. For this post I think it may be useful to offer a context
regarding our own decisions to put on the 'Movable Borders: Here Come
the Drones!' exhibition at Furtherfield
(http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibition/movable-borders-here-come-drones)
Hopefully, it will add to what I'm sure will be a rich dialogue.
Firstly, to answer Sean's question "The difficult balance between
paranoia and protest: the question is whether it is possible to make art
by communicating fear and shame;
and whether it is possible to make art without taking fear and shame
into account."
From our own position, it was about opening things up and bringing it
down to earth, amongst ourselves and whoever was interested in the
subject also. Before we had the show and the workshops 'Movable Borders:
The Reposition Matrix' Workshop, organised by Dave Young
(http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/event/movable-borders-reposition-matrix-workshop),
Drone technology (to us) seemed as though it was primarily a strange
spectacle where there was an awful lot of information flying around in
the news and the internet - without much contextual discussion. In a way
it was about claiming agency or a connection with the subject of Drones,
beyond the constant effect of mediation interfering with the learning
process of knowing what it was all about.
Thankfully, many visited the space to learn and see what artists and
amateurs were doing with Drones, as well as experiencing other aspects
of this of this technology. This included all kinds of information,
films, Youtube videos, diagrams, maps and discussions, with visitors,
and of course the workshop. It featured different levels of engagement.
We did not want to create a closed case where people were coerced by a
dialectic as a dominant framework at point of entry. It included fun
items where we showed everyday people making drones themselves, but we
also had a serious side where we had works and information that was
dealing with the political, operational, military, the business of Drone
production about the different parts made for Drones, distributed across
different regions of the world.
We are fortunate because we have consciously situated ourselves in a
building in a park (Finsbury Park). Where a high number of the visitors
are local passers by either walking their dogs, or are out for a walk
with the family, which also of course includes those actively coming to
the space already aware of what we do. The reason and motives of why you
have a space at all, is as important as the work being presented,
whatever this may be. Everything we do is based on emancipation and
opening up things, unlocking the blockages that culture, scarcity and
hegemony closes down. "We must allow all human creativity to be as free
as free software" (Hans-Christoph Steiner 2008)
The intention is to investigate additional and fresh ways of looking and
thinking about life as artistic intervention. We try to somehow ensemble
a set of processes not specific to technology alone, but towards a
creative and ecological context that informs a flexible, contemporary
and trans-disciplinary art practice. It just so happens that technology
is one factor of many tools for all kinds of production as well as being
a globally, networked medium for surveillance in the age of Netopticon,
a neoliberal version of the Panopticon.
Anyway, I'll stop here - much still to be discussed but I'm playing
badminton early tomorrow morning and I need my energy.
Thank you all & wishing you well.
marc
> Sean Annick
>
> I am moving this exchange from yasmin announcements
> to yasmin discussions=
>
> roger malina
>
>
>
> ok so the drone art discussion has expanded to a more
> general discussion of how art uses fear and shame as
> part of its deployment-beginning with religious art
>
> i guess i want to insist that drone art is indicative of
> a tipping point in a large practice of artists in surveillance
> art- some of marko peljham's projects certaibly connect to this
> as does the work of the artists sean referred to in the exhibition
> movable borders here come the drones
> http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibition/movable-borders-here-come-drones
> as well as george barber's
> http://waterside-contemporary.com/exhibitions/the-freestone-drone/
>
> but just to emphasise some of the new developments"
>
> a) the development of " persistent surveillance" systems
> ( see for instance the US military handbooks such as
> http://publicintelligence.net/usjfcom-persistent-surveillance/ )
>
> which now are seeking to "predict and prevent bad actions by people"-
>
> see IEEE spectrum article on Rules for the Digital Panopticon
> http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/rules-for-the-digital-panopticon
>
> persisent suverveillance systems with built in anticipatory systems
> are now a booming business
>
> b) The emergence of the social phenomenon of data-sexuality see
> for instance IEEE spectrum article on the phenomenon of people of
> obsessively self-track and accumulate all forms of data on themselves
> and make it public
> http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/test-and-measurement/meet-the-datasexual
> - a number of artists explored this in the 1990s anticipating a social
> phenomenon- clear the evolving ideas of privacy with public display of
> datasexuality shifts the location of shame
>
> roger
>
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> Sean Cubitt wrote
>
>> The difficult balance between paranoia and protest: the question is
>> whether it is possible to make art by communicating fear and shame;
>> and whether it is possible to make art without taking fear and shame
>> into account.
>>
> Which is an excellent question.
>
> Making art by communicating fear and shame
> - I guess that a huge percentage of catholic (Christian) art
> of the past is precisely based on fear and shame (my
> knowledge of other religious art is too weak to say
> anything) and quite a lot is considered master pieces
> preserved in museums like Le Louvre, etc.
>
> Making art without taking fear and shame into account
> - Drones are unmaned planes. They are at the forefront of wars.
> But if we consider planes in general, some are military
> others civilians planes and I guess we can imagine a
> civilian, positive use of drones (not only killing people or
> for some kind of Big Brother Panopticon Surveillance).
> They could be used for scientific purposes, playfull
> worlwide events, auxiliairies to environmental issues, sky
> ballets, etc.
> And I guess, this civilian use is part of what Marko Peljhan
> has been doing and I guess this is what Oron Catts and the
> Field_Notes group from the Bio Art Society
> http://bioartsociety.fi/ have in mind. But it might be
> better to ask them !
>
> Best
> Annick
>
> from Sean Cubitt re drone art
>
> Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths, University of London
>
> two recent London shows:
> http://www.furtherfield.org/programmes/exhibition/movable-borders-here-come-drones
> and
> George Barber's parodic Freestone Drone (quite widely reviewed):
> http://waterside-contemporary.com/exhibitions/the-freestone-drone/
>
> The difficult balance between paranoia and protest: the question is
> whether it is possible to make art by communicating fear and shame;
> and whether it is possible to make art without taking fear and shame
> into account.
>
>
> roger malina
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