[Air-L] On the aesthetics and politics of #Dronies

[Kyle Kontour]

Two things that occur to me that are alternative explanations, which also
require more field work:

1.  A unique aspect of the aesthetics of the drone camera is how it mimics
how we imagine personal flight to be (i.e. if humans had wings):  it's much
more immanent and intimate than airplane flight given the combination of
slow speed and low level altitude in most of these videos.

2.  There is the obvious political aspect of "populist" drone use that is a
direct challenge to its use by police, military, and other government
organizations, which the author mentions.  But I wonder if there is also
the old politics of the scamp coming through, by which I mean, drones are
used to unnerve people or disrupt things, which may or may not be overtly
political per se, and are instead done for the drone user's happy mayhem.
The mere presence of a drone controlled by "just anyone" inherently calls
into question the use of drones in general.

On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Daniel Kunzelmann <
kunzelmann.daniel at yahoo.de> wrote:

> Used for surveillance, drones hunt or kill. But could their air power also
> be understood as cultural capital? http://transformations-blog.
> com/would-you-mind-my-drone-taking-a-picture-of-us-2/
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