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

[Elizabeth Anne Watkins]

If anyone is interested, the MIT Art, Culture and Technology program is
having a public lecture on drones tomorrow, Monday the 22nd:

Dronological: The Art and Science of Unmanned Systems



*Marko Peljhan*: Artist, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at UC Santa
Barbara, and Director of Systemics Lab, MAT/ART, UC Santa Barbara

Unmanned aircraft systems have recently been rediscovered due to their use
in the so-called “war on terror,” but are an invention more than 100 years
old. The lecture will explore the histories and interconnectedness of these
systems with geopolitical, scientific, techno-social, tactical media and
conceptual contexts. It will also present cases of their real and imagined
appearances, uses, and disappearances in order to track the potential
future vectors of utilization and concurrent reflection.

http://act.mit.edu/projects-and-events/lectures-series/2014-fall/sept-22-marko-peljhan-dronological-art-science-unmanned-systems-3/

On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 4:53 PM, Kyle Kontour <kkontour at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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