Description
This paper/presentation positions the airborne drone in relation to concepts of surrender, both historic and contemporary, literal and metaphoric. Two incidents of human soldiers surrendering to drones, in Kuwait in 1991 and in Ukraine in 2023, anchor the presentation. I consider these incidents of human beings, gesturing to surrender as they gaze upwards to sky-based robotic machines, as metaphors for a more general notion of human surrender to powerful technologies. Paul Virilio’s 1991 observation, during the first Gulf War, that ‘technologies employed are too powerful,’ sets the scene for this generalised upwards surrender. Examples include, viewing drone light shows, and smartphone data transmissions via electromagnetic signals operating in the earth-to-satellite environment. This presentation is a visual journey, where I use my creative (painting) practice and other art historical references to disrupt dominating narratives of the martialised downwards vertical scoping of drones. I offer the concept of surrender as an agitation and a provocation at a time when the lure of technology, as matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins note, is supported by ‘planetary-scale computational infrastructures’ (2022).
