The Drones part of the project Drones & Honeycombs include the following programs:
- The installation The view from above
- The seminar Drone Salon
- The lecture Retreat into the wild
- The publication UNMANNED: Drone. Architecture and Security Series
- The publication UNMANNED: Retreat. Architecture and Security Series
I. THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
Conflict & Innovation: 2014-1914
In the Great War, modernity first manifested itself on a grand scale. A hundred years later, some developments, such as drone warfare and the ever-expanding battlefield, can be traced back to that time. By looking at these big issues and understanding their development from a 100-year historical perspective, we can become better equipped to deal with future challenges.
In 1914, aviation became the ultimate way of seeing. Flying allowed the production of an uninterrupted stream of images, with millions of negatives produced to capture daily conditions on the ground of the enemy. It was the first military-industrial conflict. The occupation of airspace was primarily a conquest of space for the sake of seeing. The core of this practice was a mechanism of distant and covert inspection that allowed the application of military supremacy over another territory.
The vertical perspective and the view of the world from above emerged during World War I through the use of zeppelins and airplanes. Aerial photographs documented large areas of land, the battlefield, cities, and landscapes. The combination of the ability to fly and see the ground from above became a fundamental instrument of modern warfare and planning.
It changed the way we perceive and relate to our living environment. It liberated thought and imagination from the limitations of the horizontal view. The representation of the view from above, the photograph, led to the invention of tools to analyze the view, codify it, and turn it into visual information, such as detailed maps and plans at different scales. It changed not just the battlefield but also the approach toward urban design, including the relationship between the city and the countryside. It helped relate territories and programs to each other—connecting, overlapping, or separating them.
The conquest of vertical space that started in WWI continues with drones. Airplanes changed the way we see the world; drones change the way we see, feel, and interact with our surroundings.
The intuitive movement of drones, their sensors, and the way they can be controlled from afar allow us to see things not just from above, but from all directions—vertically, horizontally, and at any angle in between, both in outdoor spaces and indoors. We can see heat prints and sounds. The analytical capacity of the images can read not just objects and movement in space but also recognize social connections and relationships between people.
The information captured from above and the ability to see the ground are becoming more and more articulated and detailed. Drones and their technology, similar to the groundbreaking transitions and inventions of WWI, are once again changing our relationship with our living environment.
[Download the installation handout The view from above 2014-1914]
[seminar]
II. Drone Salon
Drones are unmanned aircraft. They are either controlled by ‘pilots’ from the ground or, increasingly, autonomously following a pre-programmed mission. Over time, drones have become smaller, faster, and better accessorized. They can fly alone or in swarms. They are not as expensive and big as airplanes. They are easily adaptable and can be used for different purposes – from surveillance to monitoring agricultural fields and wildlife poaching; from carrying bombs, to delivering books and pizza; from targeting and killing individuals to providing medical and first aid assistance.
The intuitive movement of the drone, its sensors and the way it’s controlled from afar, allows us to see things not just from above, but from all directions; vertically, horizontally, and at any angle in between. Both outside spaces and the indoors are visible. We can see heat prints and sounds. The analytical capacity of data reads and visualizes not only objects and their movement in space, but also recognizes social connections and relationships between one person and another.
The drone and its technology are changing our relations with our living environment.
The Drone Salon aims to provide a multidisciplinary overview of challenges, opportunities, and speculations on future transitions caused by the use of drone technology both on the battlefield and in the civic realm.
This seminar is punctuated by short presentations and longer conversations between Malkit Shoshan, Ethel Baraona Pohl and experts in the field: lawyers, activists, civic and military drone operators, artists, writers and designers. Amongst the participants are Quirine Eijkman (Targe- ted Killing reports, Amnesty International and expert in international law), Catherine Harwood (expert in international law), Lt. Col Pieter Mink (senior advisor Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Royal Netherlands Army Command), Matthew Stadler (writer), Liam Young (futurist, critic and curator), Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture), Ruben Pater (artist) and Yael Messer (art curator).
The seminar is done in collaboration with dpr-barcelona.
[To view the program download: Drones Salon Handout]
Watch the Drone Salon on Vimeo
[Lecture, essay, exhibition]
III. RETREAT / INTO THE WILD
In times of war and in areas subjected to drone warfare, drones attacks private and public infrastructure such as homes, cars, and spaces of social gatherings.
The Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Clinic and the Global Justice Clinic at the New York University School of Law note that civic space and communal life in these areas of combat are severely threatened. Many community members shy away from social gatherings, including important tribal meetings and funerals; parents keep their children home as schools are often targeted. The markets are vacant. Human Rights Watch reported recently that a new trend is emerging in the drone-target zones, namely, humans retreat from the civic realm out of fear.
As civic spaces become associated with drones and thus with threat, it generates an intense fear not just from the drone itself, but from all that it targets.
Frightened individuals find escape in nature. They leave their homes and communities to lead a life of solitude far away from the matrix of disposition, human habitat, culture and society.
Essay
In the Name of Peace: Another Civic, An Other Law by Malkit Shoshan.
Published in Volume magazine issue number 38: The Shape of Law.