Artists were among the first in the 2010s to give an image to what was conceived off as invisible to (most) human beholders, i.e., the clandestine use of drones in undeclared zones of war and the respective case of machine vision. Today, the situation has changed fundamentally, as drones, and FPV drones in particular, have become ubiquitous, versatile, agile, embodied, small, and affordable, proliferating as artistic tools, agricultural monitors, and war machines alike. These recent developments notwithstanding, Svea Braeunert believes there is something to be learned from the first wave of drone art, and her presentation, building on her long-time engagement with drones in the field of contemporary art and giving insights into her current book project, is an attempt to delineate one common strand in these positions that she calls drone modernism fueled by data aesthetics.
Drone modernism is the harking back of artists and writers to forms, aesthetics, and artists/artworks of 20th century modernism. Instances include Hito Steyerl’s textual engagement with Piet Mondrian, the likeness of Tomas van Houtryve’s photographs to Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures, Trevor Paglen’s nod to colorfield painting, and, more recently, Simon Denny’s renderings of futurism. After outlining how these artists use modernist forms and references to make the invisible of drone warfare visible, she will inquire in more detail about the role and effect of their quotations and appropriations: Do they use modernism as a metapher, opening up but also shifting and displacing the discourse of drone warfare? What of modernism do they evoke, hold on to, or discard? Is this the modernism of the 20th century, or does it become something else by being conjured up, written about, and painted in view of the 21st-century and its data-driven aesthetics?