Unmanned Aerial Ecologies

Abstract

In many ways, media artists are uniquely qualified to frame a contemporary conversation about drones. Because today to have an interest in drone technologies, whether for military or civilian use, is to have a concern with, and interest in, the networked information space in which they belong. And that is the space that media artists, particularly artists who work from a tactical media perspective, are experts in. Many of the artists who are making some of the most interesting and impactful work about drones have often found them whilst studying the sky using a whole armory of other instruments. They are concerned with the politics, power structures, architectural infrastructures and mediated activity of the network.