ultralight

"wen yr surveillance drone" isa series created entirely out of FBI drone surveillance footage captured during the protests in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. It was inspired by Harun Farocki’s work with “operational images,” which explored the way computerized systems, like weapon and surveillance systems, see and understand visual information. The idea behind the piece is to find and crystallize fleeting moments of inoperancy captured on the drone’s surveillance feed. These moments are comprised of glitches, maneuvers, and contingencies, such as the instance when the drone captures an impromptu skating performance, creating an image that upends the official narrative of "criminal protesters" in a “war zone.” The panoptic gaze of a surveillance drone is recast as a that of a spectator witnessing a performance piece.