[spectre] drone2000.net a dystopian performance for amplified drones - Press Release

[Nicolas Maigret]

Sorry for X pstng. Pls Fwd.


*DRONE-2000  |  A DYSTOPIAN PERFORMANCE FOR AMPLIFIED DRONES*
Press Release. Montréal/Paris. June 24th 2015.
http://drone2000.net


*Flying systems downgraded into dysfunctional machines*
With Drone-2000, Nicolas Maigret presents a bestiary of autonomous
flying systems powered by dysfunctional algorithms that coexist with an
audience. This project is symbolically structured around a succession of
three digital or electronic civil attacks on drones, evolving both in an
empirical and dysfunctional manner; choreographed movements enhanced by
the amplified sound of the rotors. This proposal seeks to produce a
situation filled with deviant, critical, poetic and absurd anticipation.

Full Press Kit - HD Images
http://goo.gl/VTJnYO
Video documentation
https://vimeo.com/album/3452842
Interview on We Make Money Not Art
we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2014/10/drone2000.php


*
Historical context*
Drone-2000 is a series of critical productions that echo the recent
Western attraction for this seemingly playful technology, birthed
through both military research and scale modeling. For nearly ten years,
the use of drones has spread across the fields of hacking, cinema,
gaming and the art world. They are highly promoted by the very companies
that produce them as well as the military-industrial complex, and
through product placement in the gaming industry and the science-fiction
fantasies inherited from the 20th century.

*Purpose of the project*
Drone-2000 is a performance where autonomous systems, controlled by
precarious algorithms, coexist with an audience. Their latent and
dysfunctional presence is a tangible threat. Drone-2000 projects us into
a dystopian situation, thus illustrating the military origins of these
entertaining objects as well as their recent use by police forces. Here,
trusting the autonomy of the machine is not only a discursive concept
but a true experience shared with the audience, triggering visceral and
psychological reactions, in the face of symbolic and real danger.

*Performance structure*
The concept of the performance is structured around different civil IT,
electronic, and manual attacks. Each attack is initially conceived to
protect oneself against the current intrusion and likely future invasion
of these not-always-well-intentioned engines. The chosen attacks seek to
deviate, block, or blind these cybernetic machines. All this takes place
both in an empirical and dysfunctional manner, enhanced by the live and
amplified sound of rotors.
For each scene, a drone lifts off before being affected by one of the
possible civil attacks stated here: 

- Attack 01 - Camera interference: A drone is on the ground, perpetually
attempting to lift off without success, its camera signal is blocked by
a digital intrusion.
- Attack 02 - Ultrasound interference: An ultrasound generator is set to
a pulse and a frequency that allows it to crash the drones present in
the room.
- Attack 03 - Virus: The drones are infected by a virus, they move in
all directions, randomly and frenetically.

*Live performance version*
This project takes on a hybrid form of presentation that voluntarily
provokes a discomfort between the social codes of a concert setting, a
demonstration, a tutorial, and the physical experience of living with
autonomous flying machines. For the performance version, the drones are
equipped with four light spy- microphones. Their erratic choreography
become the score of a live composition, an extreme sound amplification
of the engines’ movements.

*Exhibition version (work in progress)*
A second series of attacks, in the form of a video piece, is currently
being produced. It seeks to establish a critique through absurdity,
borrowing equally from technophilic ideas as from technoskeptic ones:
- TARENTULA | A drone begins to turn without stopping, as if caught up
in a ritual or psychedelic dance
- AD INFINITUM | A drone sets off towards the infinite horizon until it
exhausts its resources
- VIRUS | Two drones take off in all directions, randomly and frenetically
- ULTRASONIC | Three drones stop mid-flight, and fall from the sky
(*excerpt from a collection of imaginary viruses and malfunctions, being
completed and finalized)


*A project by Nicolas Maigret  *http://peripheriques.free.fr
Drone modification and development: Arthur Heist, Grégoire Lauvin
(this project is commissioned by Gamerz Festival, France and Eastern
Bloc, Canada)


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