I’m moderating this remarkable symposium on Military Visuality and the Work of Art at Occidental College on Thursday, April 24th, from 12:45 to 5pm. Bringing together a wide array of media theorists and artists, this symposium explores artistic interventions into the visual culture of militarism – many of them focussing on the use of drones both for killing and surveillance.
The keynote speaker is the fascinating artist & media theorist James Bridle, and other participants include Joseph DeLappe, Mary Beth Heffernan, Alex Rivera, Adam Schrag, and Finishing School with Nadia Afghani and Matt Fisher. The event was organized by Ari Laskin, ass’t professor of Art History and Visual Arts.
This event is in relation to Finishing School’s participatory sculpture project, “We Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust,” a life-size model of a Predator drone, installed on the Occidental campus. The drone is covered in mud applied by over 100 participants last month, and is a sight to behold.