* 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 | DIGITAL VIRUS
The drones are infected by a virus, they move in all directions, randomly and frenetically.