Abstract
In this paper I decentre the drone from a different kind of vertical figure
that has its own prehistory and parallel history of being aloft and particular
sets of aesthetic geographies we might productively deploy to reorder what
we think about drones, and especially the human's place in or outside of
them. The paper explores in what ways we might examine the drone from other
points of view that are technical and political, but also theological,
magical, artistic and aesthetic. The prehistoric or parallel aerial figure
to be considered is the levitator, the subject or thing that floats without
any attributable mechanical force, visible or physical energy source. The
paper draws on notions of aesthetics and politics in order for the levitator
not to be compared with the drone, but to enable its very different visual
and aesthetic regimes to begin to redistribute quite a different set of
drone geographies that are ambiguous, mystical, gendered and sexed.
Citation
ID:
128269
Ref Key:
adey2016geographicamaking