The existence of these missiles was known, but the formation they had been set up, the trapezoidal shape they formed, made Wright nervous, as “this pattern was similar to those identified near ballistic-missile launch sites in the Soviet homeland”. Wright studied photographs that had been taken over Cuba a few weeks earlier by a U-2 reconnaissance plane when he noticed a certain pattern among the Russian SA-2 SAM anti-aircraft missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a tipping point in this development, taking place before images became digitalized, the approach already bearing a ‘digital signature’. One can die of them.“ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Letter to an American accessed at on March 12, 2014, but not before the end of WWII methodologies emerged that allow for an understanding of the current situation. The enemy forts, depots, convoys show up under the lens like miniscule bacilli. They seek on the surface of the body (France) the traces of the virus that is destroying it. Those analyzing your photographic material do the work of a bacteriologist. The difficulties of analyzing reconnaissance imagery had been discussed earlier 3 The writer and reconnaissance pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry had used the image of the scientist in the laboratory when he reflected on the difficulties of a photo interpreter facing reconnaissance imagery: “One brings back photographs that are analyzed by stereoscope like growing organism under a microscope. The imagery they aimed to obtain had not only to be captured secretly, an image taken from kilometers away also had to be understood. But for the most part of the second half of the last century the task of secretly observing far away events behind enemy lines was executed by reconnaissance satellites and spy planes, circling unseen, or at least at invulnerable heights, over Russia, China, and other nations of the communist block. 2 The Vietcong, less technically potent but not less inventive, had their own way of deploying bees, consisting in a natural bee hive with an implemented firecracker, remote-controlled blown up when a US-patrouille got near. Before such invisible drones could be built, they were named after them: Firebee was the first drone that was widely deployed, initially during the war in Vietnam. Thus, remaining invisible while registering even the smallest details became the guideline for UAVS, as drones are referred to more technically they were meant to be a flying gaze without a body, oriented towards the smallest air vehicles with vision: the insects. And despite extensive media coverage of their activities, little consideration goes into the fact that a drone, for the most part, is a flying aerial reconnaissance center, where images are taken, processed and evaluated in real time. Hoovering over Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, their visual output is difficult to classify. With drones, a very specific approach towards the photographic image or, more precisely, to representation generally, lifts off into the sky. This 50-years-old premonition is only now about to become fully realized, and yet the rifts these artificial insects open in our relation towards distant events are quite apparent today’s smoke-gray artificial bees pose a number of questions, some juridical, some moral or political, but one of their most decisive aspects is their relation towards the image. The candidate notices that one of these flying technical miracles – “carved from a dull horny substance or from smoky quartz” – seems to observe him, and he assumes that Zapparoni is “now and then following the messages of the Smoky Gray on his television screen.” 1 Ernst Jünger, The Glass Bees translated by Louise Bogan and Elisabeth Mayer, New York 1960 As they buzz around, filling the air with a threatening sound, these bees give him the impression of military robots, though they seem to merely collect pollen. Witnessing the applicant’s encounter with a swarm of robotic bees in Zapparoni’s garden, while waiting for his result, is even more unsettling. This is quite remarkable, given the fact that none of these companies existed, when the novel was published. The corporation he visits, reads like a mash-up between Apple, Pixar and Toys’R’Us, owned by an enigmatic man named Zapparoni. In “The Glass Bees”, a science fiction novel by Ernst Jünger from 1957, we follow an applicant to a job interview. Weltkriegs nach und zeigt die Verbindung fotografischer und politischer Prozesse auf. Daniel Herleth zeichnet in seinem Essay die Entwicklung seit dem Ende des 2. Ein Schlüsselelement ist dabei die pattern analysis, die im Rahmen des data mining die Interpretation gewonnener Daten übernimmt und Entscheidungsgrundlagen für konkrete Handlungen liefert. Representation, UAVs and the end of indexicalityĭrohnen, insbesondere solche, die heute im War on Terror eingesetzt werden, stellen die Frage nach der Bildauswertung in nie dagewesen radikaler Weise.
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