Artist Ingrid Burrington talks about the problems with “drones for good”:

The best possible scenarios for drone technologies being used in the future center on the question of who owns them? It’s mainly proprietary technology, mostly in the hands of the military, if we are talking about the large, heavy-duty, and weaponized drones, while the smaller hobbyist and consumer-grade drones still are beyond the price point of the average consumer. The concept of using drones for good, while very well intentioned, still feels very much like it’s coming from this neoliberal, nonprofit, industrial-complex mentality, which weirds me out. So the potential for drones having positive social impacts has to do with drones becoming an available tool to those who could use them for establishing equitable power relations. The problem is that drones are tools that by default operate with asymmetrical power relations: the operator can see lots of things that you can’t see. So improving the scenario becomes about allowing people to see what drones see.

Full Story: art21: Drones: An Interview with Ingrid Burrington

There are cheap drones like the Parrot AR, but I’m guessing she’s referring to ones that can fly further and longer. This brings to mind nanosattelites that let you rent time on them to do your own space research. Perhaps we need something similar but for drones?

This reminds me that I’ve been meaning to post this video of the drones panel at the Theorizing the Web conference:

The panel included The New Aesthetic coiner James Bridle, Weird Shift Con and Murmeration co-organizer Adam Rothstein, other Murmeration co-organizer Olivia Rosane and Briar developer Eleanor Saitta.

One of my favorite bits is Bridle saying “the history of all aerial stuff is the history of weaponization.” I thought he said the first military use of aerial weapons happened during a Russian attack on Vienna in 1790, but I’m not sure what battle he was referring to. Perhaps my notes are wrong. Wikipedia tells me that the first military use of observation balloons was by the French in 1794. Also, the Chinese were using paper lanterns for military signaling as far back as the 2nd century.