Drone imagery functions as targeting rather than representation
Evidence
Harun Farocki tells us that the technology of military vision produces not so much representations as ” ‘operative images,’ images that do not represent an object, but instead are part of an operation.” Here, vision is a sighting: it serves not to represent objects but to act upon them, to target them. The function of the eye is that of a weapon. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 395
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines Farocki’s operative images concept as sighting/targeting rather than representation.
- XREF: connects to: Signal latency makes drone operators aim at obsolete images of an earlier moment; Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status; Drone surveillance transforms the panopticon from a punishing to an annihilating gaze. (+6 more)
Related
- Drone surveillance transforms the panopticon from a punishing to an annihilating gaze. (similarity 0.93)
- Signal latency makes drone operators aim at obsolete images of an earlier moment (similarity 0.88)
- Drone technology severs visual discrimination from physical proximity to targets. (similarity 0.85)
- Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status (similarity 0.84)
- Drones are less precise than rifles and grenades at discriminating targets. (similarity 0.82)
- Drone targeting echoes archaic wax-doll nailing practices (similarity 0.82)
- Drone killing is reduced to clicking on tiny on-screen figures (similarity 0.82)
- Drone operators see strikes in vivid detail, overturning the distancing logic (similarity 0.81)
- Faceless blurry drone imagery reduces moral resistance to killing (similarity 0.81)
- Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. (similarity 0.80)
- Drone technology produces a strong moral buffering effect that offsets visual proximity to victims. (similarity 0.80)
- The word ‘drone’ originally named expendable, nongenuine target dummies (similarity 0.79)
- Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.79)
- Drones transformed from surveillance eyes into weapons almost by chance. (similarity 0.79)
- Drone technology produces a combined morale-buffering effect on operators (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Drone technology severs visual discrimination from physical proximity to targets.
#expands(0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1016 - Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts.
#expands(0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482 - Drone targeting echoes archaic wax-doll nailing practices
#qualifies(0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 397 - The word ‘drone’ originally named expendable, nongenuine target dummies
#corroborates(0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 146