We’re delighted to release the second episode of the Aesthetics of Drone Warfare podcast, a conversation between contemporary artist Mishka Henner and our Project Coordinator Sophie Maxwell.
Mishka invited Sophie to visit his studio in Manchester, UK, where they spoke about topics including the relation between visual art and narrative, verticality, cultures of display, and his process of image collection. Mishka’s work focuses on a wide variety of subjects relating to contemporary culture, and as such his purview looks beyond the aesthetics of drone warfare. Our project covers much of the same ground, however: military drones function as one component of a vast network of interconnected technologies, sending and receiving data across the globe – just as we do when we use our ‘smart’ technology at home and in our pockets. The images that military drones create are part of the same contemporary systems of visuality as the images Mishka works with.
The images below are from Mishka’s project Fifty-One US Military Outposts, discussed in the interview. Mishka collected satellite images of American military bases outside the United States, some covert, that he sourced from the public domain. Like the images made by military drones, these satellite photographs are aerial views depicting military operations that are, for the most part, meant to be kept hidden from civilians. More from this project can be found on Mishka’s website, along with many others.
Many thanks again to Mishka for sharing both his time and his space with us. His work is featured in present and upcoming exhibitions including Countryside, The Future at the Guggenheim, New York, February 20th 2020 – August 14th 2020, and On Earth – Imaging, Technology, and the Natural World at Foam, Amsterdam, March 20th 2020 – June 10th 2020.
The Aesthetics of Drone Warfare 
