A Bedazzled Drone Replica Asks Us To Ponder Deadly Strikes At Home

In what alternate reality can this be considered a replica of a Predator drone?

Normally I'd tell the artist to get a real job...but in this economy....too soon, too soon.
Does Heather object to killing or the drone? As for drones against the USA, been done. With a little streach Osama used "mindless drones" to fly planes into buildings to kill.

I'm sure 'their friends in Pakistan' are comforted to know that they have made an art project of an exact replica of a US killing machine, complete with encrusted sequins and rhinestones.

You know, back when there was a 'war monger' president bombing civilians, there were more ghoulish paper mache effigies in front of the whitehouse than you could shake a stick at. Now that we have a 'war monger' with a D after his name, complete with a shiny Nobel Peace Prize in his office bombing civilians ... the streets are bare. But there are art exhibits encrusted with rhinestones tucked away at places like the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Good to know.

"...what should prevent another country from sending unmanned aerial vehicles into United States airspace to kill those who might be planning to fight against them?" she asks.

Our sending drones into their country?

"If we can send missiles through the skies of an independent country with the explanation that we are only killing those who are planning to fight against us, what should prevent another country from sending unmanned aerial vehicles into United States airspace to kill those who might be planning to fight against them?" she asks.

Let me help her out.

The only thing that has ever stopped another country from killing people in the US is the knowledge that we can either stop them or retaliate sufficiently to make it undesirable.

If we allow other countries to harbor terrorists who are plotting to kill us, we are idiots.

dontcallmechief, it wasn't intended to be a faithful duplicate of a Predator.

I think they should have made it fuzzy and squishy and huggable, and tell people it's ok to do it. The glittery stuff doesn't work as well with the message as planned in my view.

My company (GA) makes the Predator. Although I don't share Heather Layton's artistic vision, nor--what nowadays amounts to the same thing--her politics, I wondered whether it might not be worth suggesting to our management that it might be a hoot to invite her ... sculpture, and other pop representations of our most popular product, to some local exhibit space. (They do still call them exhibit "spaces", don't they?)

But, not to put too fine a point on it, as representational art, it's just so awful! It's not even worth making jokes at the expense of.

(BTW: Every once in a while we get a bedraggled few desultory protesters. They aren't even worth making fun of, either.)

Why is this art pretty?
I do not remember remote control proxy death is being pretty.

I appreciate when art brings topics public, but illustrating is as pretty is just strange.

Now thinking further, maybe that is the point. We the USA in our remote killing have made killing a clean, pretty business without the pain and ugliness of death.

"hopes to foster a greater cultural understanding between the U.S. and Pakistan."
It sure will: if you are nasty to the US you will get "droned".

Thank you, jaycuttler.

And now on to the topic at hand.

I didn't expect this to look like a 5th Grade Girls Club art project.
Surprise.

It's sort of funny that multiple people commented on the medium of the piece- "shiny" "glittery" rhinestones and how this doesn't represent the reality of drones. It seems most commenters didn't bother to read through the article.

What's funnier is that the artists explicitly state that this was done to create irony- Irony that this weapon which ends life is presented to the public in a flashy, and desirable way through state propaganda and misinformation. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to embody these beliefs, you only need to diversify your news sources beyond CNN or Fox News or simply leave the country to get a feel for our foreign policy.

Nonetheless, the artists aims in getting people to talk about the issue are being reached already.

The arguments for perpetuating drone warfare are akin to those of the atomic bombings of 1945- they save American lives, money, and give the appearance of a zero tolerance policy for terrorism or more broadly, resisting the long arm of the US government.

Drone attacks have in fact claimed the lives of high level al-Quada operatives. In a "War on Terrorism" this would seem to be a signifier of success. If we listen to the Obama administration this has all been done with zero or few civilian casualties. Yet another sign of success. Americans, however, should not be so trusting. These counts are a result of changing the definition of combatants:

"Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent." www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&hp

One only need to Youtube or Google drone (be careful to sort through the Call of Duty drone attacks, they aren't as real)

If you choose to look a little deeper you might find that journalists and US generals and journalists alike are coming to the conclusion that drone warfare, along with our occupation, proxy policies and funneling weapons to dictators in the Middle East are in fact the basis for resentment, anti-American sentiment, (more) regional destabilization, and recruitment for extremist terrorist groups.

General Stanley Mccrystal stated:

"What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world," he said in an interview. "The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes ... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one."

McChrystal said the use of drones exacerbates a "perception of American arrogance that says, 'Well we can fly where we want, we can shoot where we want, because we can.'"

Drones should be used in the context of an overall strategy, he said, and if their use threatens the broader goals or creates more problems than it solves, then you have to ask whether they are the right tool." [Same URL as first quote]

The journalist Jeremy Scahill embeds himself in the most dangerous regions of the world where our foreign policy is executed. And no "AUTORIA", there is nothing "clean" nor "pretty" about it. In this video he outlines how US (billions of dollars) funding of corrupt leaders of Yemen has crushed democratic protests and created a massive boost to terrorist groups in the region because of a massive bombing by US Navy ships. So are we the advocates for democracy that we claim we are? Are we making the world and ourselves safer? That's for you to decide. Here's some insight:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9kdx6GQAo8

In order to comment on our drone policy and the future of it we have to consider a few angles.

If then we are creating more terrorists in a War on Terrorism-
1. Are our means effective? If not should we alter them?
2. Are our means actually directed at these claimed ends of abating terrorism, or are they rather part of the predictable scheme to control geo-policital interests AKA land and oil? If they are, shouldn't we just admit to that?

Further

1. What precedents are we setting for the international use of drones via extrajudical (no due process) assassination of suspected terrorists, American citizens abroad (Anwar Alwalaki). China, Russia, Israel, Turkey et al are manufacturing accruing drones as we speak. Iran has downed multiple US drones spying on their land. Do we think we hold a monopoly on the use of this technology?
2. What are the dangers of drones being used to target civilians at home and abroad? Rezwan Ferdaus was arrested in an alleged drone plot on the Pentagon (among alleged FBI entrapment).
3. How will drones be used domestically. US Customs and Border is currently moving towards using drones for surveillance. Could they soon be armed? Would armed drones be used on non-citizens and citizens with the same extrajudicial justification used overseas?

These are but a few questions we need to be asking ourselves and our governments. Only we can choose how any technology or policy is formed and progressed.

Artists create with the desire to start conversations, to view things with different lenses. The artists should be congratulated for doing so.

When I read this article it definitely struck a cord. It has become easy to become desensitized to what these machines can do. Report after report of drone strikes and the number of suspected terrorists killed come in. After a while they just seem like numbers not people. I do not deny the fact that these machines have become most effective tool in getting to these guys. Given the gorilla strategy that combatants have used to fight coalition troops in Afghanistan it is the only way to take the fight enemy when the run across the border where the troops cannot follow. Having said that the bottom line is that even as accurate as these weapons are they still kill women and children on occasion. They are subject to human error. That has consequences for the way the world sees the United States. It is a damned if you do and a damned if you don't. I wish there were some better strategies in ending these conflicts.

Clearly, the art is bedazzled in reference to our fascination with everything drone and every new shiny "toy." The point is to show that we continually overlook and downplay the real purpose of these devices when discussing them and to make us question their future uses within our own borders.

Some say "no one would use these inside the us." Well, the thing is, if they did, we all assume that would lead to war. First off, we can't afford another war. Second, it may or may not lead to war. It depends on the country and why they used them.

Either way, these drones have been discussed being used by our own government on us. Pretty scary future, and while I don't think her art is the best, at least someone is thinking beyond "Oh look! A new toy!"

As an artist with a traditional fine art education, it's always bothered me when artists like this seem to prioritize their message (and it's a pretty lame message at that) over the technical ability to realize it... When I first saw the pictures I assumed this was mid-highschool-level art, since it seems to be a cardboard tube that's been decorated (it brings to mind those "sweded" videos)... I was a little disturbed to see that it was done by a university professor.

Of course I understand that it's quite common for art to appear devoid of obvious talent a la "my kid could paint that"... but in the case of abstract art, that attitude usually comes from the observer being unfamiliar with the language of art, or unable to see levels of complexity and nuance involved. I don't believe this falls into that category... And someone said above the artist's goals are being reached since people are talking -- but if much of the dialog is "this is poorly realized", then the goals are not reached at all, since it's the wrong conversation. They would have been better off with a clearly stated editorial than an incompetently constructed model with a shallow story behind it.

It's weak art with a weak message... and perhaps because of the "everyone is a winner" way of thinking, no one involved in the process of getting this into a gallery had the decency to step up and say "hey, this sucks"...

I think so many comments have been made about the quality of the piece because the author stated it is a 'replica'. A replica is an exact reproduction, not an interpretation. Clearly, this is not a replica.

This entire art piece is pointless. The issue regarding drones has been huge for the past year. This is just a band-wagoner trying to get some publicity. There is no propaganda either, I'm pretty sure we all realize how shitty drone warfare is considering all the articles PopSci writes about them.

IMO an EXACT copy of a MQ-9 in its almost "Apple-esq," pristine white, would better carry the message comparing the sterile "beauty" of the UAV and the lethality it can carry.
Otherwise, its junk. Also, I would point out that comparing the patriots of 1776 to AlQ is more than a bit of hyperbole.