Drones and global technicity

Crogan, Patrick

Abstract

This paper (for General Organology conference, http://nootechnics.org/ ) will explore the expansion of military drone usage by Western powers in the “war on terror” over the last decade or so in relation to Bernard Stiegler’s organological approach to questions concerning human historical, cultural and technological becoming.. Theorists approaching drones from different fields such as Gregoire Chamayou, Derek Gregory and Eyal Weisman have argued that the systematic and growing deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles should be understood as the “avant-garde” of a general movement toward remote and increasingly autonomous robotic systems by all branches of the armed forces of the U.S. and many of allies and competitors. These developments put into question all established cultural political, legal and ethical framings of war, peace, territory, civilian and soldier in the societies of the “advanced powers” on behalf of which these systems are deployed. Animating this indetermination is what Chamayou calls the “tendency inherent in the material development of drones” leading to this profound undoing of cultural and geopolitical moorings. I will explore the organological nature of this tendency inherent in drone materiality and technology, concentrating on the virtualizing, realtime digital developments in remotely controlled and increasingly automated robotic systems.

Video of talk available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGs1NIyhZzM

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: General Organology
• Start Date: Nov 20, 2014
• End Date: Nov 22, 2014
• Acceptance Date: Jul 20, 2014
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 2014
• Deposit Date: Jan 30, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 30, 2017
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: technoscience, Bernard Stiegler, drones, politics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/807573
• Publisher URL: http://nootechnics.org
• Related Public URLs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGs1NIyhZzM
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : General Organology, Kent University, 2014
• Contract Date: Jan 30, 2017