Drone Shadow

  • Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019

    Drone Shadow, 2019

    Photo: Ito Tetsuo

The white line on the ground is a life-sized silhouette of a real drone called "RQ-4 Global Hawk." The aircraft has a wingspan of 35 meters, and a length of 14 meters approximately. They have been used in real battlefields such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Japan Self-Defense Forces are planning to introduce 3 such drones into service.
The drone flies 5000 meters higher than the typical cruising altitude of aircraft, which is about 10000 meters. When the altitude is so high, drones are hard to detect by ground radar and needless to say, invisible to the eye.
How to mark out a drone's silhouette has been open to the public through Bridle's books and website, and he encourages people to draw drone silhouettes anywhere in the world, in order to make people wonder and promote discussion, by visualizing less-visible matters.

James BRIDLE

  • Born 1980 in London, UK
  • Based in Athens, Greece
  • Photo: Jonathan Cherry

Specializing in fields such as cognitive science and artificial intelligence, James Bridle is an artist and a technologist whose interests lie in cutting edge science and technology. He is also a theorist and journalist, appearing in Wired, Domus, and more. His work, however, shies away from over-enthusiastic promotion of new technologies, instead sounding the alarm on the risks inherent within technology itself. With demonstrations such as his "trapping" of a self-driving car using ideas inspired from ancient myths and supernatural rituals, he references the history of science and technology while revealing the limits of any knowledge divorced from context. He published his first book, New Dark Age, in 2018, and was named as one of Wired's "100 Most Influential People in Europe" in 2015.

Selected Works & Awards

2018 New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future, New York: Verso books
2013 Prix Ars Electronica 2013, Linz, Austria, Interactive Art, Honorary Mention
2013 17th Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo, Japan, Art Division, Excellence Award

Map

Aichi Arts Center (11F Observation Corridor)

Address

Aichi Arts Center 11F
1-13-2 Higashisakura,Higashi-ku, Nagoya
461-8525 JAPAN

Access

・5 minutes on foot from Sakae Station on the Higashiyama Subway Line or Meijo Subway Line.
・5 minutes on foot from Sakae-Machi Station on the Meitetsu Seto Line.

Inquiries

+81-52-971-6111