Drone Cultures: From Surveillance and Warfare to Literature and Art

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Description

The drone is an object of contradiction. On the one hand, it is a tool of dominance, destruction and death while on the other, as this book shows, it is a tool for education, creativity and entertainment.

Encouraging us to think more critically about the figure of the drone, we begin by tracing the rise of drone warfare in the twenty-first century during the Bush administration, before touching on topics such as issues of surveillance culture and political oppression, biopolitics, AI, the role of the digital humanities in examining drones, and literary and artistic representations of (and using) drone technology.

Demonstrating why we should stop thinking of drones as agents of chaos and death, we are asked to consider how they are fundamentally transforming our ideas of art, privacy, space, time, dignity, transparency, accountability, and democracy.

Reviews

Drones are everywhere in contemporary life and with these new perspectives there has been a dramatic change in visual culture from warfare to entertainment. Drone Cultures analyzes this fast-moving phenomenon from every conceivable angle. Muthyalas timely critique examines these devices, their myriad uses, and their cultural imaginaries while cracking wide open the aporia between the drones entanglement with dominance, destruction, and death and creativity, research, and education. -- James E. Dobson, Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing, Dartmouth College, USA. Author of 'The Birth of Computer Vision'

Author Bio

John Muthyala is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Southern Maine, USA