Abstract

Airminded experimentally maps the strategic contours of an emergent drone culture. The film, which takes an essayistic form, is structured around a flight over the Lincolnshire landscape, a flight which is conducted by following an aerial chart of Waziristan, a turbulent trajectory that intersects this site of contemporary conflict with the various historical sites of our county, from the location where the first flight was made to the place where the first bomb hit. By hijacking Lincolnshire’s visual culture, we aim to seize upon a newly collective situation in which the lines between 'here' and 'there' are dissolved.

'Airminded' has been produced by the The Society for Ontofabulatory Research, a group of academics, artists
and writers based in Lincolnshire, UK. The film, which takes an essayistic form, explores the phenomenon of 'drone culture'. This phenomenon is especially pertinent to the filmmakers given that Lincolnshire's long historical association with aviation has led to the present situation in which a fleet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, located in Afghanistan, are piloted from a Royal Air Force base in a quiet Lincolnshire village.

Drone culture is, however, universal, and concerns more than just flight - it is a symptom of a new electronic space in which the distinction between 'here' and 'there' disappears. To explore this idea, the film is structured around aerial footage captured by flying over Lincolnshire, taking a route determined by maps of Afghanistan. This material is intercut with archive film,
photographs, and animated sequences, all of which are set to an
omnipresent drone soundtrack (scored by David McSherry, formerly of the
band Fila Brazillia) and voices from both England and Afghanistan.

Taking its inspiration from the bank of monitors used by the drone
pilot, Airminded presents the audience with six simultaneous streams of
video (embedded in a single screen) which individually switch on and
off throughout the running time, juxtaposing the contemporary with the
historical. By imagining a system error and temporary reset, the film
reprocesses the flows of information upon which drone culture functions.