2014/2 – #War

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The light of God: Notes on the visual economy of drones
Väliaho, Pasi (2014) , S. 99-111
This article charts the contemporary aerial military technology of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or drones, which are used for both surveillance and combat in current ‘overseas contingency operations’. It focuses on the form of techno-visual power that UAVs represent. Drone control screens facilitate the accumulation of data of the patterns of life of populations so as to detect potential future threats, whilst simultaneously acting as key players in pre-emptive strikes. This article explores the striving for spatio-temporal omniscience and omnipotency that animates this particular technology of vision – the drone as a technology of the ‘light of God’.