Droning

Droning is an AI-driven art installation interrogating the logic of autonomous weapons and the algorithmic reduction of human life to targetable data. At its core is a custom dirigible, inspired by military surveillance blimps and equipped with real-time computer vision trained on combat footage datasets, which surveils and classifies visitors as “enemy combatants” or “neutral civilians.” A ground control station displays these classifications and potential strike decisions, simulating the logic of automated systems. The installation stages a reflection on “algorithmic targeting”—how machine perception translates movement and posture into threat typologies. Engaging with surveillance, biopolitics, and militarized vision, Droning exposes the epistemic violence embedded in machinic perception and challenges audiences to confront the ethical asymmetries of AI-mediated warfare and the infrastructures that sustain it.