Yuk Hui refers to cosmotechnics as the deep interweaving of human action and technology as shaped by diverse moral universes. In this article, I pit two views of cosmotechnics against each other. I...

This article addresses the problematic perspectives of drone culture. In critiquing focus on the drone’s apparent ‘autonomy’, it argues that such devices function as part of a socio-technical network. They are relational parts of human–machine interaction that, in our changing geopolitical realities, have a powerful influence on politics, reputation and warfare. Drawing on Žižek’s conception of parallax, the article stresses the importance of culture and perception in forming the role of the drone in widening power asymmetries. It examines how perceptions (...) of autonomy are evoked by drones, to claim that this misperception is a smokescreen that obscures the relational socio-technical realities of the drone. The article therefore argues that a more critical culture of the drone emerges by shifting the focus and perception from autonomy to anonymity. This allows us to engage more fully with the distributed agency and decision-making that define how drones are developed and deployed. Rather than focusing on the drone as a singular, fetishised, technical object, a relational approach to the drone assemblage is proposed that highlights the competing human interests that define and resist drones in global politics and culture. (shrink)

Resumo: O artigo trata da especificidade de um dos produtos tecnológicos de vigilância e de ataque aéreos mais importantes em uso atualmente, os drones, mostrando em que sentido essa nova tecnologia traça um marco decisivo na evolução do domínio dos ares e, portanto, como sugere Carl Schmitt, na transformação do campo teológico-político das sociedades contemporâneas. A imanência radical do campo político proposta pelo liberalismo, diagnosticada por Schmitt, terá nos drones um de seus instrumentos mais exemplares. Para caracterizar a especificidade dos (...) drones frente a outros aparelhos visuais e aéreos de guerra, será proposta uma aproximação com o conceito de imagem-tempo de Gilles Deleuze, de tal modo a determinar essa sua singularidade a partir das propriedades intrínsecas da imagem gerada. A principal característica da imagem-tempo deleuziana a ser integrada à análise dos drones será seu aspecto tátil. Nesse momento, a aproximação dos livros de Deleuze sobre o cinema com sua obra escrita com Félix Guattari será essencial para determinar a dimensão política da imagem-drone.: This paper deals with the specificity that characterizes one of the most important technological aerial products dedicated to surveillance and attack being in use nowadays, the drones, showing in which sense this new technology is a decisive turning point in the evolution of the domination of the skies and therefore, as suggested by Carl Schmitt, in the transformation of the political-theological field in contemporary societies. The radical immanence of the political field proposed by liberalism, such as Schmitt described it, finds in drones one of its most typical instruments. To characterize the specificity of drones regarding other visual and aerial war machines, it will be proposed an approximation with the Deleuzian concept of image-time, in order to determine its singularity through the intrinsic properties of the images so produced. The main characteristic of the Deleuzian time-image to be integrated in the analysis of drones will be its haptic aspect. At this point, the relation between Deleuze’s cinema books and his work in collaboration with Félix Guattari will be essential to characterize the political dimension of the drone-image. (shrink)