Drone Aviary

Drone Aviary is an ongoing R&D project investigating the social, political and cultural potential of drones, a popular technology that is infiltrating and transforming civic space. Because civilian drones are becoming incessantly ubiquitous in our daily lives, the work imagines a near-future city that will be cohabited by “intelligent” semi-autonomous networked flying machines. Today, drones already facilitate food deliveries, are used as advertising platforms, report on breaking news in real time, assist in managing traffic, collect data and surveil citizens from a bird’s-eye perspective – and they serve as fatal assets in contemporary warfare. In the exhibition, one of Superflux’s drones is suspended from the ceiling and is accompanied by a film in which the protagonists are personified drones inhabiting the smart city of the future – a world in which decisions about our lives will be made by autonomous machines fuelled by our data. The project ultimately raises some crucial questions: How will our cities adapt to drones? What supporting infrastructure will they need? How will they integrate into the fabric of the city?