Thread by @artcrimeprof

Harun Farockis’s film “War at a Distance” in @MoMAPS1’s #TheaterOfOperations Gulf War exhibit gave me even more to think about the ethics of digital recreations of cultural heritage destroyed in war, eg, #Palmyra: vdb.org/titles/war-dis…

Farocki points out that the guidance technology used for self-driving cars, manufacturing equipment, etc, was developed primarily to guide missiles.

The laser scanning technology that can measure a cultural monument is the technology developed to scan an enemy landscape and lock on to targets.

Farocki also explains that “war in the electronic age presents itself as being an event free of people.”

I’ve been thinking for a while about why it seems so problematic that digital reconstructions of destroyed cultural heritage rarely feature people (this quote is from my piece here: static1.squarespace.com/static/517aa1e…)

Farocki’s work helped me see it together - that the technology of destruction is also the technology of creation - and that both technologies elide the existence of people whose lives don’t interest those who control the technology.

@morehshin’s work has also repeatedly pointed out the connections between destruction and supposedly neutral digital recreation, like her spectacular lecture/performance here: vimeo.com/337394969

FYI @AaronTugendhaft - another of Farocki’s installations @MoMAPS1 might interest you! harunfarocki.de/installations/…