The Same Face
Work

2015
Mixed media installation
2.4 x 2.4 x 2m

(W x H x D)


HOUSE 2015 and Lighthouse
co-commission

The Regency Town House Brunswick Square, Hove




The Same Face is a 1:1 scale set of a drone command centre. The installation plays upon the uneasy similarities found between handmade, hobby flight simulators and actual drone control rooms, where only outside these spaces does the disparity of their potential for destruction become apparent. Inside, among the video monitors and various consoles, a labour of love and an act of war share the same face.

Three video monitors illuminate the room, displaying on-board camera footage of three contrasting landscapes imagined from above. The Grand Hotel in Brighton features along with Shoreham airfield and an unnamed jungle terrain.

Drones exemplify how technology has joined the fighter pilot with a wider global audience in a remote viewing of conflict, where their absence from the sky is mediated by instruments and imagery. The distance from the pilot to the frontline also mirrors the distance from the model maker to their handmade worlds. The set and the imagery together further suggest how aspects of modern warfare closely resemble a video game experience, where the edges of the real and virtual blur in transmissions of animated pixels.