“Unmanned Future “ (2004-) is an on-going project and a series of works in different media. The project explores meditations on the human condition in a post-human future. The focus of “Unmanned Future” has been the investigation of utopian and dystopian ideas, in relation to current and future military research and technology. “Unmanned Future” refers to new UV (Unmanned Vehicle) technology of which the most well known are the Unmanned Arial Vehicles – or drones.
Previous works have included sculptural models in wood based on drones, such as the drone Global Hawk or Predator. Some of these sculptures have been part of larger installations and they have often been made on site. These skeletal structures also refer back in history to the earliest machines created for human flight. They are not accurate models of real machines but rather drones of the imagination. They were made at a time when the usage of drones were at a very early stage. The technology then was not familiar to the general public, and the machines had primarily been used for surveillance and rarely in warfare. One of the drone sculptures was re-installed in 2016 for the exhibition “Light Above Lolland”, Sakskjøbing Sukkerfabrik.
Slides: images from the project: invitation from Unmanned Future #1 at Kabine, Copenhagen 2005. Watercolours from the Unmanned Future-series and from The Little Book of Air Combat Tactics, 2004. Images of Unmanned Future #7/Drone sculpture, Lys over Lolland/Light Above Lolland, 2016. Invitation and images of the installation Unmanned Future # 4/Your Silence Is Unsettling. Images of Unmanned Future #5/I had to look at it from the outside to see it clearly, Statens Museum for Kunst/The Danish National Gallery, 2007-8.