What Flies Above Us

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Reva Stone, "Alphabet," 2017

digital video projection, dimensions variable (video still courtesy of the artist)

An uncomfortable and foreboding silence greets viewers walking into What Flies Above at Gallery 1C03 in Winnipeg until Feb. 17. The show, which comes as technological innovations  rouse unsettled feelings about rapidly advancing mechanical bodies, features new work by Winnipeg artists Erika Lincoln and Reva Stone. They have researched separately for two years, exploring their own questions and discoveries about unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones. Both artists are long-time innovators in digital practice who connect the possibilities of technology to topics of ownership, spectacle and the natural world.

Stone’s meditative and initially calming video, Alphabet, leads viewers into the exhibition with its sky-blue silence. The names of countries that have participated in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles float on and off the screen, allowing the show’s subject to emerge as the video progresses. Lincoln’s Strike Release: Sun Models-NGGH flashes subtly on a wall to its left. A natural yet unnerving companion to Stone’s work, it digitizes a list of air strikes in Syria, arousing curiosity about the rest of the exhibition.

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Erika Lincoln, "Arctic Sovereignty: Better Living Through Bio-robotics-NGGH Beluga Drone," 2017

3D prints in gypsum, steel table and acrylic, 29” x 39” x 14” (photo by Ernest Mayer)

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Erika Lincoln, "NGGHGC-Northrop Grumman Global Hawk Grumman Canoe," 2016

3D print in ABS plastic and paint, 6” x 4” x 4” (photo by Bruce Hanks)

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Lincoln’s 3D works probe the possibilities of hybridity. Arctic Sovereignty: Better Living Through Bio-robotics-NGGH Beluga Drone and Global Cloud-NGGH evoke the coded and technical composition of airborne vehicles, while also giving them humanistic qualities. In her LookingIN-NGGH and LookingOUT-NGGH, circles of metallic missiles frame mirrors, inviting viewers to witness their reflections as targets.

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Erika Lincoln, "LookingIN-NGGH and LookingOUT-NGGH" (detail), 2017

four 3D prints and metallic paint on mirrored acrylic (two printed in ABS plastic and two printed in polycarbonate plastic), each 13” diameter (photo by Bruce Hanks)

Stone’s Console, in a small, darkened room at the back of the gallery, offers an intimidating gaming joystick, a set of headphones and a digital screen atop a table. Stone has compiled more than 175 found video clips that bombard the screen with the functions, realities and imagined possibilities of unmanned aerial vehicles. A slight shift of the joystick brings up various images of creation, destruction and propaganda. Visualized fears can be confronted and quickly blown up with the click of a button.

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Reva Stone, "Console," 2017

custom software, computer, monitor, joystick, headphones and desk, dimensions variable (photo by Ernest Mayer)

Both artists balance the concerns of the watched and the watcher, and their show, both jarring and timely, continues to haunt through its questioning of control and privacy. With thoughtfulness and empathy, they ask viewers to reflect on what’s happening in the air above. ■