Operational Screens 1700/2000: Projection, Possession, War

Operational Screens 1700/2000: Projection, Possession, War, Pasi Väliaho, a talk by Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, Goldsmiths University of London

In 1694, Robert Hooke presented a paper to the Royal Society of London, on an ‘Instrument of Use to take the Draught, or Picture of any Thing.’ Hooke’s invention was basically a portable camera to be used by merchants, sailors and other travellers in recording the sights from their journeys to faraway lands. The device tallied with the colonial project of occupying and privatising foreign countries, combining optical projection with the possession of property.

This talk investigates Hooke’s apparatus as such a “visual economy” machine, and asks what it can tell us about our contemporary world of military screens, from video game training platforms to drones, where the production of images has become essential to domination and possession.