FLOATING PROPHECIES


The figure of the drone serves as the starting point for this film, enabling it to explore the intersections that exist between fictional depictions arising from science fiction literature and the actual advent of flying machines with camera vision in contemporary world, folklore and mythology.

By juxtaposing quotes from works from the previous century (1880–2000) with a selection of popular, recent videos that have been posted on video sharing websites, this film explores the grey zone between self-fulfilling prophecy and composite narratives.

CONCEPTION: DISNOVATION.ORG
VOICE: BLACK SIFICHI
VIDEO COLLAGE, INSTALLATION | 2015


Video, single channel .mov 1080p, 14'53", 2015


Solo exhibition DISNOVATION.ORG, Mapping Festival, Geneva, CH 2017


Solo exhibition DISNOVATION.ORG, Pavillon Vendome, Clichy, FR 2015


Video snapshots, 2015


Book covers, 2013-1858


VOICE OVER
"It is smart but not awake. 
It would not recognize itself in a mirror. It speaks no language."
— Malak, Peter Watts, 2010
"The machines had logic, and they could think constantly, and because of their construction never forgot anything they thought.
"
— The Machine, John W. Campbell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction, 1935
"The bits were in motion. Microscopic machinery, smaller than ants, smaller than pins, working energetically, purposefully - constructing something that looked like a tiny rectangle of steel."
— Autofac, by Philip K. Dick, 1955
"Faster the cubes moved; faster the circle revolved; the pyramids raised themselves, stood bolt upright on their square bases. But that being metal, they had moved consciously, thoughtfully, deliberately. They were metal things with - minds!
"
— The Metal Monster, Abraham Merritt. Published by Argosy All-Story Weekly, 1920
"What will we be doing, when everything that can be done, can be done better by robots."

 — Humberto Contreras, The Preponderant Factor, 2013
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1858
"Having different eyes, seeing the universe with the eyes of another person, of a hundred others, and seeing the hundred universes each of them sees"
— Ilium, Dan Simmons. Published by Eos, 2003
"Over a radius of several miles, the apparatus could direct its flight, and back over the invisible connecting ray came an image of all that the lens eye saw."
— Beyond the Stars, by Ray Cummings. Published by Ace in 1928
"A public Eye was floating above and beyond me, as I was the only mass in that passageway radiating at thirty-seven degrees.
"
— Friday, Robert Heinlein. Published by Not Known, 1982
"By manipulating the entire apparatus like a searchlight, waves would be sent over a large area. Sooner or later these waves would strike a space flyer."
— Ralph 124c 41 +, by Hugo Gernsback, 1911
"I went to one of those gorgeous eating places where we were served entirely by mechanical apparatus. No hand touched the food from the time it entered the building in its raw state until it emerged hot and delicious upon the tables before the guests."
— A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Published by A. C. McClurg & Co, 1917
"like everything else in the world requiring an IQ of less than 150, it was computer-controlled…"
— Cities In Flight, James Blish, 1957
"the monitors - almond-sized aerostats with eyes, ears, and radios - had probably picked up the sound of the explosion and begun converging on the attack. Nanotech materials were stronger. Computers were tinier. Power supplies were much more potent… it was almost difficult not to build things that were lighter than air"
— The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson. Published by Bantam Books, 1995
"Then the automatic airmail planes changed from peaceful carrier pigeons to predatory hawks. They chased other planes, deliberately colliding with them. They plunged to distraction against mountainsides and skyscrapers."

— The Living Machine, David H. Keller. Published by Wonder Stories, 1935
"A reflex machine. Like some insect. Repeating doomed patterns, a single pattern, over and over"
— Philip K Dick, A scanner Darkly. Published by Del Rey / Ballantine, June 1977
"It makes you wonder if we're not seeing the beginning of a new species."
— From Second Variety, by Philip K. Dick, 1953
"he changed his direction at will; going up and down, forward and backward, describing circles, loops and figures of eight. After a few minutes of this display he descended, slowing up abruptly as he neared the ground and making an easy landing."
— Skylark of Space, by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Pyramid, 1928
"It was turned as if watching them. The tracer-bird followed their every step, hung upon their words… A portion of its front end caught the sunlight and cast it down toward them..."
— Changeling, Roger Zelazny. Published by ACE, 1980
"The ship was a tremendous flying thing.  Empty - passengers, even crewmen, were never subject to the brutal accelerations regularly used by unmanned carriers."

— Triplanetary, E. E. “Doc” Smith. Published by Not Known, 1934
"A series of the larger fliers followed it at well-spaced intervals, to serve as relay points for the spy broadcasts..."
— Changeling, Roger Zelazny. Published by ACE, 1980
"The Scarab buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might, and sought the security of a shadowed corner. There it studied its surroundings, transmitting to its manipulators.
"
— The Scarab, Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Astounding Stories, 1936
"If you could make sensors tiny enough, they could send back the images and the touch of things, as well as sounds. Then, if you had the right equipment to receive the information, it would be just as if you were standing invisibly in that place."

— Danny Dun, Invisible Boy, Jay Williams / Raymond Abrashkin, 1974
"You can’t see it, yet it is there. It’s just as if you concentrated a charge of electricity of five thousand volts into a small globule the size of a bullet. That flies through space."

 — Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle, Victor Appleton. Published by Unkoen, 1911
The dark birdforms dotted the mountaintops like statues of prehistoric beasts, wings outspread. Had there been an eye to observe them, it might not even have noted their tropism-like pursuit of the sun across the sky.
"
— Changeling, Roger Zelazny. Published by ACE, 1980
"Gold dots against blue, basketball-sized, twelve feet up. Each television eye and a sonic stunner. Each hooked up to police headquarters. They were there to enforce the law of the park. Naturally people threw rocks at copseyes. It was a Free Park, wasn't it?
— Cloak of Anarchy, Larry Niven. Published by Analog in 1972"
"And that’s how it’ll end; probably they’ll invent guns or drones that are even smaller, and there’ll only be a few smaller and smaller machines fighting over whatever’s left of the galaxy, and there’ll be nobody left to know how it all got started in the first place."
— Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas, 1987


Exhibited at:
Subsistances, Lyon, 2017 (FR)
Seconde Nature, Aix-en-Provence, 2017 (FR)
Mapping Festival, Geneva, 2017 (CH)
Pavillon Vendôme, Clichy, 2015 (FR)