The realities of autonomous weapons
Call for Art
This call for art invites work that advances synergies between artistic and academic publishing.
The book project “The realities of autonomous weapons” explores this controversial technology by analysing the imagined futures that are associated with military AI. It covers not only political images and narratives but also fictional expressions and interpretations.
The ties between fact and fiction are characteristic of the different realities that autonomous weapons systems (AWS) embody. To strengthen these connections, the editors are looking for a contribution coming from the visual arts that helps make sense of these complex relations between
fact and fiction, the virtual and the real.
The volume is open access and will be published with Bristol University Press in 2024.
The development of AWS has been subject to controversial discussions for years. Numerous political, academic or legal institutions and actors are debating the consequences and risks that arise with these technologies, in particular their ethical, social and political implications. Many are calling for strict regulation, even a global ban. It is this uncertainty, in which reality, imagination, possibility and fiction get conflated, that makes AWS highly momentous – politically, socially but also aesthetically. These dimensions can only be understood as a constant and complex dynamic between the actual technological developments and the potential futures that are associated with them. By reflecting and discussing fact, fiction and imagination, the real and the virtual, the full scope of this controversial technology becomes visible.
This call is directed to artists who want to contribute to a chapter that only features visual material exploring this hybrid space between fact and fiction.
Topics featured in this volume for artistic inspiration:
- Fictional and cinematographic representations e.g. female-presenting autonomous weapons in cinema
- Scenarios and Interfaces: military war games, network-centric warfare, human-machine in(ter)action
- National and industrial narratives, e.g. military, social or pop cultural depictions in Japan and China
- Conceptual debates and contestations: autonomy in weapon systems, situational awareness, ethics and legality of autonomous warfare
What we are looking for:
- A chapter of artistic works that feature the hybrid space of autonomous weapon
systems, illustrated in a short portfolio of 10-15 pages & an abstract of 250 words of
description. - Chapter portfolio in pdf. Artworks have be a minimum 300 dpi. Text in a supplementary
file in Word, pdf, or rtf.
What we offer:
- The selected artist will be featured in a comprehensive chapter of the printed book (fully open access) next to the academic texts.
- Further, the selected artist will be featured on a website where we host the academic chapters.
- The book will be disseminated widely by the publisher and the editors to different academic, public and art institutions – trying to enable further synergies and collaborations between artists and publishers.
- A royalty of 1000 euros.
Please submit your proposals by November 10, 2023 via autonomous-weapons@hiig.de