Artist’s statement
*
“
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
…
”
[Gazing into a mirror, in despair at what I am]
“
‘That is not it at all,
That is not who I am at all.’
”
*
When we think of drone aesthetics, what comes to mind are hypermobile perspectives—an aerial view simultaneously distant yet unerringly intimate, or a point-of-view pitching and sweeping through the air. 2084 attempts to experiment and imagine what a hypermobile drone aesthetic would look like in terms of form and genre. I felt bricolage was the best means to achieve such an aesthetic, for bricolage, as a creative process that cobbles myriad bits and pieces together, permitted 2084 to continuously flicker, transition to, or become various disparate things at once: non-fiction, music, poetry, visual media, prose, and graphic novel. Being composed out of “borrowed” media—such as photographs of contemporary events and locations, lyrics from Radiohead, poetry from T.S. Eliot, to name a few (to the reader: have fun spotting all the references!)—2084 is a grinding up and recombination of art to represent what a hypermobile work could look like: fragmented, confused, and chaotic. Perhaps what 2084 lacks in coherence it makes up for in audiovisual eloquence. It suggests a near-future that has already happened, a trajectory in flight as we read; we are already living in a world of dystopian cyberpunk science fiction.
2084 Music Instructions
There is a soundtrack accompanying the work. It can be found here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jcYsMElENgQ7peRyvD2iT?si=5e8a3810edef48e0
Please play the following pieces of music while you read the following pages:
-
“Memory” from pages 00 to 07
-
“Prabhava” from pages 08 to 12
-
“Death Squad” from pages 13 to 16
click on the image to start
References
Page 0
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VanderWolf Images. “Multi-Sensor surveillance camera pod military drone.” Adobe Stock, https://stock.adobe.com/sg/images/multi-sensor-surveillance-camera-pod-military-drone/252057908
Page 2
Wan Quan. “Caihong-7 (CH-7) or Rainbow 7 Photo.” Global Times, 5 Nov. 2018, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/201811/1125929.shtml
Page 3
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “A Musical Instrument.” Poetry Foundation, 2024, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43729/a-musical-instrument
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Page 6
Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Meyer Howard Abrams, 5 ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton, 1986, pp. 2180-2196.
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Page 7
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Page 9
Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Meyer Howard Abrams, 5 ed., vol. 2, W.W. Norton, 1986, pp. 2180-2196.
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---. “Last Flowers.” Youtube. https://youtu.be/lVata6Ibe4U?si=2KS0ykdLWsE43_TV
---. “Paranoid Andriod.” Youtube. https://youtu.be/fHiGbolFFGw?si=GokLD-1zZCna0eTP
Page 10
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Page 11
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---. “Paranoid Andriod.” Youtube. https://youtu.be/fHiGbolFFGw?si=GokLD-1zZCna0eTP
Page 12
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Page 13
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Page 14
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Page 15
AP. “Hong Kong businesses, rail stations reopen after weekend of violent protests.” The Straits Times, 16 Sep. 2019, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/hong-kong-businesses-rail-stations-reopen-after-violent-weekend-of-clashes-and
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Page 16
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