This Is How It Feels to Dance with a Drone

After ambling through the streets of Brooklyn and past residential homes on the outskirts of Queens on Saturday, I arrived at an enclave of warehouses and factories in the industrial neighborhood of Maspeth.

There, amidst the clattering of dump trucks driving in and out of the surrounding parking lot, I found the Knockdown Center, a three-year-old arts venue in a renovated glass factory. The sprawling 50,000 square foot space will be humming with drones for the next month as part of an art show called First Person View that opened this week.

Michael Merck, the center's creative director, said the show presents an opportunity for visitors to connect with the technology, which has pervaded the news in recent years.

"Drones are a subject that is kind of universal right now––almost any kind of topic can be talked about using drones as a symbol of where we're at and where we are going," Merck said. "So there is a lot of buzz, and I feel like people can't help but have their interest piqued in some way when they come in contact with one, or watch one doing something."

Attendees can use one of two quadcopters provided, or bring their own, to fly through an obstacle course of art. Each drone is equipped with a camera that feeds into a video stream displayed on its controller screen. The imagery is also shown on flatscreen TVs and projections throughout the space. The four level circuit includes nine works of art commissioned and curated by the Knockdown Center, all related to, inspired by, or compatible with drone technology.

"We honed in on this idea of the drone as a symbol of or way of viewing art and the evolution of technology," Merck said. "People really enjoyed the component of the work being on display in the gallery and being able to see them with the drones. It's sort of taking the debate in all different directions."

The drones are first flown above a small landscape installation by artist Lyoudmila Milanova, their footage projected on the wall behind it. As levels get increasingly difficult, users can fly through other works including "You're all going to hell,"a text piece by Corey Escoto on the roof ledge of the building, and "Smoke and Mirrors," a suspended cube teeming with smoke and covered in classic images of 50s households. "Smoke and Mirrors" was created by Leo Gibbs and E. Adam Attia, a former geospatial analyst in the US Army who witnessed UAV strikes firsthand.

One of the most compelling parts of the exhibit was not the obstacle course itself, but a separate work by performer Cara Francis. To participate in the piece, called "REMOTE," attendees stand in front of a green screen while a drone circles them, firing away increasingly intimate questions. Francis later superimposes footage of drone strikes on the green screen behind the relatively benign interaction. I stepped up to the plate to meet Speedy Gonzales, the drone and virtual extension of Francis.

"People say drones are impersonal," an altered recording of Francis's voice as Speedy says, "What do you think about drones?"

The questions continue: "Do you think drones should be illegal or legal? How often do you think about drone attacks? How often do you think about domestic surveillance? What would you do if you knew you were being watched?"

Despite fully understanding I was communicating with a pre-recorded soundtrack projected through a flying tech device, the experience felt surprisingly intimate. I felt increasingly awkward as the drone asked me about my feelings on technology, the morality of warfare, and ultimately invited me to dance. Francis said one of her goals is for viewers to sit with the discomfort of surveillance.

"I got interested in drones because I was just kind of fascinated by people's polarized opinions on them," she said. "To have these extensions of other people's bodies really inflicting their presence upon you is just weird. I wanted to make a piece where people had to get inside of that contradiction and experience what that feels like."

These contradictions are central to First Person View as a whole, where the technology is portrayed as a fun toy, an extension of art, or a destructive invasion––all at your fingertips with a drone controller.

First Person View is open from 2 to 6 PM Saturdays and Sundays until September 12. Francis will perform her "REMOTE" series August 15, August 29, and September 12.