Send in the drones

Andrew Blum writes about James Bridle and the New Aesthetic movement for Vanity Fair.

Suddenly everyone who thinks it’s a movement either wants to be part of it or wants to destroy it,” Bridle reflected one recent afternoon, sitting behind a makeshift desk in his new, windowless studio in a converted factory in the Cambridge Heath neighborhood of London. “Bruce describing it as a movement locks it into an existing idea of historical processes, but there’s no such thing as avant-gardes anymore. That’s such a ridiculous idea. That’s an art-historical construct that just doesn’t apply anymore. But it leads to that idea of there being avant-garde figures that are ahead of everything else. But there’s not. It’s just me, looking at this stuff, and going, ‘Have you seen this? Have you actually seen it? Have you really paid attention and thought this stuff through? Because I’m trying to, and it’s amazing!’”

More on the New Aesthetic here.

• Andrew Blum
• art
• James Bridle
• New Aesthetic

The anti-drone hoodie

Designer Adam Harvey, who gave the world the anti-paparazzi purse and dazzle camouflage for the face, has developed a hoodie that makes the wearer invisible to the sort of thermal imaging utilized by surveillance drones.

This is the most New Aesthetic thing I have ever seen. The Guardian has more:

“These are primarily fashion items and art items,” Harvey tells me. “I’m not trying to make products for survivalists. I would like to introduce this idea to people: that surveillance is not bulletproof. That there are ways to interact with it and there are ways to aestheticise it.”

I imagine that at some point, anti-drone clothing will eject chaff as a countermeasure against incoming drone-launched missiles. (via @DavidGrann)

• Adam Harvey
• art
• design
• drones
• fashion
• New Aesthetic