A Different Kind Of Instagram Account
Against images of sunsets and stir-fry on Instagram, there are now pictures of the places where hundreds of people are being killed by drones. Another instance of Instagram being used to tell the stories most of us can’t see.
The pictures on Dronestagram aren’t pretty. They are mundane — mostly dirt and abandoned buildings — but these are the places where hundreds of people are being killed, mostly unnoticed, by unmanned aerial vehicles. Launched yesterday, Dronestagram is the work of James Bridle, an artist and writer from the U.K., whose work hopes to bring attention to the invisible drone war in the Middle East.
“The Dronestagram project is another way to make these things more visible and immediate,” Bridle told me. “We don’t see them, or where they work, and it makes it easier to ignore — it’s why I’m choosing to do this within networks like Instagram and Tumblr, which are more integrated into people’s daily lives.”
The U.S. has launched 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan alone this year, the highest ever, in an invisible war that by international standards is (for the most part) legal. But hearing about 333 strikes in places you’ve never heard of, thousands of miles away, is not the same as seeing where it actually happened.
Using public records from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism about strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia (the only places where information is readily available), he confirms the location of the strike, and then searches the area using Google Maps Satellite view. Some of these places are far off the grid, but Bridle tries to locate the general location as best he can. Consulting several other sources, he snaps a picture where the strike hit and uploads them to Instagram with a brief description, often including a death toll.
“There is a certain trend within technology to make things invisible and seamless,” he told me. “And drones seem to express that very well — they are an extraordinarily complex technology but completely invisible to us.” With Dronestagram, the strikes are visible — but even Instagram’s filters can’t disguise barren land and deserted towns. These photos are dead.
Ob297 – October 11 2012 / 16-26 reported killed / 5-15 reported injured / Possible civilian casualties (at Buland Khil, Pakistan)
7th November: a strike at night in a village 40km from Sana’a. Alleged al Qaeda leader Adnam al Qathi and his bodyguards Rablee Lahib and Radwan al Hashidi were killed. A child and two others are also reported injured. Drones had been seen over the area for three days.
See the rest of the images here.
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Joe Schmoe 7 months agoA simple question: Why are drone strikes so much more shocking and wrong than aerial strikes by mannned jets? These type of bombing runs have taken place since the invention of aerial vehicles, but now that a man on the ground instead of a man in the air pulls the trigger, there is an inhumaness about them? People on the ground in countries with inferior aerial capabilities are no more well protected from drone strikes than strikes by human fighters. What is the difference? Accuracy. There are less unintended injuries by drone strikes than strikes with human pilots. The lesson? Warfare kills people. Wrongly or under the usual laws of war? Do these laws justify the use of advanced technology against less advanced nations? These questions will always be left unanswered. Does it matter if its a drone or not? Would a person in a cockpit not pull a trigger when a pilot commanding a drone from the ground would? I think not.
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