A radio-controlled airplane, equipped with a video camera and transmitter was launched, In 1997, on a series of sorties over the Silicon Valley in California.
Guided by the live video feed from the plane, the pilot on the ground was able to steer the plane deep into the glittering heartlands of the Information Age. They were critiquing the economics of the area, the infrastructure of technology, the sites where secret research takes place, the locales where aircraft systems are thought-up and built.
The bitplane sidestepped regulations.It was illegal to fly remotely controlled aircraft within 5 miles of an airport. There were 3 airports within 5 miles of the bitplane flight path. The bitplane also violated FCC communications regulations by transmitting live video on a cable television channel, which somewhat brilliantly, inserted the bitplane‘s “gods-eye view” of the Silicon Valley into the regularly-scheduled television viewing of the households below its flight path.
The bitplane exposed layers of policing and control over what seemed to be transparent airspace. Bureau of Inverse Technology‘s work revealed the growing capabilities of UAV technologies, but also uses these very capabilities to turn the gaze towards the manifucturers and users of these devices.
This is a classic act of tactical media, a form of activist art practice, that goes beyond mere revelation, and actively intervenes within a system deemed to be morally, politically or ethically problematic.
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