Author Information
Jiujian Zeng, Loughborough University, United KingdomCarina Brand, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
John Atkin, Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Abstract
This paper explores negentropy in the Neganthropocene through drone visual culture, employing a critical philosophy of technology to analyze how visual interventions reshape technological narratives via global supply chains. Adopting an agency critique stance, it develops an interdisciplinary visual analysis model that extends Bernard Stiegler's "Economy of Pollination" metaphor—drones as post-medium tools with profound political, economic, and cultural symbolism, spanning military applications and public landscapes, alongside the emergence and ruptures of contributive economies.
The study focuses on the construction of drone visual culture (including global output practices: military conflicts, component proliferation, international exhibitions, and disaster relief), examining how these practices sustain critiques of technological production logic and ethics. It employs visual ethnography, integrating a three-tier visual technology analysis framework (visual analysis, discourse analysis, comparative analysis). Data is drawn from mainstream media, international news, and global digital platforms to capture worldwide visual circulations.
Through this analysis, the paper reveals how drone-related global technological narratives are constructed and circulated, challenging hegemonic paradigms. It uncovers the process of building a "precise modernity" counter-narrative: the dialectical shift from cost-driven exploitation to innovation leadership, along with dual applications of deterrence and performative art. Highlighting structural gaps in global technological governance, the research contributes methodological tools for diverse technological agency studies and critical insights into globalization's entropic reversals.
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