A live jam of sound, visuals and poetry, telling the true story of a military drone’s life and fears. The Drone is part weapons system, part office worker, part tense background hum. The bleak humour and tender fury of Drone sees the unmanned aerial vehicle as the technology of a neurotic century, surveilled and surveilling, asking how anxious people can live as part of systems of such astonishing destruction. Read more …
Written by the Forward-shortlisted poet Harry Josephine Giles and performed by them with international sound artist Neil Simpson (Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo) and digital artist Jamie Wardrop (Beats, The Dwelling Place), Drone is the spectacular culmination of five years of work. Directed by Rob Jones (Egg, Super Awesome World), the performance is mixed new every night, a live cabaret band of three artists in three different media. Drone was first performed at Summerhall in the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe, was supported for further development by Creative Scotland in winter 2017, and is touring Scotland in spring-summer 2019, with one London date.
Poetry, music and the moving image tell a story of technology and anxiety.
Watching Drone is often a confusing, discombobulating experience. There’s a lot going on – and mixed live, so different every night – things don’t necessarily fit together. It’s interesting to watch but, much like a drone hovering out of reach, seems to continually seek new distances from the audience. Watching Drone felt like sifting through wreckage.
A poetic engagement with contemporary alienation and domination.
Harry Josephine Giles' new piece Drone is sad, funny, beautiful and relatable.
It’s a provocative compendium of life during wartime.
Harry Josephine Giles’ Drone is a production entirely of its own craft, unlike any other. An examination of the neurotic age of technologies influence on the complacency of anxiety and surveillance.
Harry Josephine Giles: 'Drone is about what it might feel like to be a military drone, who is also an office worker, who is also me'.
Tron Theatre, Glasgow from Thursday April 11, 2019, until Saturday April 13, 2019. More info: www.tron.co.uk
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Tuesday June 4, 2019, until Wednesday June 5, 2019. More info: www.traverse.co.uk