Call for Abstracts:

Drone Performances. Aesthetics, Mediation, Politics
January 29-30, 2026
University of Klagenfurt
Vienna, Austria
https://conference3.aau.at/event/216/

Deadline for submissions: September 29, 2025

Drones are reshaping visual culture, human-machine interaction, and aesthetic expression. From cinematic landscapes to military surveillance, from art installations to everyday leisure, drones are increasingly mediating how we sense, see, and relate to the world.

This international and interdisciplinary conference aims to bring together scholars and artists to explore how drones perform, intervene, and matter in cultural and social contexts. Hosted by the Department of Media & Communications and the Digital Age Research Center (D^!ARC) at the University of Klagenfurt, the conference is part of the arts-based research project “Performing Drones.”

We welcome contributions that address drones from perspectives such as media studies, STS, anthropology, cultural studies, and sociology, particularly focusing on everyday and artistic uses of drones. We are especially interested in work that examines the entanglements of aesthetics, mediation, agency, and politics—as drone imaginaries travel across contexts.

We invite a range of formats from presentations over performances to posters, videos, and experimental formats.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• The eye of the drone: surveillance, visibility, and affect
• Autonomy and automation: machine agency and human control
• Drones as actors and mapping drone assemblages
• Drones in contemporary art, film, video clips, popular culture and performance
• Drone imaginaries and speculative futures
• Artistic, civilian, military practices and legacies
• Drone sensing and datafication
• Drone atmospheres: sensing and embodied perception
• Tinkering and play with drones

Submission Deadline: Mo [Monday], 29.9.2025
Please send abstracts of max. 300 words

For further questions please contact the organizers, Matthias.Wieser (Matthias.Wieser@aau.at) and Katharina.Kinder-Kurlanda (Katharina.Kinder-Kurlanda@aau.at).

The event is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the German Sociological Association (Section Sociology of Media and Communications).