As the defense industry moves to the center of national priorities, the nature of conflict itself has shifted. Today, war is also waged in the digital realm. Many of the tools currently embraced by artists\u2014AI, robotics, VR\u2014maintain structural ties to the military sector. This dynamic is not one-sided: cultural and creative industries also contribute, sometimes unwittingly, to the development of military technologies. So where exactly do these points of contact lie? What kinds of technological transfers or symbolic slippages are taking place? This first article explores different forms of cooperation, whether deliberate or unintended. At first glance, art and the military-industrial complex seem fundamentally opposed. How can we draw a connection between a field that the collective imagination readily associates with a critical stance and another perceived as the very embodiment of armed conflict? And yet history reveals a relationship far more complex than it appears. The central role of artists in wartime propaganda is well documented, from Antiquity to contemporary conflicts. Less widely known, perhaps, are the more technical collaborations between artists and military industries\u2014interventions that move beyond the symbolic register to operate at the very core of military systems and infrastructures. Artist and geographer Trevor Paglen<\/a>, whose work extensively probes the invisible infrastructures of military power (Limit Telephotography<\/a> and Code Names of the Surveillance State<\/a>), has compiled on his website a series of articles devoted to psychological operations, or PSYOPS<\/a>. He notably references the Ghost Army, a secret World War II unit made up of painters, designers, and architects, including Ellsworth Kelly,<\/a> Art Kane<\/a>, and Bill Blass<\/a>. \u201cTheir mission was to conduct large-scale deception operations,\u201d Paglen writes.This army of artists designed and deployed inflatable tanks and dummy military equipment to mislead Nazi reconnaissance missions. They also used powerful loudspeakers to simulate the movement of nonexistent armored divisions across the countryside, and staged the appearances of fake generals in strategic locations. Through ruse and misdirection, the unit effectively manufactured an alternate reality\u2014a technique that finds an unsettling echo today in the use of deepfakes in contemporary conflicts.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n In recent decades, military technologies have undergone profound transformation under the impact of digital and electronic innovation\u2014particularly in the field of imaging: infrared, photogrammetry, AI-driven optimization\u2014now grouped under the umbrella of optoelectronics<\/a>. \u201cThe first 3D and thermal images were initially developed for military use,\u201d notes Alain Josseau, whose work examines the imagery of war. \u201cThese technologies and aesthetics were later fully absorbed into the world of entertainment, such as reality TV, where infrared is constantly employed.\u201d <\/p>\n\nThe Evolution of (Digital) Military Technologies<\/h2>\n\n