<\/p>\n\n
Historically, cinema has maintained close ties with the military sector (see \u201cnational security cinema<\/a>\u201d). Video games, too, appear to have developed a particular affinity with this universe. As early as the 2000s, publishers such as Bohemia Interactive<\/a>, based in Prague and known for the ARMA and Operation Flashpoint franchises, developed simulation software for the U.S. Marines. These industrial collaborations point to a broader evolution: the progressive virtualization of war. Operations are now conducted remotely, through screens, and increasingly incorporate mechanisms of gamification. A report published by Politico<\/a> described the existence of a \u201cdrone army bonus\u201d intended to reward Ukrainian pilots through a point system: 20 points for damaging a tank, 40 for destroying one, 50 for a mobile rocket launcher system, 6 for killing an enemy soldier. The implicit hierarchy of values\u2014where the destruction of a machine can count for more than a human life\u2014reveals a shift induced by such accounting logics. The collective Total Refusal,<\/a> which describes itself as \u201cpost-Marxist,\u201d offers a critical lens on these war simulations in How to Disappear<\/a>, a video in which players attempt to desert from the game Battlefield. The opening seconds clarify the ambiguity of simulators: \u201cWar cannot be played. By definition, a game is played voluntarily, and for most participants, war is anything but voluntary in the real world.\u201d The introduction leaves no room for doubt: war is intrinsically bound to the control of bodies and the dispossession of individual freedoms. <\/p>\n\n French artist Alain Josseau has taken a particular interest in this derealization of conflict. His film Guerre Alphatest highlights the evolution of the combatant figure: \u201cThe soldier of the future has been born, but more than connected, he has become the interface itself. What is lost is not reality as such, but the principle of reality. These soldiers are no longer interested in reality; they stand at the threshold of another world, made of calculations and numbers, already with one foot inside.\u201d The film concludes with a reflection on MARPAT pixelated camouflage, now worn by U.S. soldiers. For Josseau, \u201cthis pattern signals the soldier\u2019s transformation into an image. It reflects the screen, the definition of the image, the disappearance of the principle of reality, and a generalized image-based logic. It is no longer about blending into the environment but blending into the image of the video game\u2014the ultimate process of derealization, of becoming an image.\u201d <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n In their 2025 article Military Demonstrations as Digital Spectacles: How Virtual Presentations of AI Decision-Support Systems Shape Perceptions of War and Security<\/a>, researchers Robin Vanderborght and Anna Nadibaidze analyze virtual demonstrations conducted by Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industries. They show how virtualization reshapes our perception of conflict: on screen, war becomes a clean, controlled, abstract operation, detached from the experience of victims and the materiality of territories. A similar observation applies to certain European drone manufacturers such as Helsing.ai<\/a>, whose communication strategies adopt the sleek, minimalist design codes of Silicon Valley startups. From this perspective, the issue with video games may not be the violence they allegedly produce\u2014contrary to claims made by Emmanuel Macron<\/a>\u2014but rather the regime of virtualization they install. This question also runs through the field of immersive experiences, which place the viewer at the center of the narrative. Works such as Omaha Beach<\/a> or Champs de Bataille<\/a> by Fran\u00e7ois Vautier, filmed in live action, participate in these effects of virtualization, even as they are developed in close collaboration with historians, serving as a safeguard against spectacularization. <\/p>\n\n This virtualization finds its most tangible expression in drone warfare, now central to contemporary conflicts and widely promoted by the companies that design these systems. In Drone 2000<\/a> by Disnovation.org<\/a>, these machines occupy the core of a striking performance. Piloted by unstable algorithms, drones coexist with the audience while maintaining a diffuse threat. The work establishes a dystopian atmosphere, recalling both the military origins of these devices and their recent deployment by law enforcement. Similarly, in his series Drone Shadow<\/a>, James Bridle shifts our perspective and reveals an obvious yet overlooked fact: we now live in a world saturated with drones, yet most of us neither see nor feel their presence. By tracing their outlines on the ground, Bridle restores their materiality, anchoring them in physical space and rendering visible what usually remains unseen. This transformation of airspace is also documented by Shona Illingworth in Topologies of Air<\/a>, accompanied by a publication<\/a> of the same name. Drawing on long-term research, her projects interrogate the psychic and environmental effects of the military, industrial, and corporate reshaping of the sky. Drone warfare is part of this global reconfiguration, enabled by the continuous refinement of surveillance technologies and intelligence systems. In this sense, the work of Paolo Cirio<\/a> and other whistleblower-artists resonates strongly with these issues: it is through data capture and control infrastructures that so-called \u201cprecision\u201d drone strikes become possible. <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\n Other technological narratives are likewise dismantled by artists who point to the gradual normalization of these weapons in everyday life. The robots developed by Boston Dynamics<\/a>\u2014originally funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for military purposes\u2014are emblematic. Frequently showcased at major tech events such as the CES<\/a> 2025, they are presented as the pinnacle of a desirable future, despite their military lineage. In 2021, the New York\u2013based collective MSCHF<\/a> staged Spot\u2019s Rampage<\/a>, inviting participants to remotely control a robot equipped with a paintball gun. Through this participatory setup, internet users could steer the machine, fire shots, and transform a gallery into a field of ruins. The satirical gesture was not appreciated by the company: buyout attempts, legal threats, and the remote deactivation of the robot followed. In response, MSCHF exhibited the \u201cmechanical corpse,<\/a>\u201d weighed down with as many weapons as it could carry\u2014a biting irony underscoring the device\u2019s primary purpose. Other international artists have revived this memory. In 2025 at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, Beeple presented Regular Animals:<\/a> robot dogs fitted with hyperrealistic heads of tech billionaires, explicitly linking the digital industry and the military-industrial complex. Japanese artist Takayuki Todo<\/a>, in Dynamics of a Dog on a Leas<\/a>h, staged a robotic dog poised to attack, restrained by a chain\u2014an image suggestive of a weapon held on a leash by state powers. More broadly, these works articulate a critique of the industrialization of conflict. With UAV Factory<\/a>, Alain Josseau stages Shahed 136 drones on conveyor belts simulating their assembly, destruction, and reconstruction\u2014a seemingly endless loop mirroring an interminable war. In Automatic War, exhibited at the Biennale Chroniques and the Scopitone Festival, the artist goes further by analyzing the media power attached to the military industry: \u201cIt\u2019s an installation that produces fake TV news broadcasts. All the images are AI-generated. The only real elements are the virtual journalists\u2019 speeches\u2014actual audio excerpts from war reports.\u201d <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n\nAnalyzing the Effects of Virtualized Conflict
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Capture-decran-2026-02-24-a-18.48.03-1800x970.png\")
The Drone Revolution
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/hacnumedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/159_21677868693cdf04f6fc7k.jpg\")
Critiquing the Military-Industrial Complex