What happens when the enemy is transformed into a computer-generated avatar?

How is the emphatic capability in a person influenced by the task of bombing a target from a safe, air-conditioned office on the other side of the globe?

Virtual Iraq is the name of a virtual reality platform specifically developed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Within a method known as immersion therapy, this platform is used to help soldiers overcoming memories by evoking them. By virtually recreating specific traumatic situations in a controlled environment, therapists aim to help soldiers familiarise themselves with the nature of their traumatic experiences. This, we could say, is a simulation of memories. Simulation technology was developed by the military, then it was taken over by the gaming industry, and now it is going back to its initial creators.

Sluggish materialism gave way to broadband idealism—Colossal corporations pipelining all sorts of things via regulated networks of highly efficient data transfer. This Utopia is neither about stamina nor grit—High-speed capitalism melts solids and, in the bargain, time. Fiber-Optic-Future-Forward: Time has changed.

After Scarcity is a sci-fi essay film that tracks Soviet cyberneticians (1950s – 1980s) in their attempt to build a fully-automated planned economy. If history at its best is a blueprint for science-fiction, revisiting contingent histories of economic technology might enable an access to the future. Vindicating this other internet, the lecture presents the economic application of socialist cybernetic experiments as extra-ordinary to financial arrangements and imaginations of our time.

http://www.baharnoorizadeh.com/after-scarcity

https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/triple-chaser

With computer programming and more traditional documentary techniques, the 11-minute film by Forensic Architecture — an independent research collaborative based at Goldsmiths, University of London — outlines in unsparing detail the harm done by tear gas and bullets manufactured by companies backed by Whitney board member Warren Kanders.
Forensic Architecture began a project to train ‘computer vision’ classifiers to detect Safariland tear gas canisters among the millions of images shared online.

As part of its presentation at this year’s Whitney Biennial, curated by Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley, Forensic Architecture provided a printed map detailing Safariland’s presence around the world. On the guide, Forensic Architecture says that it has “found evidence of tear gas manufactured by Safariland being used against civilians in fourteen countries, including six states or territories of the United States.” These locations include Bahrain, Canada, Egypt, Guyana, Greece, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico (US), Tunisia, Turkey, United States, Venezuela, and Yemen.