By Matt Criswell
Construction will begin March 16 on a life-size replica of a military drone, an art project on campus that aims to display lives lost in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles.
Media artist Joseph DeLappe is the creator of the endeavor, titled “The Drone Project: A Participatory Memorial.” The piece will be located on the west lawn of the Conley Art Building and will be created with the help of students and volunteers.
DeLappe is looking for volunteers to help in a few different ways: cutting, organizing and assembling pieces of the sculpture.
The planned finish date for the project is March 29, and the installation will be a semi-permanent structure until May 31.
The piece will be a 3D model of a drone and will be an interpretation of DeLappe’s own personal style of rendering objects with a distinctive geometric surface.
The piece will be a sculpture made out of yellow corrugated plastic. After the sculpture is completed, the names of 300 civilians killed by drones will be read aloud and inscribed into the sculpture as an act of remembrance.
DeLappe is a fairly new media artist and art professor at the University of Reno, Nevada. He is also the director of the university’s digital media program. He has been experimenting in new media art since 1983.
DeLappe has had other art installations featured nationally and internationally. In The 1,000 Drones Project, he folded origami and infiltrated army gaming systems in the name of fallen soldiers.
Some of DeLappe’s previous work is on display at the Fresno Art Museum through April 27.
In a Center of Creativity and the Arts newsletter, DeLappe said that making the drone and writing the names of those killed will allow participants to actualize the loss of lives due to drone attacks.
DeLappe will give a talk at 4 p.m. Friday, March 28, with a reception following the event. Dr. Adán Ãvalos, the artistic director of The Drone Project, is hoping to have many people volunteer to help with the construction of this sculpture.
For more information on The Drone Project, visit the CCA website, and to get involved email Ãvalos at the [email protected].