Remote-Controlled Terrorist Coffin: Adam Kalkin & Aaron Ray-Crichton

Research Background Adam Kalkin is an internationally acclaimed US artist whose work crosses the boundaries of art and architecture and whose work has appeared in major art venues across America and Europe including Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008), Venice Biennale (2007) & public commission Kalkin House at the Shelburne Museum, VT. The exhibition Remote Controlled Terrorist Coffin featured a new work by Kalkin in collaboration with engineer Aaron-Ray Crichton. The RCTC was a coffin fitted with a range of both conventional and unconventional weapons sourced from the consumer market, including a spy drone, surface to air missiles, a large bore mortar cannon, truth gas dispersion unit, attack helicopter squadron, cyber coercion technology and an innovative bio-pestilence feature. The coffin was accompanied by an instructional video for its potential use. Alongside the exhibition, a dynamic public program opened up a space to carefully and critically explore this terrain through discussion, dialogue and debate with academics, designers, artists and the public. Research Contribution The RCTC raised important questions about the role of design in the emergence of military technologies, big data, surveillance, privacy, freedom of movement in public space, regulation of technology, terrorism and the potential risks posed by the social "outsider" with access to the internet. It also traces a line from games to warfare in consumer society. RCTC provided a platform for public debate about urgent issues of contemporary social, political and cultural significance. The exhibition and public program enabled collaboration and the generation of new knowledge across the disciplines of design, engineering, art, architecture and social policy leading to a number of potential future research publications. Video and audio from the eight events of the public program were published online and archived in the RMIT library. (cont. on research coversheet)