Re-engeneering and Re-enactment
of a stealthboat as shown in a Tamil Tiger propaganda video footage. The Tamil Tiger video
footage was found on internet sites of private analysts of clandestine
weapon systems.
The boat is patrolling river banks. The crew
is captured in heroic poses, thus creating a rather theatrical appearance.
The
origins of the 'stealth'boats are the subject of much debates, some analysts
believe the design and construction to be indigenous to Sri Lanka. The
Tamil population are by tradition expert boat builders. Furthermore the
Sea Tigers have utilised speedboats as weapons over the past few years.
The frame on the front of the boat could be described as holding spikes
that fasten the boat to its target once they have collided. A further
indication that the boats were not originally designed for military missions
are cut-away parts of one boat's cockpit that were found lying on the
jungle floor. First seen in a video-footage captured from a Tamil Tiger
cameraman before he had time to destroy the evidence.
"Be
Prepared! Tiger!" is a project by KR in collaboration with Peter Sandbichler
and was first presented in the harbour of Duisburg in April 2006 during
the exhibition "Designing the Truth".
Central to the project is the re-enactment of a stealth boat as depicted
in a propaganda video of the Tamil Tigers, the rebel Tamil liberation army.
The boat seems to be a formal adaption of the US stealth bomber F117,
a myth of invisibility and invincibility. KR and Sandbichler gathered information
inside different networks and through private contacts in order to re-engineer
and rebuild the boat.
It appeared to be unmanned,
although navigated in the harbour environment by a person hidden inside
the boat.
The
Tiger Stealth Boat is opening up a space of technological and
symbolical transcodings. The Tamil appropriation of technology
and symbolic power relies on their equivalents in the US. In
the opposite way the symbolic quality of US stealth technology
is 'infected' by the Tamil video. Even if it was visible the
boat would hardly be decodable; yet it activates the clandestine
dimensions of urban space. A further layer is added to this
scenario by a website through which the stealth boat is offered
up for sale. It is thus fed back into a commercial public context
where its technical invisibility becomes a good that must be
shown. What seems paradoxical is only consequential, both in
the logic of the Tamil Tigers who show off their camouflage
vehicle, and in he logic of the online shop that sells the stealth
boat.
Equipped with a silent
electrical engine, it stayed invisible for a radar station positioned on
the river bank.
credit:
rainer schlautmann
"Bei der "optischen Signatur"
von Militärflugzeugen bleiben die Kondensstreifen, wie sie in mittleren
Flughöhen bislang unvermeidlich sind, ein Ärgernis. Instabilitäten in der
mittleren Atmosphäre führen dazu, dass sich Wasserdampf an von den Düsentriebwerken
ausgestoßenen Russpartikeln kondensiert und so die charakteristischen Dünnwolkenspuren
am Himmel erzeugt. Eben wegen dieses unvermeidbaren Effektes wurde das erste
Stealthflugzeug, Lockheeds Aufklärer F-117, lediglich nachts, in nicht mondhellen
Nächten, über Europa eingesetzt." unknown
German expert in Signature Technolgies
