Presented as part of Positions on Freedom at the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt and realized through The Thing Fellowship, an initiative of The Thing Magazine, this video installation was a featured work of World Design Capital Frankfurt RheinMain 2026, developed in close partnership with USM Modular Furniture and Fondation USM.
War looks like a game. That's the problem.
The work translates real UAV drone footage into a colorful, pixelated LED display, the same kind of interface an operator uses to direct a strike. The aesthetic is instantly familiar: clean grids, abstract shapes, flattened symbols. A screen logic that turns a living target into a data point, and a devastating act into something that feels like interaction design.
The hardware is exposed. The structure is visible. Embedded within USM's modular grid, the installation mirrors the cold, calculated logic of the systems it critiques, spatial and medial at once. The result refuses comfort. The game-like aesthetics of modern drone warfare aren't incidental. They are a design choice. One with consequences that never appear on screen.
Photo credited: the thing Agency & Ilayda Dağlı
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