Welcome Introduction

• Matthias Wieser (MK)

Room: O.0.01 Stiftungssaal

Opening Keynote: The Sensorium of the Drone: Embodied Sensing and Communities

• Kathrin Maurer (University of Southern Denmark)

Room: O.0.01 Stiftungssaal Early drone scholarship was instrumental in framing debates around the technology’s emergence, often emphasizing the “scopic regime”—a militarized mode of hyper-visuality that enacts hierarchical power through vertical surveillance. While this regime remains central to understanding drone vision, this presentation expands the perceptual framework of the drone by introducing the sensorium: a synesthetic, multi-modal assemblage where human and machine sensing intertwine. This talk focuses specifically on the concept of “embodied sensing” as a non-scopic mode of drone sensing within the realm of amateur drone practices. It examines diverse expressions such as drone racing, drone-based performative artworks, “dronies” (drone selfies), and choreographed drone dances, while also engaging with the imaginaries of human-machine communities that emerge through these interactions. To contextualize these non-scopic forms of embodied sensing, media-historical perspectives of telepresence (panorama, telephonoscope) are discussed, offering alternative genealogies of aerial sensing.