Topologies of Air and the Airspace Tribunal: Shona Illingworth and Anthony Downey

Can we deploy creative practices to critically address the fatal interlocking of global surveillance technologies,
neo-colonial expansionism, environmental degradation and the lethal threat of drone warfare? Throughout the following conversation, Shona Illingworth and Anthony Downey examine these and other questions in relation to the recent publication of Topologies of Air (Sternberg Press and The Power Plant,
2022). Edited by Downey, the book includes discussion and documentation of two major bodies of work
by Illingworth, including Topologies of Air (2021) and Lesions in the Landscape (2015), alongside
an extended series of essays that analyse the psychological and environmental impact of military, industrial
and corporate transformations of airspace and outer space. Employing interdisciplinary research and
collaborative processes, Illingworth’s practice, as detailed in the discussion below, uses creative methodologies
to visualize and interrogate this proliferating exploitation of airspace. The conversation between
Illingworth and Downey also outlines the work of the Airspace Tribunal, an ongoing series of public hearings
that brings together diverse disciplines, methodologies, knowledge and lived experiences to propose a
new human right that will counter the colonization of the sky and, in time, protect individuals, communities
and ecologies from ever-increasing threats from above.