Drones, Cinema, and Protest in Thailand

Abstract

The drone is defined within the duality of indifference and depersonalization, but also elevates a specific technology of seeing above fluid expressions of collectivity. This chapter addresses the drone as a mechanical device and figurative analogy of clarification that helped to organize ideological divisions into an objective narrative of the 2014 military coup d’état in Thailand. To critique these droned hierarchies, I draw upon Jacques Rancière’s conception of the ‘politics of aesthetics’ to address independent Thai cinema as a regime of ‘fictionality’ where the personalization of protest returns. The fictionality of Prapat Jiwarangsan and Danaya Chulphuthipong, two Thai film-makers, reconfigures the field of protest by extending its duration into an expanded realism of post-coup oppression and resistance.