“Evoking tools of non-diplomatic relations, Asif Mian’s installation, “Nothingness & Specter” investigates the technological limits of thermal infrared cameras used in drone targeting. Plastic bags from local Queens businesses are fused together to form multi-patterned polypropylene smocks, which hang on steel stands like wispy scarecrows. Nearby, oscillating fans circulate hot and cool air, as ghostly figures appear and disappear on a closed circuit monitor fed by a thermal camera. This use of cameras associated with drones reminds viewers of the United States’ forever wars abroad, opening a searing critique of the domestic surveillance of Queens’s diverse population, by staging this elaborate decoy diverting state violence.
