VIGIPIRATE (French: Plan Vigipirate) is France's national security alert system. Created in 1978 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, it has been updated three times: in 1995 (following a terror bombing campaign), in 2000, and in 2004 (Source: Wikipedia).
Vigipirate Quadcopter Drone
The Vigipirate Quadcopter Drone project (VQD) builds on Miyö Van Stenis’s career-long engagement with art as an act of resistance and preservation. As a Venezuelan political refugee, her work reflects her lived experience under surveillance and state oppression. The initial iterations of Vigipirate emerged as a response to the harassment she faced before moving to France, creating a mobile archive for preserving personal and professional information in the event of persecution.
This project resonates with historical and contemporary explorations of power and technology in art. Works like Trevor Paglen and Dani Ploeger investigations into surveillance influence Van Stenis’s focus on participatory and technologically mediated experiences. By situating the drone within a framework of governance, terrorism, and resistance, the project continues a lineage of artists who critique state and corporate power structures through technological innovation.
The VQD: The Artist is in Danger! interrogates the ethical and political implications of surveillance technologies, drawing on Michel Foucault’s panopticism and Gilles Deleuze’s control societies. It positions the drone as both a protective tool and a symbol of militarized technology.
While Levels I and II (The First Drone Prototype and Search && Crawler), Levels III and IV stages expand the project’s scope, focusing on resistance and autonomy. Level III emphasizes secure storage of personal and professional data, protecting against erasure. Level IV advances this concept, enabling autonomous responses to danger via GPS-guided missions controlled by SMS.
This scarlet level prompts audiences to confront drones’ dual nature: as tools for safety and instruments of oppression. By contrasting applications in Europe, where surveillance is framed as protective, and Latin America, where it often targets dissent, the project critiques surveillance’s impact on freedoms.
The project seeks to critique the pervasive nature of surveillance while empowering those at risk of persecution. As a Venezuelan artist in exile, Miyö Van Stenis uses this project to preserve her identity and work in a climate of state censorship and harassment. Beyond its personal motivation, the VQD highlights broader societal tensions around surveillance, particularly its capacity to both protect and oppress. Through participatory engagement, the project invites the public to reflect on the ethics of AI-driven governance and the ways technology amplifies or resists authoritarianism as well the project is a guide, a cookbook to be replicated by others in case of war or imminent danger.
White: No danger
Yellow: Vague threat / raise vigilance
Orange: Possible threat / prevent terrorist action
Red: High chance of threat / prevent serious attack
Scarlet: Definite threat / prevent major attack
The small drone prototype presented in this project represents the second level of security on the plan Vigipirate. The small object was modified to contain an encrypted SD card with a collection of my artistic work, information, passwords, audio conversations, images, and other data I collected while working for the Venezuelan Government between 2011-2013. According to Venezuelan law, any action against the government can be considered an act of “terrorism” or “treason.” However, outside their jurisdiction, I protect my work and content.
Since 2014, this algorithm has been designed to collect images and videos from the web related to the Venezuelan political situation in real time. Powered by a Python Google search script and fed by different search engines, this database holds information based on selected sources, metadata, and hashtags published in mainstream media. This script seeks reliable information on the major crisis tearing the country apart, acknowledging that numerous fake news stories are regularly broadcast. see the project @ Web Residencies by Solitude ZKM
This level defines drone protocols, scripts, and hardware modifications. The red level corresponds to the Quadcopter Drone F14892-B, in which all the information gleaned is archived in dependable wireless storage protected within the drone.
The scarlet level, the last and most severe, involves an order designed for the PIC (pilot in command) to control the drone via SMS. If the artist feels in danger, they will command the drone to take off. The drone is equipped with a Flysky FS-i6 transmitter and a GPS APM 2.8, receiving waypoints via SMS text message. It completes the “mission” without any user intervention. Mission waypoints are defined by the drone, which processes data during flight and communicates with an app (Android) on the phone used as the “ground station” (powered by ADRpy - Aircraft Design Recipes in Python, CASCADE project public code) to send the final location coordinates.