Touched from Below: On Drones, Screens and Navigation

This article examines Josh Begley's “Metadata+” mobile media app, as it interactively engages users while illuminating landscapes of drone warfare employed during the Obama administration. The app was designed to alert users to U.S drone strikes, culling together publicly available data from journalistic sources. Though initially rejected by iTunes for its controversial content, the app was ultimately surreptitiously maneuvered by Begley through the iTunes censor. Unlike modes of witnessing that rely on visually indexical documentary images, Metadata+ employs cartographic logics and narrative descriptors. This article explores the significance of these two facets of the app as they disrupt quotidian life through the iPhone by reimagining user interaction with aerial perspectives on a mobile device and by employing short-form stories to narrate drone strikes as push notifications.