Technicities of Deception: Dazzle Camouflage, Avant-Gardes and Sensory Augmentation in the First World War

Abstract

This essay identifies a new form of technicity that emerged in the First World War, in which enhancement and distortion effects generated by sensory augmentation technologies could be manipulated for strategic purposes by a variety of cultural agents. It argues that dazzle camouflage, a technology developed by the British Admiralty in 1917 to delay and confuse attacking U-boats, exemplifies this mediation of everyday life both on and off the battle fronts. Focusing on the London Vorticists, but also drawing on Futurist precedents, the essay explores how avant-gardes articulated the impact that technicities of augmentation had on modern selfhood.