Drone Racing Exhibition at de Sarthe Gallery Explores Speed and Technology

Andrew Luk and Samuel Swope collaborated on Ready\Set\Fulfill, an exhibition at de Sarthe gallery in Hong Kong from 13 March to 8 May 2021, featuring a full-fledged obstacle course for first-person-view drone racing. Experienced FPV pilots participated in races during the opening and select occasions, with their flights displayed on screens throughout the space. The show highlights humanity's obsession with acceleration, using technology to blur lines between human and machine. Works include As hangs the flexible light rope, referencing Antoni Gaudí's catenary curves and bee hive structures, and Inverted Fulfillment, a vinyl-cut recreation of Amazon's 2017 patent for drone-delivery fulfillment centers. Glass Curtain Dive, a video installation, streams drone footage down a glass skyscraper, alluding to Mies van der Rohe's architectural concepts and surveillance. Honeycomb Accelerator presents an LED-lit portal mimicking a digital beehive, with drones navigating reflective surfaces. The exhibition, developed over a year, explores the convergence of art, architecture, and digital technology, examining how environments shape psychology and behavior. It was first published in ArtReview's May 2021 issue.