Abstract
The sky above has been transformed into militarized airspace and, as technologies of war and surveillance invisibly peer down from the sky, some artists have responded by interrogating these technologies and the airborne view itself. To co-opt the surveillance apparatus or to turn the airborne platform against itself is to reclaim a vantage point in the name of a public’s right to see and know what is taking place over-head and in its name. Working in video and photography predominantly, the two artists who are discussed, Robert Del Tredici and Trevor Paglen, measure and map the scale of militarism while conducting raids on nuclear and military secrecy. Their work addresses militarism from above—that is to say, from the vantage point of the airborne view.
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Fitzpatrick, B. (2018). From Above: Critical Distance, Aerial Views, and Counter-Images. In: Cammaer, G., Fitzpatrick, B., Lessard, B. (eds) Critical Distance in Documentary Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96767-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96767-7_7
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