The View From Above

Caren Kaplan
Women and Gender Studies
UC Davis

This project focuses on the intersection of two important aspects of modern culture, war and art, to explore the ways a newly realized social imaginary—the view from above–shaped relationships between people and places. Histories of aviation and modern war, especially those that focus on air power, often concentrate on European locations as do histories of early photography, cinema and landscape art. Looking at images of Iraq and Afghanistan produced through official and unofficial means during a 90 year period of geopolitical conflict offers new perspectives on these established histories. This approach also helps us to understand how views from above in particular, by training our eyes to see terrain in certain ways, shape modern ideas about the targets of war.