One of the points of departure for the exhibition was the photograph San Francisco Earthquake Ruins, captured by the inventor, photographer, and aviation designer George R. Lawrence in 1906, a few days after the famous earthquake devastated the city. Lawrence wasn’t the first to employ aerial photography for non-militarized use – Nadar (née Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) had already accomplished this in France in 1858. Nevertheless, Lawrence’s photo became iconic, among all else, because it symbolizes the era of “pre-modern civilian aerial photography,” which started with the invention of aerial photography and ended in 1909 when the French air force started taking aerial photographs on a regular basis,
building on the knowledge accumulated by pioneers of photography such as Nadar and Lawrence (Amad, 2012). From a civilian point of view, the photograph demonstrated the potential such a viewpoint has to provide local and practical information that may serve a community in a time of crisis, as well as the immediacy and effectiveness intrinsic to photographs of this kind. This photograph is presented alongside two photos of the camera built by Lawrence (or “Captive Airship” as he called it) and the train of kites that kept it suspended in the air for several hours.
These images underscore the innovative and creative use of technology typical of his works, an aspect shared by all the works in the exhibition

The aerial perspective remained a “state-controlled space” synonymous with monitoring, regulation, and control, throughout most of the 20th century, during which it was also harnessed towards the organization of the urban space. Only in the early 1980s, thanks to satellite technology, did artists and activists once again try to reclaim the view from above – this time as civilians who work in collaboration with other civilians towards civilian goals. The pioneers of this shift were without a doubt Ocean Earth, led by the artist Peter Fend. In the early 1980s, Fend joined a series of scientists specializing in satellite data analysis and activists who monitored geopolitical disaster areas around the globe in order to obtain satellite imagery. The group purchased the images from the satellite of EROS (Earth Resources Observation and Science)—a governmental entity which also provides commercial services. The group’s declared aim was to perform an independent analysis of disaster areas and sell their findings to leading media outlets in the United States. In fact, this was Fend’s way of fighting mainstream media from the inside: he wanted to sell stories that the military and the government were covering, and thus leave the
media no choice other than publish information that had a substantial journalistic value. Fend and his team exposed, inter alia, the continued leak of radioactive materials from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in 1986, information that the Soviets wished to keep hidden from the citizens and from the rest of the world. The group has also presented its independent research in a television program broadcasted on a local channel, and in various art venues. Exploring the link between art and information, with special attention to the role of abstract imagery in understanding raw data, Fend created a series of collages comprised of satellite images, drawings, photos, documents, and handwritten texts. These collages, created especially for the exhibition, offer utterly utopian – yet highly viable – solutions for crisis areas in the Middle East and throughout the world. In the spirit of 1970s Land Art, Fend put forward a series of “Earthworks” as solutions that incorporate ecology, politics, and diplomacy, while allowing us a glimpse into the politics underlying the development and display of his projects.

The Vanishing-Point (2014) is a poetic filmessay that explores how the existing visual language of digital mapping systems like Google Street View and Google Earth reshapes our spatial and temporal perception, as well as structures of narrative and representation. In the film, the artists Effi and Amir documented their relationship with an olive tree planted in the garden of the European Parliament in Brussels. The amalgam of video footage captured by the artists, the visual logic of digital mapping, and the use of a personal text, provides new insights into the alienating nature of the view from above, and allows the artists to appropriate it. The couple’s immigration experience, as well as the story behind the tree, puts the reflective and philosophical nature of The Vanishing Vanishing-Point in a local socio-political context.

While some of the projects in the exhibition are based mostly on images that were formally generated and distributed by the government or commercial parties, The Do-It-Yourself mapping workshops organized by researcher and activist Hagit Keysar (in collaboration with the Public Lab in Jerusalem) mark the opposite trend of independent creation, analysis, and distribution of aerial photographs, and the development of the The Civil View from Above (2011-ongoing). Keysar works with residents of Eastern and Western Jerusalem, both children and adults, in order to create aerial photos that enable them to map the surroundings in which they live. This independent mapping allows individuals to express their point of view on their habitat on the one hand, and circumvent the ban on collecting data where freedom of movement and access to information are obstructed (like the Silwan neighborhood) on the other hand. At the basis of these workshops and actions stands the toolbox for creating DIY aerial photos, developed by the Public Lab, an open community of technologists, researchers, activists, artists, and other practitioners who develop tools and methods for environmental, social, and political research (PublicLab. org). The toolbox is comprised of open hardware and DIY methods, using everyday materials like a kite, a balloon, rubber bands, or a plastic bottle. Web-based software (mapknitter.org) allows users to “knit” the images into a map, and superimpose the map with layers of information so that it will best serve its makers.
This practice produces autonomous local geographical knowledge and helps expose the spatial power relations that shape the lives of the people in the photographs. At the same time, it also reintroduces people to aerial photography by giving them control over the manufacturing of the image, its interpretation, and usage.

The collaborative dimension of gathering and disseminating information, which characterizes other works in the exhibition, reoccurs in the project Drone Survival Guide (2013-ongoing) by the graphic designer Ruben Pater. The guide, which draws on the aesthetics and cataloging methods used in bird guides, is presented in the form of a poster, and was created in response to the intensive military use of drones for surveillance and combat. Based on an extensive research conducted by Pater, the guide/poster presents the various types of drones in common use today, indicating their country of origin and designation. The reverse side of the poster lists different tactics for evading drones, one of which is using reflective materials, like the special paper on which the guide itself was printed, effectively turning it from a means for transmitting knowledge into a functional object. Pater encourages people from all over the world to send him translations of the guide in their local language, making all the guides available online for home printing (www.dronesurvivalguide.org). For the local version of Decolonized Skies the artist produced a guide in Hebrew and Arabic, featuring drones manufactured in Israel or used in the Middle East. The Drone Survival Guide in its different versions is aimed at raising awareness of the role drones play in the global reality, and at the same time reflect, literally and metaphorically, the ability of both civilian and non-civilians to act in the face of the technological changes that shape their lives.

In the project Targeted Killing (2010) the artist Miki Kratsman adopts the visuality generated by cameras installed on drones, and applies it to the human point of view. Kratsman installed on his camera lenses of the type used by the Israeli military forces in surveillance and combat UAVs. Through these lenses he captures everyday life in the Palestinian villages surrounding Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus. The “objectiveness” typical of the military aerial perspective, which removes the human from it and thus legitimizes violence, is revealed as an optical matter.
The mere appearance within a frame mediated by these lenses, suggests Kratsman, renders those who appear in it suspect, regardless of their actions or the context in which the photos were taken. The immediate suspicion and hostility rely, among other things, on the collective Israeli memory that identifies the language of the image with that of military documentation of “targeted killing,” meaning, as an image that sanctions execution without a trial. Kratsman’s decision to take photographs from Mount Scopus, a vantage point from an Israeli military perspective with a long history of wars, but also the home of the art school Bezalel, charges the appropriation of the view from above with additional layers that link state sanctioned violent practices with image generating practices.