Talk And Exhibit Focus On Images Of Warfare

By Laura Fitzgerald

Miami University journalism student

Contemporary artists strive to make seen what is unseen in the age of drone warfare according to Miami University's Ann Dell'Aria

She says that in dealing with images of terror, some artists tend to mirror the grotesqueness of the act, distorting the art to mirror the inhumanity of terror. They do this in a variety of ways -- including through the taking of photographs to the creation of interactive installations.

Dell’Aria is an assistant professor of art at Miami. She recently delivered the talk, “Picturing Contemporary Warfare: Art in the Age of the Drone,” at Miami's Art Museum.

Drones are unseen to the person who is attacked by them, although they fly on blue sky days. So, Dell'Aria says some artists work to make the invisible drone visible.

Dell’Aria used the example of Trevor Paglen, who takes photographs with very high-powered lens to help people see what is a tiny dot in the sky.

Dell’Aria says others artists work to recreate the fear and tension some feel, knowing that there are machines watching you in the sky. This, she says, can help create empathy in the West for people who live with drone warfare in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It’s to imagine what it would be like to have the specter of violence hovering above you in your everyday life. It makes you quite uncomfortable,” Dell’Aria says.

Others turn the surveillance state of the drone on itself, highlighting the distance of that separates the acts of the drone and the human that controls it. Dell’Aria referenced the large portrait of a child’s face in Pakistan, a work titled #NotaBugSplat, by JR, a reference to civilians killed when a drone hits a target.

“If you think of that person as a bug splat, you think of that person as not a person,” Dell’Aria says. “It [the artwork] does not only reveal the drone’s presence, it speaks to the human on the other end of the drone.”

Dell’Aria says other interactive projects that include real veterans make real the experiences of veterans by representing their stories that are usually hidden to society.

“Some of the ways in which artists are engaging with veterans actually has more to do with the veterans wanting to self-express and wanting the veterans to speak their own truth,” Dell’Aria says.

Freshman Alyssa Martin attended the talk because Dell’Aria is her favorite professor. She says the topic of the talk also resonates with her because she has two grandfathers and three uncles that are veterans.

Martin says Dell’Aria presented multiple perspectives well, and pulled together a variety of artists that tackle a difficult topic.

“She tackled a very difficult and controversial topic and she approached it in a very unbiased way,” Martin says. “She presented all these artists that are making this known.”

Dell'Aria's talk compliments the current exhibition at the art Museum: “Over Here, Over Here! U.S. Propaganda and the Artwork of WWI.” It features posters, movies, and music from WWI that were used to persuade Americans to join and support the war.

James Shaiman, curator of exhibition, says the art of WWI was highly idealized, with romantic notions of going to war, while imagery of contemporary warfare is more immediate because of photography.

“It [WWI artwork] was a very romanticized version of what war was about. It’s not that way anymore because of modern technology, because of technology and film, real-life experiences are being played out right in front of our eyes,” Shaiman says.

He says there's little room for idealization of war when photographers can capture images of what is going on and post it on the internet.

Shaiman says the exhibit was created to honor the 100year anniversary of April 6, 1917, the day the US declared way on Germany and entered the Great War, or what would later be known as WWI.

The Art History capstone class had the opportunity to create their own works of art featuring their reflections on war for the exhibit. (We've covered this story here at Patch. You can read about it here.)

Patti Ann Cossel has three pieces of art in the show: “Wholesome Family Television,” “Gas Attack,” and “Cluny’s Triumph.”

She wanted to explore the consequences of technologies relating to war.

One of her pictures depicts an anonymous soldier in a gas mask with marks layered over it, mimicking the boils that a soldier experienced from a gas attack. She also exhibited wood prints of Americans watching television, showing how television depictions of the Vietnam war shattered America’s innocence.

“I tried to find one that had a positive impact and one that had a negative impact but I found that it wasn't that simple, these technologies weren't black and white,” Cossel says. “I learned war is a world of grays.”

The Art Museum's WWI exhibits run through early May.

Photo: Assistant professor of art history Ann Dell'Aria explains the ways artists are working to make the realities of drone warfare visible to the public. -- Photo by Laura Fitzgerald