As Above, So Below

Missile tests are rarely just about testing missiles. More precisely, the tests we are allowed to see are rarely only about the missiles themselves. Because military secrets remain hidden, the equipment shown on nightly news is designed to project power. These are orchestrated images — visual propaganda of force and status — from the mushroom clouds of the 1950s to contemporary ICBM tests broadcast by North Korea, Russia and the United States.

The images in As Above, So Below are divided into two categories, separated by altitude, time period and methodology.

Above, there are skyscapes; clouds of shimmering colors. Video stills of missile tests, extracted from newsreels, governmental propaganda or amateur YouTube footage. But in these images, only the moment after the fiery launch is left, where only the trace of the missile remains floating in the air. A cloud.

Below, there are craters: massive holes scarring the earth. These come from satellite imagery of the Nevada Test Site, sixty-five miles from Las Vegas, where more nuclear bombs have been detonated than anywhere else on earth. Sixty years later, the land retains the wounds: hundreds of bullet holes visible from the sky, each one the vestige of a nuclear bomb.

These images are overblown, pixelated remnants of our military arsenal. Traces left in the atmosphere, traces left in the soil. Images of the sky taken from cameras on the ground below. Images of the earth captured by satellites above. The images are abstract representations of power, but also their aesthetic contradictions. After all the apocalyptic fire, only clouds and dirt are left behind.

As above, so below.