5000 Feet is the Best

Omer Fast is a video artist whose work blurs the distinction between reality and fiction. He was born in Israel and trained as an artist in the US before moving to Berlin, where he is now based. FastÂ’s 2011 work 5000 Feet is the Best is based on a series of interviews conducted with a former drone pilot in Las Vegas. The title refers to the optimum altitude at which a US Air Force drone can identify targets on the ground. The film weaves together footage of the interviews with a fictional restaging of the pilotÂ’s narrative. By incorporating aerial views of a suburban family car entering a warlike terrain the film brings the horror of drone strikes closer to home. The Towner Art Gallery has an important collection of landscape art. This includes a significant body of work by Eric Ravilious, an artist famous for the aerial landscapes he made during the war (he disappeared on a flight off the coast of Iceland in 1942). FastÂ’s 5000 Feet is the Best, acquired jointly with the Imperial War Museum, now makes an illuminating companion piece to these celebrated studies of landscape in wartime.