Ben Frost Embeds on U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier in Persian Gulf to Score Documentary "Bombing Isis"
Ben Frost was part of a team of artists who were granted access to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. aircraft carrier that operates in the Persian Gulf and fights Islamic State militants. Along with Richard Mosse and Trevor Tweeten, Frost was embedded as part of the news team for Britain’s Channel 4 News.
The result of their experience is the mini-documentary “Bombing ISIS: On Board a US Floating Fortress”, directed and produced by Mosse, with Tweeten doing the cinematography and Frost providing the score. Watch it below.
In a joint statement on Channel 4′s website, Frost, Mosse, and Tweeten discussed the project:
Activities aboard an active, forward deployed aircraft carrier are, of course, absolutely newsworthy. But, as artists, we were also very impressed by the sublime physical forces that were active on deck: the tremendous deafening metal machine noise, the very dangerous heat (up to 65 Celsius), the somatic, body-shaking vibration, the violent crashing and furious catapulting of multi-million dollar aircraft loaded with deadly ordinance.
Yet the crew working in this ferocious environment remain perfectly calm, signalling to each other with coded gestures like actors in an absurdist theatre play.
The ship’s crew were thoroughly genial and kind towards us, which seemed oddly incongruous with their task of fixing deadly payloads to enormous killing machines. There was even a sense of tenderness with which they serviced this vicious apparatus, cleaning salty residue from every exposed surface, carefully wheeling missiles, thoroughly inspecting the deck for loose debris, hauling chains.
This is the triumph of modern warfare, casting a veil over individual ethical culpability, concealing bloody hands with lily-white gloves.
Read the whole statement here.
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