The White Falcon - 22.10.2003, Side 5

Forces Squadron and her husband Tech.
Sgt. Douglas Isaacks of the 56th Rescue
Squadron, joined other military families
here in welcoming a pair of documentary
filmmakers into their lives for one day, in
support of an art exhibition pertaining to
the air station.
The exhibit, simply entitled BASE is cur-
rently on display at The Living Art
Museum in downtown Reykjavik.
Filmmakers, Erik Pauser and Sigurthor
Hallbrjornsson (or Spessi as he is referred
to by his peers in the Icelandic art scene)
spent the last week of Sept, and the first of
Oct. collecting video, still images and
sounds around NASKEF for their project.
“I started with documentary work in the
80’s; I love going to a place, seeing the
people, and how they live and trying to
share that,” said Pauser, a Swedish citizen.
“I’ve been to Iceland several times and to
me the base felt like America not Iceland;
(Left) Producers Spessi and Erik Pauser pose at the BASE exhibit’s opening night.
(Photo by J02(SW/AW) Mat Sohl) (Above) Spessi videos Latina Isaacks assisting her
son Christian with his math homework.(P/;oto by J02 Travis Eisele)
it reminded me of America on a moon
landscape.”
It’s been nearly a year since the duo con-
jured up the idea for the BASE. The pro-
ject’s festive opening was held Saturday,
Oct. 18.
“We decided to do a show together after
he (Pauser) came up here last February,”
said Spessi. “We took a tour of the base
and decided that we would center our next
project around it.”
On the opening night of the exhibit, sev-
eral Icelanders, along with people from the
932nd hits the mark in Aiming Fist
By Senior Airman Jordana Jordan
While protecting the sovereign airspace
of Iceland, the 932nd Air Control
Squadron’s “Loki Warriors” made time to
participate in an annual multinational
exercise involving 16 North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) countries.
The overall objective of this year’s
Exercise Aiming Fist was to test the
NATO Integrated Air Defense Systems in
realistic crisis and conflict training sce-
narios.
Preparation for this seven-hour exer-
cise started 30 days prior with intelli-
gence updates and five smaller scale
exercises.
The exercise was guided by computer
software produced by the NATO
Programming Centre in Glons, Belgium;
the Air Surveillance and Control System
at Bentley Priory, United Kingdom; the
E-3A Component at Geilenkichen,
Germany; and NAS Keflavik’s own
Iceland Software Support Facility. The
932nd’s radar screens were fed simulated
aircraft flights by NATO Air Defense
Ground Environment sites and the NATO
Airborne Early Warning & Control Force
mission simulator.
Three crews, consisting of an air sur-
veillance technician, two surveillance
technicians, two weapons directors, a
senior director, and a mission crew com-
mander and their technicians, rotated
140-minute watches “on scope”. In
addition to the Loki Crews, there were
search-and-rescue, fighter pilot, and air-
refueling assets.
The air surveillance technician super-
vised his or her section, ensuring that the
surveillance technicians identified all
contacts approximately two minutes after
entering the Military Aircraft
Identification Zone. The primary pur-
pose of the surveillance technicians was
to ensure that each simulated contact cor-
responded with a known, pre-approved
flight plan or with directives from the
-------------------- Loki, pg. 12
NASKEF community, were on hand to see
what the two had come up with.
“Although the base has been here for a
very long time, few people in Iceland seem
to have an understanding of what life is
like on the base,” said Pauser. “We used a
variety of images and sound to help give
the people a look into this world.”
The exhibit featured four large screens,
continually showing uncut footage of
interviews and action shots collected by
the duo during their two-week film shoot
at NASKEF. Overhead speakers played a
variety of different audio tracks also col-
lected at the base.
“It [the base] is a calm place, but at the
same time there is a strong military culture
present,” said Pauser.
It was that military culture that intrigued
both Pauser and Spessi to showcase daily
life on the base.
“Military culture is different, structured
and very interesting to witness to those
who aren’t a part of it,” said Pauser “It’s a
specific culture with its own codes, dress,
and behavior. I find it very interesting.”
While the BASE exhibit gave many
Icelanders a chance to see what daily life is
like here at NASKEF, the exhibit gave
many of the museum’s military audience
the opportunity to see how their Icelandic
neighbors perceive their lives on base.
“I thought it was neat to see their out-
look on life at the base,” said Latina
Isaacks. “They showed several different
views from all over base.”
The base exhibit will be on display at
The Living Art Museum until Nov. 16,
2003. For more information on the base
exhibit or museum itself visit:
http://www.nylo.is, or call 354 551 43 50.
October 22, 2003
The White Falcon
Page 5