'One Immense Black Spot': Aerial Views of London 1784–1918

A Spectacular History of Survey by Flying Machine!

“…Flight offered a novel visual experience, but it is impossible to generalize about its effects. Although aerial vision is often assumed to be inherently panoptic, surveillant, voyeuristic and map-like, accounts produced by aeronauts throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggest it could be apprehended in many ways (Barber & Wickstead 2010). In fact, differences in balloon-age aerial observation broadly follow the transformations in visuality set out by Crary and others.…”

“…Hauser 2007;Wilkinson 2008). While some previous criticism seems to label all aerial viewing as panoptic and totalizing, there is now more understanding of the ambiguity and diversity within and between aerial visualizations: 'Adopting an aerial perspective has different consequences depending on the specificity of the medium and its experience' (Wilkinson 2008, 36; see also Barber & Wickstead 2010). The plurality of visual practices contained by aerial survey has hardly begun to be investigated.…”

“…But it is worth repeating here that the equivalence of maps and photographs is by no means straightforward. Aerial viewing is not innately map-like (Barber & Wickstead 2010). Unlike photographs, maps are symbolic, and they often involve time-consuming procedures for projection from ground-based survey data.…”

“…2) is marked. Rather than reproducing the aerial view as a totality, photography fragmented the flight into a sequence of instantaneous snapshots; a series of landmarks each captured, framed and described within a single photographic image (Barber & Wickstead 2010).…”

“…Commentators marvelled on the detail revealed by close scrutiny of photographs, detail not even apparent to the photo grapher. In aerial photography, this abundance of detail was particularly marked, balloon photographers being particularly drawn to urban areas where everything from the monumental to the minute could be captured in exquisite detail (Barber & Wickstead 2010). Rather like the panoramic view, aerial photography produced a reality that spilled out of the frame, its details beyond the grasp of the observer.…”