Martyn Barber

A Spectacular History of Survey by Flying Machine

The origins of archaeological methods are often surprising, revealing unexpected connections between science, art and entertainment. This paper explores aerial survey, a visual method commonly represented as distancing or objective. We show how aerial survey’s visualising practices embody subjective notions of vision emerging throughout the nineteenth century. Aerial survey smashes linear perspective, fragments time-space, and places radical doubt at the root of claims to truth. Its techniques involve hallucination, and its affinities are with stop-motion photography and cinema. Exposing the juvenile dementia of aerial survey’s infancy releases practitioners and critics from the impulse to defend or demolish its ‘enlightenment’ credentials.

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

Abstract Aerial imagery is everywhere these days, but before World War I, the aerial view had been experienced by a tiny minority of individuals. Focusing on airborne adventures from Lunardis first flight over British soil in 1784 to the Royal Flying Corps, this article uncovers the variety within aerial viewing. Aerial views are sometimes understood as inherently map-like and surveilliant, as if the airborne viewer always saw in a certain way. However, early balloonists and their passengers describe a London whose aspects could be revealed or disguised, elevated or debased, by different kinds of viewing.

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In the mid-nineteenth century the American West was still largely unsettled and the West Coast was not yet part of the nation but the Hudson River Valley was becoming an iconic American landscape, depicted in literature and art, and imbued with a history that was building the self-awareness of the new nation. Yet its natural landscape was already threatened by industrialisation and the intensive farming required to serve growing markets and trade; lumbering and quarrying were affecting the ecology and scarring the landscape. By the early twentieth century the Hudson River itself was already heavily polluted. In this beautifully presented book Schuyler explores the role of those who helped to build an appreciation of the natural beauty and its historical significance into the American psyche. In 1823, James Fenimore Cooper described the beauty of Kaaterskill Falls in the Catskills as evidence of ‘the hand of God . . . in the wilderness’ and others saw Nature as ‘the source of America’s distinctiveness as a culture’, a landscape far ‘older than all the institutions of European civilization’ (pp. 9-10), with this area a ‘special place’ with its own emerging folklore, hallowed by its association with history and especially its role in the struggle for American independence. Tourism began to thrive but the comments of travellers reveal the tensions of the age, some preferring the domestication of a ‘tamed’ nature or the potential for material progress. This led to impassioned pleas, by Washington Irving and Thomas Cole among others, for an appreciation of the natural picturesque landscape. Tourism is shown to have had a profound impact on the development of nineteenthcentury American culture. In similar vein, the author examines the role of artists and writers. Amongst the former, Cole pursued his fight against the needless destruction of nature, especially in his beloved Catskills (his 1826 painting of the Falls of Kaarterskill is reproduced here), and the lack of attachment to place. A number of writers have been closely identified with the river and its environs, particularly Irving and Nathaniel Parker Willis, the latter bringing the Native Americans back into the scene. Another influence in the region was A. J. Downing, nurseryman and landscape designer, who championed various revival styles in building and a more natural style in landscape gardens. Despite his short life (he was tragically killed in 1852 at the age of only thirty-six with the burning of the Hudson River steamboat Henry Clay), he articulated the idea that the ‘Hudson Valley landscape was the example the rest of the nation should follow’ (p. 91), thereby contributing to the recognition of the Hudson as America’s river. With the passing of so many influential people, the midcentury ushered in a period of great change and uncertainly which even threatened the United States as a nation. Cultural upheaval was mounting with disputes over slavery and over the future of the new territories acquired as a result if the war with Mexico, record-high immigration, the rapid growth of cities (especially New York), the realities of industrialisation (including the growth of steampowered industry), and the transport revolution (railroads and the Delaware and Hudson Canal): ‘change was accelerating, spiralling beyond most residents’ ability to comprehend’ (p 94). But plans for the preservation of sites and buildings of historical significance were being put in place, not least Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh. A celebration of the landscape may have been a critical component in American national identity but the concept of Manifest Destiny saw a United States which was to reach the Pacific Ocean. Jervis McIntee did not fit comfortably into this school of thought, a landscape painter who remained inspired by the natural grace and beauty of his native Catskills but who had to face an influx of foreign paintings and a cataclysmic shift in the art world as it abandoned the ascendancy of the Hudson River. The conflict in part abated with the work of the naturalist John Burroughs, a close friend of John Muir. He lived at a time when the Hudson was descecrated by ice harvesting (for food preservation) and brick making (to feed the demands of urban growth), a period of enormous social, cultural and technological change, but he helped Americans to ‘see the natural world in a new light, to appreciate birds and wildflowers and the simple beauties of nature close at hand’ (p. 133). The twentieth century remained a period of conflict, between commerce versus conservation, public good pitted against private gain, but it