Effected by Overview
William L. Fox. Aereality: Essays on the World from above. Berkeley: Counterpoint : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2009. $27 (hardcover).
Frank White. The Overview Effect. Space Exploration And Human Evolution. Second Edition, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 1998. $46.97 (hardcover).
Is the wonder for space synonymous with our concern for the ground? A recurring theme in the discussion about Earth imagery is at what point in time humanity became aware that our place in life was situated in a vast ocean of emptiness, of stars and the second law of thermodynamics. I will begin this discussion with two popular scientific books that have stirred some enjoyment and provocation. Whereas Fox (2009) Aereality thinks of aerial imagery as being hardwired into human conscience since time immemorial, White (1998) stress this ‘revelation’ to be an accidental aspect 20th century space exploration, coined as The Overview Effect. My main question have been: How are we effected by Overview? Is the aerial conception of Earth pre-modern or a recent serendipity?
White’s description of the Overview Effect (OE) is based on interviews with astronauts on changes in human perception of worldview from viewing Earth from space, only to find we are already in space. What makes it critical is because this experience is made public by satellites and imagery.
For documentary: http://vimeo.com/55073825
After taking note of this phenomena, primarily based on American male astronauts, White ends up in descriptions of how OE will evolve social order towards greater unity and environmental awareness. If reading his work emphatically, there is merit in White’s argument that worldviews depend on physical positions of the viewer.
How then will unmanned systems, satellites, make OE exert a consistent force on society? And of these, what is the role of Remote Sensing for informing macro-scale views on Earth and its resources. But as this effect is symbolic, for example viewing Whole Earth Symbol, and is to communicate environmental awareness on a “unconscious level”, for which no additional evidence is presented by White, the effects of overview remain opaque. This is one of the few times one would recommend watching the movie before reading the book, and maybe look elsewhere altogether for understanding the potentially revolutionary impacts of earth imagery. To conclude, this book is more about the ‘overview affect’ rather than its effect.
IKONOS satellite imagery, Manhattan New York 11 September, 2001.
Fox too discusses overview, on land and landscapes, and for the purpose coins the aerial view of reality as ‘aerality’. It has similarities with ‘fundamental’, of the Latin fund (ground) and mens (in mind), which also underlines that aereality is a grounded view. For example, aerial imagery have been prevalent in extreme, arid, landscapes were reference points are few and the brain struggles to create place. Humans are not only born with a Chomskian language acquisition device, but also a Mapping Acquisition Device (MAD) – evolved before we could learn to manipulate the aerial imagery itself. This is exemplified in children’s play, miniaturising areas into patterns of place. Aerial views are not works of individual genius but a widespread human ability across many cultures. This is a provocative langauge as it claims aereality to be natural.
What is this “place” that humans have sought to make sense of? It is the space toward which one gazes, the vision colonizing it for a purpose. But the point from which one is viewing events can become a place, changing airspace into airplace, and this establishes relationship between the ground (standpoint) and the brain. Although the urge for overview has been particularly proliferating in European empire-building, aereality is more deeply rooted in human cognition and survival skills.
For this reason, ‘art’ is effective in engaging viewers into the land, making the known more mysterious and entices further attention and time. Fox argues that this is a survival skill and explains linkages with military practices like mapping, but also the reason why artists, for example Leonardo da Vinci, often have been in hired in the service of authorities.
Fox’ argument runs counter to explanations of this view arising from a technoscientific complex, although the permeation into modern culture has been greatly bolstered by the advent of commercial air in 1950s. News and traffic images used it for clarification and contextualisation, while the practice as a whole was bolstered by the increasing flow of people West-East and goods North-South.
So if our culture at present is aerial, what can be learned from studying aereality as being a natural condition for many human cultures? Are the aesthetics of imagery more interesting than the algorithms underlying their assembly? How might different media of aereality relate, photography, art, maps? Aerial imagery is frequently used in visual culture and is becoming increasingly easy to assemble and reconstruct.
Both the modern development of aerial imagery and the unexpected reception of overview are thought-provoking for common themes in Science and Technology Studies. One important concept is the immutable mobiles, of facts and artefacts being mobilised as allies in agonistic struggles over knowledge claims (Latour, 1987). In most cultural production, altitude is a symbol for knowledge and power, of the effects by actors involved in the scientific and industrial revolution. But what if the immutable mobiles change into being ‘mutable’? If the meaning of satellite imagery for urban planning or ecosystem assessment can be mobilised differently by producers and end-users alike, who then has the power over these images? Also, if earth imagery carry new meanings for human society, who can be said to recognise this serendipity and maintain any hopes of retaining the rights of interpreting it?
To a large degree, these are different questions, but they may all the same be about man, measurement and power, and the fact that it takes power to lift persons into the air, though the end-result may mistake effort for gain. For once up there, having attained overview, nothing in our reading so far suggests that this experience is any closer to ‘environmental awareness’ than one who is grounded in the arid landscapes from whence a need for aereality first sprung.
References
Fox, William L. Aereality: Essays on the World from above. Berkeley: Counterpoint : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2009.
Latour, Bruno. Science in action. How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press, 1987.
White, Frank. The Overview Effect. Space Exploration And Human Evolution. Second Edition, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 1998.
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