For an archaeology of drones.
Round table around the last issue of the magazine Transbordeur. Photographie histoire société (Macula) with Angela Lampe (curator at MNAM), Anne-Katrin Weber (University of Basel, coordinator of the dossier), Pauline Chasseray-Peraldi (Sorbonne University), Linda Garcia d'Ornano (Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), Christian Joschke (Beaux-Arts de Paris, co-editor in chief of Transbordeur)
The history of aerial views is linked to the development of aerial means of locomotion which, since the 18th century, have produced new fixed and mobile points of view on the earth. From the first hot-air balloons to contemporary drones, aerial vision devices generate an iconography at the crossroads of military, scientific and artistic experimentation that has long nourished popular culture.
Issue 6 of the journal Transbordeur revisits this history of the view from above, shedding light on its political and epistemological dimensions. In this perspective, Transbordeur privileges the notion of "vertical image" to the more generic one of aerial view. This notion allows not only to refer to a specific spatial arrangement, but also to underline the relations of power that support and model it. At the same time representation and materialization of colonial and imperialist domination relationships or of police and military surveillance policies, the vertical image is the producer of a knowledge that forges these relationships and makes them possible. Conversely, in an activist or citizen approach, it can provide evidence to expose and denounce the violence and illegality of aggressions committed by state and institutional actors.
Penser le présent is realized with the support of Société Générale.
