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How the surge in aerial technologies, such as drones and satellites, influences visual culture beyond the screen.
The smooth flight from aerial overview to intimate close-up in Martin Scorsese’s< Hugo< (2011) exemplifies the concept of proxistant vision: a combination of proximity and distance, close-up and overview, detail, and the big picture in a unified visual form. In
Pointing to the surge in aerial imaging and remote sensing technologies such as drones and satellites, the book moves beyond the screen to include the kinetic architecture of rides and urban observation wheels. The key objective of this study is threefold: to trace the genealogy and understand the technical operation of proxistance as it traveled from periphery to center in the twenty-first century; to explore its alternative potentialities in contemporary art practices; and finally, to reflect critically on the worldviews underpinning different modalities of proxistance in times of environmental crisis. The authors show how the powerful effect of combining proximity and distance, which was already in place with the earliest cartographic inscriptions, has taken precedence on and beyond our screens today.
List of contents
Introduction: A Paradigm of Flight between Proximity and Distance
The Aerial View In Motion
New Forms of Vertical Mediation
Super Cinema, Drone Cinema, and the New Verticality
Cartographic Cinema
Digital Geography
Vision And Visuality
Situating The Field
Methods and Chapters
Three Strata of Proxistance
1. The Wheel Before the Reel
The Great Chicago Wheel
Turning the Wheel of Wonder
2. London (Eye) Calling
The Proxistant Vision of London
3. Ferriscope (1893-2020)
4. First Person View (FPV) Dronematography
Drone Ethics
The Stars of FPV
Volumetric Territory
The 3D Model Flythrough
5. A Bird’s-Eye View Establishing Shot
6. Venetie 1111100110 (1500-2022)
Ranieri’s Proxistant Vision
Digital Venetie
Prologue (Pale Blue Dot)
7. Proxistant Earth Models
Latour on Powers of Ten
Google Earth
Cinematic and Cartographic Scales
8. Zoom Blue Dot (1990-2020)
Diagrammatic Proxistance
The Scale Consciousness of Aerial Art
In the Space of the Zoom Blue Dot
9. Afterthoughts on the Anthropocene
