From the blue planet as seen from space, to the projected flight paths on in-flight screens, the view from above is usually taken as objective, dispassionate. In this illuminating exchange, artists Henrietta Williams and Paul Kolling discuss the strategic ways in which such views are constructed and exploited.
HENRIETTA WILLIAMS Paul, I wish I could have seen your film Nadir at the show in Munich, it looks unbelievable. Well done.
PAUL KOLLING Thank you. It's very hard to talk about the work because people have such a strong idea of what a film is — but it's not a film: it's one image which is depicted in a different way.
HW I'm really interested to talk about that specifically, as a mode of practice. I'm writing about it at the moment and I've stopped using the term ‘film’ to describe my work for that reason, because I think people expect a linear trajectory with a narrative. So instead, I started using the term spatial essay. When I was looking at the installation shots of your work, I felt that it fit into this mode of operation that I've been writing about in terms of my work and the work of others.
FEDERICA SOFIA ZAMBELETTI / KOOZ Thank you both so much for making the time to talk today. I would like to start by getting into the way that both of your practices engage with aero-photogrammetry and the mechanisms of surveillance it entails. What brought you to explore this distinct perspective?
PK As an artist, I'm interested in the construction of space and the human perception of space. This interest started back in 2019–2020, when I made an artwork which looked at transnational trade routes — specifically between Europe and China — and the politics embedded in these. At a very banal level, I was confronted with the impossibility of depicting these huge spatialities in an exhibition gallery. So I got really interested in the depiction of higher dimensional structures in lower dimensions. That is the general problem which can be solved by a projection algorithm, for example, where you want to depict a three-dimensional sphere on a two dimensional map. In my practice I often appropriate and use technology, which means I write a lot of code to really understand the implications of the tools. This also led me to develop my own (simple) projection algorithms to represent the geographic spaces I'm discussing in the exhibition.
"As an artist, I'm interested in the construction of space and the human perception of space. This interest started back in 2019–2020, when I made an artwork which looked at transnational trade routes and the politics embedded in these."
- Paul Kolling
Years ago, basically by accident, I stumbled upon early photogrammetric camera systems and machines; I found one, Oskar Messter’s ‘Reihenbildner’, which was basically a mechanical analogy of the code I wrote before. This got me interested in the history of image taking, image rectification and all this early aerial photography, but also photogrammetry — using the photographic medium as a system of measurement. I looked specifically at German inventors and companies; and that history cannot be told or understood without the history of cinema, without the history of war and politically motivated surveillance technology. The early development of cinema technology cannot be understood without motivation to implement new forms of power structures and so on.
HW It's really interesting; I think Paul has got to the same place as me, but from approaching it from the opposite side. My current work is looking at the aerial viewpoint over London, over Belfast, and over Iraq. My interest is in how power relations operate within the city, earlier projects focused on the security and surveillance of urban space — specifically in London but also connecting this to a shared colonial history with Northern Ireland. Having lived in Ireland for a number of years, I started to work in Northern Ireland in my 20s — in Belfast, particularly. I became very interested in understanding how the British Army and British planning systems had redesigned the city, to make Belfast into a space that could be surveilled, secured and controlled. When I then moved back to London, I found that something similar had happened, specifically around the City of London.
"My interest is in how power relations operate within the city, earlier projects focused on the security and surveillance of urban space — specifically in London but also connecting this to a shared colonial history with Northern Ireland."
- Henrietta Williams
There had been a bombing campaign in the 1990s by the IRA in the City of London and as a result, a large CCTV and vehicle number plate recognition system had been installed around the City. I did a lot of work around this system — which is called the Ring of Steel. During that time, I became hyper-aware that London has been designed, through the ages, with military systems or control at the core, from the mediaeval walled city, through to this contemporary surveillance system - the Ring of Steel. In the next stage of that work, I started to look at the idea of aerial surveillance over London: most of that work is taking place within the framework of a PhD that I'm now finally completing. The PhD has led me to some of the ideas that Paul was talking about initially: specific ways of seeing that you can achieve through aerial technologies. I think we've ended up at the same point, which is about ways of seeing and power and how these might operate, but we look have approached them from opposite sides.
Film still from 'Notes on Aerial Photography', Henrietta Williams (extract from Notes on Aerial Photography Part II - 1918, RAF Archive)
KOOZ So how has this aerial perspective been exploited as a tool of suppression and destruction? Could you expand on that in regard to the contexts of both London and Belfast?
HW What I found in my research on London is that it is incredibly important to look at how these systems have operated in colonial space, you can then see this replicated in the homeland. Alongside looking at Northern Ireland, I've been tracing how Iraq has been used as a testing site for some of these ways of seeing. I'm most interested in the ways of seeing — rather than the specific hardware and software. This has brought me to a fascinating document called Notes of Aerial Photography, which I found in a number of British military archives. This document is a kind of primer that was developed as the very first teaching tool for the pilots of the Royal Air Force, right when the RAF is forming at the end of World War I. It was published in 1918, specifically for use over Mesopotamia (now Iraq).
In Mesopotamia, the British had a very specific way of ruling: they employed a policy called ‘aerial policing’ that was designed by Winston Churchill, who was Minister of Air at the time. ‘Aerial policing’ allowed for the control of colonial space with very few ground troops using a system of aerial surveillance and bombing as an alternative. The document demonstrates the volume of aerial photographs being made to document the spaces below. For the first time, there's this enforced occupation of a country happening entirely from an aerial position. Many of the techniques that were developed in Mesopotamia, as a basic technological form, are ways of seeing that have been replicated through the ages. I’ve traced these through a short film called Notes on Aerial Photography.
"The aerial viewpoint is embedded in this colonial way of seeing. I have found that this perspective is very present now, in the way that we continue to see these spaces through binaries and systems of othering."
- Henrietta Williams
The aerial viewpoint is embedded in this colonial way of seeing. I have found that this perspective is very present now, in the way that we continue to see these spaces through binaries and systems of othering. In Northern Ireland, you may get an update in terms of the hardware and software — but this way of seeing remains the same. I guess the core argument that I'm pursuing at the moment is that the police helicopters that we have over London are again replicating these kinds of colonial ways of seeing, upon the civilian space below. I’ve explored this through a spatial essay - a visual and sonic installation - called Testing Ground.
PKFollowing up on this, one could argue that these techniques were not exploited as tools of suppression, but rather developed as such in the first place. The techniques and what comes with this viewpoint — like the self-entitlement of land claims and land ownership — can only be understood in terms of defining space and absolute units of measurement and ownership systems. For me, it was fascinating to watch your artwork, also titled Notes of Aerial Photography; this didactic book that you found on the view from above, is basically the very same book which I found published by a German company, which has laid the foundation for the research of my exhibition at Kunstverein Munich. The book intended to teach a broader public to understand the view from above — a instruction that we find very alienating to read nowadays, as the top-down perspective is so ubiquitous that no one needs an explanation to understand it.
"The techniques and what comes with this viewpoint — like the self-entitlement of land claims and land ownership — can only be understood in terms of defining space and absolute units of measurement and ownership systems."
- Paul Kolling
For me, finding this book was very important because it marks this emblematic moment of, on the one hand, appropriating the last missing perspective or axis. On the other hand, it is embedded in the motive of these absolutely militaristic perspectives. In this logic, you must teach the general public to become a Wehrmacht pilot in the upcoming war. I'm very concerned about the point where progressive technological development gets merged with a very regressive motivation.
HW I'm so interested to see that booklet, which you referenced and sent through: what date is that, Paul?
PK Let me try to explain the context. The Hansa Luftbild GmbH is the company who published the booklet, Luftbild-Lesebuch. Originally there were a number of aerial photography companies in Germany; they were all organised in the Photogrammetrische Gesellschaft, the German Photogrammetric Association. Starting from the beginning of the 20th century, these firms had been releasing aerial photography, and issuing a series of publications. This essentially served as a medium for propaganda or advertising to promote the use of photogrammetric systems, which were somewhat on the fringe at the time. Land surveyors viewed the technology with scepticism, dismissing it as an odd, fleeting innovation. In response, a channel of propaganda was developed through these publications, which elucidated the technology and discussed new research advancements and developments.
Then, when the National Socialists came to power, they closed down all the separate companies and put them all under the umbrella of Hansa Luftbild GmbH in order to have better control over this new industry. The Hansa Luftbild GmbH was under the direct control of the Reich Ministry of Aviation. In 1934, after they came to power, they commissioned Hansa Luftbild GmbH to produce this textbook for the non-military public. This was the first attempt to achieve a social learning process of reading aerial photographs. Through your work, I learned that Notes on Aerial Photography was a classified military document. In contrast, the Luftbild Lesebuch was really made specifically for a broad audience; tens of thousands of copies were printed, plus additional reprints. It was very successful.
Film still from 'Notes on Aerial Photography', Henrietta Williams (extract from Notes on Aerial Photography Part II - 1918, RAF archive)
HW One of the other things that I found, that is maybe not in the material that you've looked at Paul, was this kind of cache of surveillance materials that were made over London in the run up to the Second World War. What's interesting about the German National Socialist Party is that they were way more advanced than the RAF at the time; there's this sort of catch-up during the war period. I found this Luftwaffe training film from 1934 in the Imperial War Museum film archive, it’s called ‘London und Themsegebeit’. The training film was made 5 years before World War II started and shows how the Germans had built a scale model of the Thames estuary, this was then filmed with an aerial rostrum camera, moving over it at the same pace that a plane would fly. This scale model is a kind of guide of how to find London from the white cliffs of Dover, all the way to the city centre. It’s interesting that the very first time that London is ever documented in this way from above, is as a tool for its destruction. It’s during these extreme moments of conflict, such as World War II, when this connection between the aerial viewpoint and destruction becomes completely inextricably linked.
PK I don't know if you know of it but Oscar Messter, who developed a lot of cinema, technology and cameras in the early 20th century, designed this horrible artefact of the time — a kind of a machine gun camera mounted on an aeroplane, used to train pilots. Every time the pilot would pull the trigger to shoot with this gun, rather than shooting a bullet, it would capture one photo on 35mm film with a crosshair in the section, so that you could afterwards develop the film and see if you hit your target. This really brings together the act of image taking and the destruction of the subject of the image, basically making them one.
KOOZ It's quite interesting that, on the one hand, the British used such documentation for military purposes, whilst for the German National Socialist regime, it was used as a tool for public propaganda. What do you think was the benefit of engaging the public with this perspective?
PK It's important to note that there's about 20 years between these two documents, and the development of certain technologies often begins in secret. Then, in order to have a real impact, it has to break out of that confinement. What I read was that the reason the Nazi government demanded that this booklet be printed and distributed to the public was to prepare citizens, who were also seen as potential subjects for future military training. I think that's what makes it so interesting to me, because of course, if you look at it on a very abstract level, it's a moment of social learning that has something inherently progressive about it. But it is driven by a military and regressive motivation. So I think this uncanny point of connection, where we can't really separate these two different trajectories, is very interesting for me to unpack in my work.
HW There's always this time-lag between these documents being made for military or police use, and then being accessible to people outside of those organisations. As far as I'm aware, I'm the first researcher to look at this material that the British Army gathered over Northern Ireland, these materials have been made into training mechanisms for soldiers. It seems that I was the person that requested this material to be digitised from the Imperial War Museum collection.
The Imperial War Museum has a wider digitisation project which is gradually combing through this huge trove of material that the British Army placed there. As it's from the 1970s to the 1990s, the archives are spread across loads of different formats: it's not like the World War II archive, which is almost entirely in paper and on film; whether that's a photographic film, or 8mm or 16mm moving image. Even so, it's all analog, right? So it's actually quite easy to see what's in there.
With this material from Northern Ireland, however — and at this time of image making — there are so many digital formats that it's just a big chaos. All you can do to find out about the material before you request for it to be digitised (which takes 6 months +) is to look at a couple of fragments on the archive stub. I was requesting about 50 different documents and materials, but only a handful of them actually held things that were of use to my research. I would say these documents are always being made inside police and military organisations, but obviously there is a time lag between them being made and then being released to the general public and academic researchers.
"The form of these spatial essays allows for research to be experienced as haptic and phenomenological, bringing a different understanding of the original materials I’m working with."
- Henrietta Williams
KOOZ So how have different ways of archiving information informed the way that you approach the research? Has that had an effect on the work?
HW Sure, it touches on what I was saying at the very beginning — on this idea of developing ‘spatial essays’ as a way of conveying the research. I see myself as an artist and researcher; I came to this form of research from art school, which means I was always visually trained — but I've always written a lot. This idea I have around using the spatial essay is to find a way of developing a research method that acts as a container for the different formats and materials that come to you whilst you’re researching, the materials guide the methodology.
I also see myself as an academic and I’m now based at Bartlett, an architectural institution. Rather than primarily writing academic articles, my main aim is to develop these spatial essays as a way of sharing the research. The form of these spatial essays allows for research to be experienced as haptic and phenomenological, bringing a different understanding of the original materials I’m working with. Through projections and other visual means, and through creating a sonic environment - I work closely with a sound artist Dr Merijn Royaards. Now we're starting to use vibrations as another way of experiencing the research. The hope is that the audience can respond to the materials in different ways. We are creating a space to allow archival objects to tell their own story — rather than taking these extraordinary materials and forcing them into a written format, which I think robs them of much of their importance.
"We are creating a space to allow archival objects to tell their own story — rather than taking these extraordinary materials and forcing them into a written format, which I think robs them of much of their importance."
- Henrietta Williams
KOOZ Paul, it was super interesting earlier when you talked about the problems associated with defining the work as a film.
PK Yeah, definitely. It's hard to talk about the exhibition without being there, because in photos and videos, it looks like a normal film or moving image projection — but I approach this very differently. What I tried to create is a new, artificially-constructed space after my own set of rules — I wanted to highlight that basically every depiction of space comes with its own embedded ideologies, embedded politics etc. So, to basically make this a little bit absurd, I created and wrote my own projection algorithm, which I then used to depict a region in the Alps. This is where a few of these aerial photographs were shot by the Hansa Luftbild GmbH, for the Luftbild-Lesebuch — that didactic little book about reading aerial photography.
"What I tried to create is a new, artificially-constructed space after my own set of rules — I wanted to highlight that basically every depiction of space comes with its own embedded ideologies and embedded politics."
- Paul Kolling
I reconstructed a flight path of this potential flight, and then rendered one seamless image as seen from above, composed from satellite images. I often have problems with using purely digital media because it always encrypts information; by using analogue materials, things like dimension and scale become tangible by the viewer. I like to go through a highly digital process to end up with images, which I then transpose on to analogue material like 35mm film. For this exhibition, the projection algorithm I developed transformed a curved, at times zigzag flight path — a very complex image — to a straightened line, which was then exposed in a special process on 35mm film, completely seamlessly. The result is a single image of 24-millimetre width (the image width on 35mm film) and 115 metre length which is welded together as a seamless loop. To project it, I modified an old film projector by removing the ‘Maltese cross’ mechanism and used it with a looper to hold all the film unrolled. The film is pulled constantly very slowly through the projector, thereby creating the illusion that the projected image is actually like a moving film as seen from above. The more time you spend with it, the more you stumble upon weird moments, which you have trouble understanding by looking at it. There's something really eerie about the optics, the shadows, the dimensions.... It's definitely a landscape in which the viewer can position themselves — but the inherent claims of a ‘truthful’ view from above starts to crumble when you understand the landscapes can’t be fully real. The image is shown on a rear projection screen and can be seen from both sides, so even if the image were real, only one side could be. It is also a seamless loop, with no end and no beginning. This in itself is a geometric impossibility. The whole aim of the exhibition is to confront the viewer with something he knows and understands, and then slowly deconstruct the certainty and security with which he locates himself in space. After a while it is clear that the projection doesn't really match your personal experience of how you move in space. Suddenly you start to wonder what else is wrong and what else is making false claims to truth. Using 35mm film here is also important to me because of its historical connotations. Film and cinema have been a tool of emancipation. But also a measure of oppression, surveillance and political power. So I think it again creates this point of convergence of two different characteristics of the same thing and probably the right material to touch on these topics.
"The whole aim of the exhibition is to confront the viewer with something he knows and understands, and then slowly deconstruct the certainty and security with which he locates himself in space."
- Paul Kolling
HW That's why I would love to have seen this work installed. I really hope I get the chance at some point because I just think it's so strong: this idea that you've made a tangible object that helps to reveal the inherent impossibility of truth within visual materials. It was really exciting to read that in the catalogue as an idea, because I guess that's what I'm trying to do at the moment so much through writing — to reveal the inherent impossibility of truth anyway, right? We're also aware that the notion of these scientifically-made visual objects fails us. Yet there are these persistent beliefs that exist: that a map is a real thing, or that an aerial photograph is a real thing. But of course they aren’t, they’ve all been developed through a whole series of human interventions - truth is made not found. Just to take that idea, but then to reveal it through this art installation object is really powerful.
PK Yeah, to some extent I'm amazed that this knowledge — that capturing images is essentially a form of distorting the truth about the subject — has been recognized for so long. Additionally, the issues with aerial photography introduce complications that persist even if one overlooks the political ideologies embedded in the technology. The truth as seen from above often diverges significantly from reality, yet the perspective remains compellingly believable as if it were immune to alteration. Nowadays, in the era of AI, there's a heightened scepticism regarding visual content, particularly concerning deepfakes and the like. Nonetheless, when the viewpoint shifts to a bird's-eye view, people are inclined to accept it as the undisputed truth.
"The truth as seen from above often diverges significantly from reality, yet the perspective remains compellingly believable as if it were immune to alteration."
- Paul Kolling
HW Yeah, and I guess what I have found by looking at these materials is that really, most of these images are kind of actually empty images, right? Some of the materials that I was particularly looking at whilst making the film Notes on Aerial Photography were the British satellite images used in The September Dossier — this was the document released by Tony Blair’s government to the public as the justification for the Iraq War. If you go back and look at these satellite images purporting to show Weapons of Mass Destruction, you can't see anything in them. They are just pixelated images of factories from a distance, right? When you have an image that is empty, you can fill it with meaning. There is nothing in those images, but then they are captioned. The image is then filled with meaning through the caption, and suddenly transformed into evidence. We actually still do this, it persists as a concept now. For example, with the work of Forensic Architecture: their attempts to subvert the systems effectively replicates them but using different political persuasions. I find that really fascinating — we are still so distant from formalising our distrust of this viewpoint, I think.
PK Yeah, absolutely. I literally thought of these images you were talking about, as I spoke earlier.
Film still from 'Notes on Aerial Photography', Henrietta Williams (extract from The September Dossier - 2002, Parliamentary Archives)
KOOZ The only way to gain agency is by continuously questioning the editor; at the end of the day, it's a question of editing, right? One may not be able to get to the truth, but at least we might understand the ways and reasons as to why things have been modified.
HW I think it's more about who's gathering; why are they gathering; who is served by the gathering? Even that is vital. For instance, why are certain places in the world the most aerially documented geographical spaces? All of those gathering systems are as important as the editing. I think we pay a lot of attention to the editing process these days, without thinking about who was served by the existence of those images in the first place. Iraq is still the most aerially documented land space in the world, just as in the 1990s, Derry in Northern Ireland was the most televised city in the world. So why those spaces specifically? When we set them within an understanding of how the rest of the world is documented, then it becomes self-evident Derry was surveilled through CCTV on such a scale because the British Army was there, right? Iraq is at the centre of natural resources that the world has needed in the 20th century and continues to need. So we've endlessly documented this particular geographical landmass, right from the photographs taken by the RAF over Mesopotamia in 1918 to the present day.
"Iraq is still the most aerially documented land space in the world, just as in the 1990s, Derry in Northern Ireland was the most televised city in the world. So why those spaces specifically?"
- Henrietta Williams
PK I would like to add something, a way of regaining agency that I personally believe very strongly in, which is gaining literacy in these technologies. I think one of the relatively few places where I feel a little bit optimistic about our present time is that there is actually a shift back to open source technologies, even from the private business sector, simply because they benefit from the shared knowledge of open source technology development. What this allows is that anyone with enough time and resources can access these knowledge systems and not just talk about them, but actually participate in them. I think Forensic Architecture is a brilliant example; they're using somewhat military-grade technologies and systems, but for a very different practice. I think we're going to get past the point where it really makes sense to limit knowledge because it's so ubiquitous; the big challenge is to keep it accessible to that broad mass of different knowledge pools. But yeah, I think it's a great opportunity for artists, for activists, for basically everybody to not only be affected by these developments and technologies, but to actually understand them on a very deep level by using them for their own actions and demands.
KOOZ Super, that's a fantastic way to end. It was really a pleasure listening to the both of you talk about your work.
HW It was so nice to chat.
Bios
Henrietta Williams is an artist/researcher exploring urbanist theories. Her work takes the form of moving image and photographic installations, writing, walking and performance. These methods are often used as ways to ask questions about how our cities are formed through conflict and how the security and surveillance of the built environment change our lived experience. Henri is a Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. She is a core tutor on the MA Situated Practice and tutors across a number of programs with a particular focus on critical film making methodologies. She is currently completing an LAHP funded PhD by Design, also at the Bartlett, making short films and moving image installations alongside a written thesis. Henri has exhibited work internationally including at the Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, the Mies van der Rohe Institute, the V&A, and the Architectural Association. She lives in South London with her partner and 3 young children.
Paul Kolling is an artist based in Berlin, and a founding member of terra0. His solo practice examines the social and spatial politics of infrastructure. In his work, Kolling conjures new perspectives and ways of reading the visual field, cultivating questions about the very nature of mediated perception. Often fusing analog and digital technologies, he works across film, video, installation, and sculpture to explore how particular perspectives and realms of possibility are foregrounded or obscured through the functioning of complex infrastructure. Kolling's work have been presented at the 58th Carnegie International, the 17th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia, Canadian Centre for Architecture Montreal, The Shed New York City, Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Weltmuseum Wien, Kunsthalle Zürich, Francisco Carolinum Linz, Chronus Art Center Shanghai, Furtherfield Gallery London, and Schinkel Pavillon Berlin among others.
Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and digital curator whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2015 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Parallel to her work at KoozArch, Federica is Architect at the architecture studio UNA and researcher at the non-profit agency for change UNLESS where she is project manager of the research "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.
