EXTENSION
Inside an airplane, the field of vision is extended as the viewer becomes immersed in a vast space with multiple perspectives. László Moholy-Nagy referred to "a more complete space experience." Like fellow Hungarian Andor Weininger, he looked for ways to transcribe the effects of simultaneity into innovative stage designs. In a similar vein, the artist Herbert Bayer revolutionised the conventions of display by occupying gallery space from floor to ceiling. Members of the De Stijl group, led by Theo van Doesburg, did away with the fixed vanishing point and developed an expanding architecture that was rooted in axonometric drawing.

DETACHMENT
In the mid-1920s, László Moholy-Nagy laid the groundwork for a new aesthetic that would influence modernist photography throughout Europe. At the heart of this New Vision, which champions unexpected vantage points such as the high-angle view, lies a complex perception of the world. Sense of scale disappears, blurring the distinction between near and far; the world seen from above appears to recede from view. The act of seeing becomes a constructive process. As in Brecht's theory of distanciation, the spectator becomes aware of his power to determine perspective. Inspired by the energy and weightlessness of the modern age, photographers captured urban scenes - bridges, squares, railway lines - from high up, while introducing a dreamlike, even fantasy quality to their images.

DOMINATION
The thrill and excitement of seeing the world from above procures a sense of power. Such an elevated view is ideally suited to the synchronised choreographies for which, in 1927, the German intellectual Siegfried Kracauer coined the notion of "mass ornament" with explicit reference to the aerial view. Set parallel to the rise of totalitarian ideologies, this domineering vision was adopted both by futurism's Aeropittura (aeropainting) and by Nazi propaganda films. At the same time, aerial views inspired Le Corbusier for his city plans for Rio de Janeiro and Algiers, both radical transformations of the existing landscape. In the United States, airborne photography and in particular that of Margaret Bourke- White became an effective tool for promoting an image of American supremacy in the pages of newly-launched magazines such as LIFE, which debuted in 1936.

GALERIE 1

TOPOGRAPHY
As civil aviation developed after the war, airborne views of the landscape below became a rich source of inspiration for artists, particularly in the United States. Jackson Pollock's drippings were a first tipping point, following which maps provided a new model for abstract painting of the 1950s and 1960s. Since the 1920s, aerial archaeology had revealed sites which at ground-level remained hidden from view. It later provided a reference for land artists who, from the late 1960s, took art out into the open. They too made use of elevated perspectives when documenting their often fleeting interventions on the vast scale of nature. The same overhead view enabled architects and urban planners, such as Michel Desvigne or Frei Otto, to place their constructions within the perspective of their surroundings.

URBANISATION
While the dynamic of the vertical city dominated the pre-war urban vision, come the 1960s the sprawling yet fragmented urban fabric which, like Los Angeles, was dissolving into a disembodied means of travelling from point A to point B had begun to intrigue artists such as Ed Ruscha. Their work sidestepped the visual codes of the - sublime yet fictional – synthesist representation of the modern city, instead inviting a more critical reading of the aerial approach. German photographer Wolfgang Tilmans leaves us to contemplate the now commonplace view from an airplane window. The view from above was also a means of revealing the inadequacies of urban modernisation and showing where the collective utopia had gone wrong, from high-density city centres to row upon row of identical housing.

SUPERVISION
Building on advances in space technology, surveillance is now the main application for aerial imagery. Modern military operations rely heavily on an automated, deindividualised power, illustrated by the recurrent use of drones. This panoptic supervision extends to the civilian world too, in the proliferation of city-centre CCTV but also through the launch, in 2005, of a readily available resource such as Google Earth which has inspired contemporary artists. On another level, aerial photography is a means of monitoring the planet's health and, for many contemporary photographers, a way to alert the population to environmental threats. Some, such as France's Yann Arthus-Bertrand, exploit the visual impact of these images; others such as the American Alex MacLean explore their capacity to reveal the landscape's underlying mechanisms.