Vicki Kerr Airspace – Zones of Fidelity and Failure Phd Art 2014
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Vicki Kerr Airspace – Zones of Fidelity and Failure Goldsmiths College, University of London PhD Art 2014 1 Declaration I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Signed Vicki Kerr 2 Acknowledgements Firstly I would like to thank Richard Noble for being such an excellent supervisor. I would also like to thank Nigel Clark for his endless support, encouragement and assistance with ideas along the way. A special thanks for the love and support I received from my families – my London family – my partner Renee and her children Julia and Michael and my New Zealand family – my mother Sonya, sister Michelle, brothers Mark, Myles and of course my Dad, who had he been alive, would have been proud of my achievement. For technical assistance and inspiration I would like to thank Ian Stonehouse, Tolga Saygin, David Ferrando Giraut, David Spragg, Kevin Ward and Tom Allen. Thank you to Andrea Phillips and John Chilver for believing in my project from the beginning. I would also like to express my appreciation for the generosity of spirit and the knowledge I received from my PhD colleagues during our journey together. Thank you to all my friends who have helped me to enjoy my time writing my thesis, especially Mary Weston who organised many evenings out to the most extraordinary art and music events. 3 Abstract Given our increasing reliance on air travel to function in all aspects of society, it seems imperative to expand our knowledge of airspace and the social relations that air travel enhances and makes possible. My thesis offers a critical analysis of the technical safety systems that support air travel. It finds fissures in the rationality that underlines our belief in the safety and sustainability of air travel and leaves open the question of whether our confidence in this system can be sustained only by the claim that it is inherently rational. According to anthropologists Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, one of the defining characteristics of technological systems that achieve the cultural status of ‘infrastructure’, is that they ‘become visible upon breakdown’. (Bowker and Star 2000, 335) Two real world events - a commercial airliner’s (Air New Zealand 901) collision with an Antarctic volcano, killing 257 people in 1979 and the closure of European airspace due to the presence of volcanic ash (eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland in 2010) expose the fragility of the infrastructural systems supporting air travel. As conditions of exceptionality, these events pose a challenge to aspects of our spatial imaginary, allowing us to understand the contradictory interdependence of trust and risk. Working across media, using video, sound, object making and print, my practice is concerned with the ‘breaking down’ of space. My work reflects my increasing interest in the precariousness of empirically grounded monolithic systems that aspire towards comprehensive totality and stability through their own set of formal logics and structural parameters. 4 Contents Figures and List of works referred to ............................................................. 6 List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................ 7 Chapter One…………………………………………………….............................. 9 1a. Art Practice in the Context of Mobilities Research ......................................... 30 Chapter Two .................................................................................................... 40 2a. Management of airspace ..................................................................................... 55 Chapter Three ................................................................................................. 74 3a. How the volcanic ash cloud event unfolded ........................................................ 76 Chapter Four ................................................................................................. 108 4a. Chippendale Report .......................................................................................... 112 4b. Mahon Report ................................................................................................... 114 4c. Human and Technology Interface ..................................................................... 130 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 142 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 148 5 Figures Figure 2.1 Annotated electronic flight strips. .................................................... 59 Figure 3.1 Extent of Iceland volcano ash cloud.. ............................................. 77 Figure 3.2 Tail section of TE901 bearing Air New Zealand’s logo (Koru) ...... 107 Figure 4.1 TE 901 crash site - Mt Erebus (digital print). ................................ 119 Figure 4.2 TE901 flight path .......................................................................... 123 Figure 4.3 Antarctic Experience Video (still image) ....................................... 138 List of works referred to the Antarctic experience installation (2011) ………………….www.vickikerr.co.uk Heathrow Director (2013)……………………………………….www.vickikerr.co.uk Swanwick (2013………………………………………………….www.vickikerr.co.uk Luft (2014) .............................................................................www.vickikerr.co.uk Descent 111 (2014)…………………………………………….. www.vickikerr.co.uk 6 List of Abbreviations ANSP Air Navigation Service Provider ATC Air Traffic Control ATM Air Traffic Management CAA Civil Aviation Authority CAD Civil Aviation Division CDA Continuous Descent Approach CEATS Central European Air Traffic Services CFMU Central Flow Management Unit CIA Central Intelligence Agency CVFR Controlled Visual Flight Rules CVR Cockpit Voice Recorder DFDR Digital Flight Data Recorder EU European Union FUA Flexible Use of Airspace GPS Global Positioning Systems GPWS Ground Proximity Warning System HACANClearskies Heathrow Airport Campaign Group ICAO International Civil Aviation Organisation iFACTS Interim Future Area Control Tools MAC Centre McMurdo Air Traffic Control (Antarctica) MET Meteorological (Office) NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NATS National Air Traffic Services NOTAM Notice to Airmen 7 NZALPA New Zealand Pilots Association NZDT New Zealand Daylight Time PR-NAV Precision Navigation RVSM Reduced Vertical Separation Minima SES Single European Sky SSE Stop Stansted Expansion TACAN Tactical Air Navigation System TCAS Traffic Alert and Collision System Avoidance System VAAC Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre – MET Office VFR Visual Flight Rules VHF Very High Frequency (range of radio frequency) VMC Visual Meteorological Conditions 8 Chapter One Introduction Up there in air-space, in that soft, imperceptible field which had been made possible by the century and which, thereafter, made the century possible, becoming one of its defining locations, the place of movement and of war, the planet-shrinker and power-vacuum, most insecure and transitory of zones, illusory, discontinuous, metamorphic, - because when you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible. (Rushdie 1988,5) The rise of a culture of air travel means more of us live greater proportions of our lives in airspaces (between airports, aircraft, flight paths and the social worlds they connect. (Cwerner et al. 2009,4) While the air transportation of people has created a more attenuated relationship with place that expands our spatial imaginary, aviation has also revolutionised the mobility of information, goods, cultural artifacts, letters and much more. (Cwerner et al. 2009,10) Redefining the scale of human geography by reducing the cost of distance in time and money, air travel continues to grow so long as current environmental, safety and security concerns are managed satisfactorily. The aviation industry consists of a well-developed material infrastructure, specifically designed to facilitate rapid and efficient transport of people, goods and data. This infrastructure consists of airports, planes, air traffic control, air routes, information technology systems, data networks and so on. Given our increasing reliance on air travel to function in all aspects of society, it seems imperative to expand our knowledge of airspace and the social relations that air travel enhances and make possible. I trained as an Air Traffic Controller and so have first hand knowledge of how one very important part of the air travel system works. My thesis offers a critical analysis of the technical systems that support air travel. It finds fissures in the rationality that underlines our belief in 9 the safety and sustainability of air travel and leaves open the question of whether our confidence in this system can be sustained only by the claim that it is inherently rational. The word ‘infrastructure’ originated in military parlance, referring to fixed facilities such as air bases. (Edwards 2003,186) Today it has become a slippery term, often used to mean the basic structures (e.g. buildings, banking/finance, roads, transportation, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or organisation. It is essentially any important, widely shared, human-constructed resource. According to anthropologists Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, one of the defining characteristics of technological systems that achieve the cultural status of ‘infrastructure’, is that they ‘become visible upon breakdown’. (Bowker and Star 2000,335) We tend