Visualizing Exploration

This study aims to engage not just with the visuality of twentieth-century exploration, but with shrinking perceptions of the Earth’s vastness and wildness as technologies of visual reproduction and virtual access became more readily available. What was perfected over the course of the century was not just the visual capture and preservation of travel and exploration, but the production of the virtual traveler, making discoveries at a distance, witnessing and participating through a mechanized eye. As important as first-hand experiences of traversing the globe—and beyond—were, the virtual experience would effectively come to define, justify, and even validate the journey itself: as processes of discovery were captured, reproduced, stored, and repeatedly re-viewed for scientific, commercial, entertainment, and personal uses.