122
L. Le Dû-Blayo
Underwater exploration has been fantasized about since time immemorial. More
than 23 centuries separate Alexander the Great diving to the bottom of the Persian
Gulf from James Cameron diving into the Mariana trench. But it must not be forgotten
that the history of manned voyages to great depths beyond the continental shelf is
relatively recent. The craft developed by Lethebridge, Halley, Beebe and Barton
reached greater and greater depths but was still attached to the end of cables (Riffaud
1988). It was the Swiss Auguste Piccard who was to succeed in making the first
independently steered submarine designed to explore at great depths, launching the
race for record descents: 2,100 m in 1953 for the FNRSIII, 10,916 m in 1960 for
his son Jacques Piccard and the bathyscaphe TRIESTE (Piccard 1954; Houot and
Willm 1954; Piccard 1961). The path was now open, and scientific explorations were
to revolutionise knowledge of the seabed. For example, the French American Mid
Ocean Underwater Survey (F.A.M.O.U.S. 1972–1974) confirmed the existence of
oceanic ridges, then the expedition of the American Alvin and the French Cyana in
1977 discovered the famous underwater oases, where life develops outside of any
photosynthesis process (Laubier 1992).
The exploration of sea beds without a motorised machine developed at the same
time, but it was really in the 18th and 19th centuries that a diving-suit was improved which still only allowed movements on the seabed (Millot 1987). The air
was pumped from the surface in Auguste Siebe’s version, or carried by the diver in
the Rouquayrol-Denayrouse self-contained equipment which inspired Jules Vernes
for his novel “20,000 leagues under the sea”. It was not until 1926 that Fernez-Le
Prieur’s aqualung appeared (Le Prieur 1956). This apparatus used the flippers invented by De Corlieu in 1914 and enabled the diver to abandon the vertical walking
position to swim and explore the whole volume of the water in three dimensions.
This fascinating technical and scientific period, with all its discoveries and also
its dramas, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for literature and the cinema.
Scientific discoveries associated with the exploration of completely new and astonishing environments, submarine military history related to the Second World War
or the Cold War, or the economic colonisation of the seabed, such as the history of
the laying of telecommunication cables: all these topics are abundantly exploited in
contemporary cultural creations.
8.4 The History of Representation Media
The scientific and technical history of the discovery of certain land territories intersects with the social and cultural history of landscape models, as with the history of
the cultural media.
“The invasion of the audio-visual, the acceleration of speeds, the conquests of
space and the abyss have taught us and obliged us to live in new landscapes, underground, underwater, in the air [. . .] and many other registers still unexplored, if
not unsuspected, of more aggressive landscapes too, imposed on us by the cinema,
contrary to the Arcadian myth, dear to old Europe” (Roger 1997).
L. Le Dû-Blayo
Underwater exploration has been fantasized about since time immemorial. More
than 23 centuries separate Alexander the Great diving to the bottom of the Persian
Gulf from James Cameron diving into the Mariana trench. But it must not be forgotten
that the history of manned voyages to great depths beyond the continental shelf is
relatively recent. The craft developed by Lethebridge, Halley, Beebe and Barton
reached greater and greater depths but was still attached to the end of cables (Riffaud
1988). It was the Swiss Auguste Piccard who was to succeed in making the first
independently steered submarine designed to explore at great depths, launching the
race for record descents: 2,100 m in 1953 for the FNRSIII, 10,916 m in 1960 for
his son Jacques Piccard and the bathyscaphe TRIESTE (Piccard 1954; Houot and
Willm 1954; Piccard 1961). The path was now open, and scientific explorations were
to revolutionise knowledge of the seabed. For example, the French American Mid
Ocean Underwater Survey (F.A.M.O.U.S. 1972–1974) confirmed the existence of
oceanic ridges, then the expedition of the American Alvin and the French Cyana in
1977 discovered the famous underwater oases, where life develops outside of any
photosynthesis process (Laubier 1992).
The exploration of sea beds without a motorised machine developed at the same
time, but it was really in the 18th and 19th centuries that a diving-suit was improved which still only allowed movements on the seabed (Millot 1987). The air
was pumped from the surface in Auguste Siebe’s version, or carried by the diver in
the Rouquayrol-Denayrouse self-contained equipment which inspired Jules Vernes
for his novel “20,000 leagues under the sea”. It was not until 1926 that Fernez-Le
Prieur’s aqualung appeared (Le Prieur 1956). This apparatus used the flippers invented by De Corlieu in 1914 and enabled the diver to abandon the vertical walking
position to swim and explore the whole volume of the water in three dimensions.
This fascinating technical and scientific period, with all its discoveries and also
its dramas, is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for literature and the cinema.
Scientific discoveries associated with the exploration of completely new and astonishing environments, submarine military history related to the Second World War
or the Cold War, or the economic colonisation of the seabed, such as the history of
the laying of telecommunication cables: all these topics are abundantly exploited in
contemporary cultural creations.
8.4 The History of Representation Media
The scientific and technical history of the discovery of certain land territories intersects with the social and cultural history of landscape models, as with the history of
the cultural media.
“The invasion of the audio-visual, the acceleration of speeds, the conquests of
space and the abyss have taught us and obliged us to live in new landscapes, underground, underwater, in the air [. . .] and many other registers still unexplored, if
not unsuspected, of more aggressive landscapes too, imposed on us by the cinema,
contrary to the Arcadian myth, dear to old Europe” (Roger 1997).