Tourbillons et turbulences

Abstract

Étienne-Jules Marey’s experiments in rendering invisible air movements and turbulences visible are of crucial importance to aviation research around 1900. The article takes these experiments as a point of departure to show how vortices of smoke, produced by Marey’s ‘Machine à fumée’, generated a visual knowledge of aerodynamic processes to promote human aviation. Moreover, it demonstrates that the (air) turbulences also entered into the experimental practice itself, thus turning into “epistemic turbulences”. As such, they did not only challenge Marey’s experimental setup and his ideal of utmost precision but also blurred the established oppositions between science and art.