‘Choreographies of nationhood’: Performing aviation as spectacle

In a context of the rapid development of air travel over the last century, this article posits flight as a performed spectacle and investigates the relationship between ‘aeromobility’ and ideas of national identity. It explores some of the ways in which aircraft have been employed and addressed in arts practices from Futurism to the 2012 London Olympics. In doing so, it argues that such practices are revealing of a complex and shifting relationship to an increasingly mobile world.