The Light Work Annual 2003

arq, 2007

International Journal of Film and Media Arts, 2016

While recent scholarship has emphasised narratives of immersive realism that surrounded the parlour stereoscope, my aim in this paper is to understand better the countercurrents of nineteenth-century stereoscopic culture – the artefacts, practices and discourses that powerfully undermined realist assumptions about spatial perception and the “truth” of stereoscopic representation. Wheatstone’s original stereoscopes were designed to “hack” spatial perception and subject each of its component principles to artificial manipulation. What Wheatstone uncovered were glaring anomalies for prevailing theories of veridical sight which had relied upon the principle of binocular convergence (understood as a precise trigonometric measure of depth). Following a popular tradition of critical inquiry known as “rational recreation,” amateurs too used their stereoscopes to reflect on the perplexities of binocular spatial perception. Analytic line drawings highlighted the inexplicable binocular suture of strikingly disparate images. Stereograms with their images transposed revealed the capacity of the mind to constitute volumetric objects irrespective of binocular cues. Hyperstereo images (taken from a wide separation and therefore at an increased angle of binocular convergence) sparked debate and perceptual uncertainty as to whether the 3D effects of these or indeed all stereograms were distorted – elongated along the z axis and/or miniaturized. Realists, including some astronomers hoping to use hyperstereo photographs as visual evidence of the shape of the moon’s surface, sought unsuccessfully to solve the problem of elongation by ensuring that the angles at which stereo photographs were taken were reproduced in the angles at which the eyes viewed them in the stereoscope. Astronomers were forced to quietly abandon the stereoscope as a reliable witness of spatial form. Others, artists in particular, reveled in the anti-realist implications of a spatial imagination that constructs the perceptual world in sometimes capricious fashion.

2010

DE GIDS, 1997

Drawing from philosophical and artistic perspectives, this (unpublished) translation of a short essay (published in Dutch in 1997) describes the tension and the intricate interplay between detachment and intimacy in the contemplation of visual depictions. The act of viewing images parallels remote observation, offering concentrated focus and sharp vision on distant vistas. Paradoxically, along with the non-involvement, images evoke emotional responses and memories, resonating with viewers even as they remain distant.

THESIS MA PHOTOGRAPHY LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION, 2005

Throughout my research, I have come to realize that a systematic research on the various ways light has been used in photography has not been undertaken yet. There are a number of books that deal with the practical issues of studio or location lighting, night and low-light photography and how to create attractive wedding or children’s’ portraits, but I haven’t come across a single book that deals with the theoretical and aesthetic issues that play a role in the way our perception of light and photography have been in continuous interplay since the invention of the medium. On the other hand, the uses of light in painting and cinematography have been the subject of numerous books some of which have been useful for the writing of this essay, since the way we view photographs within our ‘modern ocularcentrism’ has been shaped by a long tradition in art. Obviously such a vast and multifaceted subject requires much more time and resources than the ones I have had in my disposal; therefore I have only been able to examine it in a way that is far more superficial than I would have wished. I have -reluctantly- concentrated on the use of light in the work of four photographers who are the leading contemporary representatives in the area of photographic practice (...) often described as tableau or tableau-vivant photography . I have chosen this particular genre, often referred to as ‘constructed’ or ‘staged’ photography not only because it relates to my own practice but more significantly because the elements depicted (…) are worked out in advance and drawn together to articulate a preconceived idea for the creation of the image and therefore the light has been pre-determined by the photographer. I am interested in tracing down the ways in which this choice has been informed and shaped as light is one of the key elements –arguably the most important- that help us ‘read’ a picture, greatly influencing its mood and creating possible associations in the mind of the viewer.

History of Photography

European stereoscopic photography owes a significant part of its cultural specificity to amateur photographers who resorted to the wet collodion process to document nature with reduced exposure times and to perfect their photographic art with crisper and more detailed images. The Portuguese Carlos Relvas (1838–94) was one of these renowned collodion practitioners. Until recently, most of his stereoscopic collections remained undigitised and unstudied, and the contribution of stereoscopy to the launch of his international career was little known. The building of an online catalogue raisonné dedicated to Relvas’s stereoscopic photography has been an opportunity to undertake a combined study of his stereoscopic negatives and prints, making it possible to retrieve new information about the extent, importance and evolution of his stereoscopic work. While designed to make these collections digitally available, the catalogue offers a new perspective on the specific value of stereoscopic negatives and cross-referenced ‘image families’ for a new understanding of photographic practice. By re-examining the opportunities offered by digital collections, this article sheds light on their potential to remodel the memory and historic value of a nineteenth-century photographer and, in particular, to properly showcase stereoscopic photography.

English: In the mid-sixties, American artists such as Robert Smithson, Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman got interested in the issue of vision. Probably influenced by the increasing popularity of a scientific literature that often dealt with matters of optical perception as well as by the debates triggered of by the Op Art craze, which placed the physiology of the eye under great scrutiny, these artists used obsolete optical devices such as the stereoscope or brand new technologies such as closed-circuit television to produce works that no longer were mere visual objects to be looked at, but that became optical situations staging the very processes and structures of vision. Reversing the usual (power) relation of sight, these works set up what one might call an intransitive vision. Instead of opening onto a visual content, vision materializes, shows and exhibits itself. By overexposing vision, Smithson, Graham and Nauman do not exalt the visual. On the contrary, they highlight its faults and aim at deconstructing its physiological reflexes (such as binocular vision) and its cultural biases (like perspective). Exhibiting vision can therefore be a way to escape the all-might of the visual since ultimately, as Smithson put it, “to see one’s sight means visible blindness”. Here lies the paradox this talk plans to tackle: the display of vision would equate its failure. French: Cette communication analysera la manière dont, à partir du milieu des années 1960, les artistes américains Robert Smithson, Dan Graham et Bruce Nauman s’emparèrent de la question de la vision. Influencés par un contexte artistique qui, avec le succès de l’art optique, questionnait la physiologie de l’œil et le rôle du cerveau dans la perception visuelle, exposés à une littérature de vulgarisation scientifique qui faisait la part belle aux questions d’optique, et convoquant des dispositifs optiques désuets tel que le stéréoscope ou des technologies nouvelles comme la vidéo en circuit-fermé, Smithson, Nauman et Graham produisirent un ensemble d’œuvres qui n’étaient pas tant des objets visuels (soit, des objets à voir) que des situations optiques mettant-en-scène les structures et les processus de la vision elle-même. Opérant un renversement de la relation traditionnelle qui place le regard du côté du spectateur, ces œuvres fonctionnaient en établissant ce que l’on nommera une vision intransitive, soit une vision qui n’est plus ouverture et mise en forme d’un contenu visuel, mais qui se montre elle-même, se matérialise et s’exhibe. En surexposant ainsi la vision, Smithson, Graham et Nauman n’exaltent pas le visuel. Au contraire, ils en pointent les dysfonctionnements et en déconstruisent les réflexes physiologiques (celui de la vision binoculaire par exemples) et les impensés culturels (tels que le réflexe perspectif). Exposer la vision apparaît finalement comme le meilleur moyen d’échapper à la toute-puissance du visuel puisque, ainsi que l’écrit Robert Smithson au sujet des ses Enantiomorphic Chambers : « voir sa vue, équivaut à l’aveuglement rendu visible ». Tel est le paradoxe que l’on souhaite placer au cœur de notre réflexion : exhiber la vision, ce serait la mettre en échec.