IJSIM : International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media, Vol. 6, Nº. 1 (2022)
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Item Charles Thurston Thompson and his Portuguese Project : the real world understood as material for exhibition(CICANT, 2022) Fontanella, LeeCharles Thurston Thompson’s work in Santiago de Compostela has occupied stage-front among all of his photographs. Probably for this reason, it is much less known that the Portuguese royal collections and a few Portuguese locations were the primary purpose for his travelling to Iberia. Santiago was an unforeseen interruption. John Charles Robinson, as principal voice behind acquisitions in the South Kensington Museum, was the background Eminence in these enterprises. Here, I piece together the sojourn in Portugal and interrelate – technically, methodologically, and stylistically – the Iberian photographic work with the broader corpus by Thurston Thompson.Item Media archaeology experiences : method, meaning and amusement(CICANT, 2022) Bantjes, RodIn this paper I make four interventions in favour of the seductive value of experiential media archaeology. 1) The constellation of material artefacts that mediate between us and the world are an implicit context for historic writing on perception, representation and epistemology. Engagement with the materiality of these often-forgotten artefacts offers insight into the meanings of texts that exclusively text-based scholarship would otherwise miss. 2) Tacit, artisanal knowledge embedded in artefacts sometimes exceeds that which can be found in written texts. I argue that an effective way of accessing this material logic is to re-build old artefacts to see how they work. Applying the theory of extended cognition to this process, I make a case for its unique epistemo- logical value. 3) I show how the seductive intimacy of these objects can be amplified by re-imagining their aesthetic possibilities. 4) I discuss the educational value of the “rational recreation” with media artifacts as “philosophical toys.”Item The photographic ateliers of Carlos Relvas(CICANT, 2022) Mendes, Ana DavidPhotography studies have not always been dedicated to the analysis of photographic studios to better understand the works of great photographers. This essay focuses on the different photographic studios of Carlos Relvas (1838-1894) in Golegã, with a particular focus on the little-studied and little-known transformations of his splendorous Photographic Atelier of Golegã into a residential space. In the 1870s, the paradigm shift of photosensitive emulsions to faster exposure times had an impact on the way Carlos Relvas looked at his studio, forcing him to rethink the investment made in a space that no longer corresponded to the new technical reality of photography. Understood as a light production machine, Carlos Relvas’ studio is a key piece in his photographic work. In this essay, through the analysis of his photographs, we recover details and aspects of his various studios that are revealing of his inventive spirit, as well as his desire to keep up with the evolution of photographic art.Item Minstrelsy, blackface, and racialized performance in narrative stereoviews, 1860-1902(CICANT, 2022) Davis, MelodyThis essay looks at the influence of blackface minstrelsy on stereoviews of British and American publication from 1860-1902, within a transatlantic perspective. Using Black and blackface models, as well as hand-coloring, or “photographic blackface”, stereoview publishers employed ready cultural codes from minstrelsy for racialized performance in order to posit an antithesis to whiteness for comic effect. Taking a “yes, it’s racist and” approach, this paper demonstrates that narrative stereoviews were informed by minstrelsy’s codes of white racial superiority and Black inferiority, and these codes could be destabilized through over-signage and contradictory or crossed signifiers. Binaries of race, gender and sexuality in the stereoviews can become un- stable, while the stereoview’s two photographs contribute to this effect by offering an already doubleness that, when applied to race, suggests a relation more close than different.Item ‘Startling’, ‘extraordinarily beautiful’, and ‘obtrusive’ : reactions and responses to the stereo-autochrome(CICANT, 2022) Langford, CatlinThe commercial release of the Lumière Autochrome in 1907 made three-dimensional colour images appear in reach. The issues surrounding the viewing of autochromes seemed to be mitigated in the stereoscopic format, with stereo-autochromes branded a sensation in the photographic and popular press, compared to witchcraft in their combination of the stereoscopes’ sense of depth and relief with the autochrome’s full spectrum of colours. But over time, issues with the stereo-autochrome, ranging from ‘clumping’ to exposure times, fed into a rejection of the invention. This paper will draw on new research into the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection of autochromes and related objects and ephemera.Item A case of science and playfulness(CICANT, 2022) Lucena, Isabel deNineteenth-century Europe was the stage of extraordinary scientific and technological developments. The inquisitive spirit of the time led to the study of human perception. The understanding of the mechanisms of human vision was no exception, and it was of particular relevance since scientific knowledge was based on what was observable. The invention of the stereoscope in 1832 had profound consequences in education, entertainment and medical practices. Undoubtedly, the attentive eyes of the early 20th-century artists were not indifferent to such developments as a new paradigm for art and aesthetics was due. Indeed, around the turn of that century, we see the adoption of technical language and the introduction of the poetic function, self-reference, interactivity and the multiplicity of readings in art. This paper attempts to draw links between 19th-century philosophical toys, medical therapies with binocular images, and the aesthetics of the 20th-century vanguards. A 1912 set of orthoptic cards used in the medical treatment of strabismus, among other cards and philosophical toys, are used to illustrate and establish these relations.Item The gravitational pull of Cuarón's gravity(CICANT, 2022) Idrovo, ReneFilm scholar Miguel Mera (2016) argued that Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013) was likely to generate a strong “gravitational pull” towards a broader exploitation of three-dimensional (3D) sound. In this article, the aesthetics of Cuarón’s work are compared to those in a number of other films. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s most recent films are presented as advocates of Cuarón’s film style, referred to here as immersive continuity. This approach makes constant use of long takes that are complemented by the immersive action of 3D sound. Moreover, it is observed that many other motion pictures in a variety of genres have made use of similar aesthetics, creating impressive three-dimensional sound designs. Through the examination of several Dolby Atmos titles, the author suggests that the screen-centrality of the cinematic voice is not as great a concern as previously thought. Ultimately, it is argued that conventional editing is now the biggest obstacle to achieving the mythical total cinema described by André Bazin.Item Artificial horizon : blind flight in the history of virtual reality(CICANT, 2022) Roberts, IvyHistories of virtual reality (VR) usually place its origins in computing. But this can be pushed back even further by considering early experiments in flight, principally in the endeavour to fly by instrument, that took place in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. This essay positions blind flight in the history of virtual reality and other immersive media in order to understand what sen- sory deprivation has to do with proprioception. Deprived of visual and aural senses, pilots were taught to reorient their perception of space using the artificial horizon as their guide. This essay uses the metaphor of the artificial horizon to discuss the relation- ship between sensory deprivation and sensory overload, both of which disturb the internal process that makes proprioception possible. Applying the method of media archeology places this study among others that have sought to historicise contemporary immersive media in unique ways, often with unexpected outcomes.