Adventures in Stereo: Stereoscopic Cinema in the Age of a Digital Observer

This paper represents an historical and cultural context for the research and studio work achieved during the 2 year MAA in Media Arts at ECUAD. The studio component is an exploratory engagement within emerging processes of digital stereoscopic production and alternative uses of new and available tools. The ultimate goal of the research is focused on a process discovering how to work within the stereo space, developing tools for cinematic applications and collecting this knowledge into an arsenal of stereo communication techniques outside of the methods dictated by a dominantly orthostereoscopic understanding of 3D imagery. In order to position the tools, possibilities and subsequent impact of stereoscopic media within current Western culture, the paper reflects upon Jonathan Crary’s concept of the observer and Giorgio Agamben’s apparatus. The apparatus and the observer are concepts that aid in understanding stereo media’s place in history and its re-emergence in the digital present. The studio research project manifests in a stereo film/installation hybrid, which exemplifies the ideas and links between the apparatus and observer. Included in the thesis are descriptions of key influential artists and filmmakers, such as Phillippe Baylaucq, Michael Snow, Wim Wenders, Janet Cardiff and James Turrell. These descriptions are paired with insight into the production and aesthetic qualities of the thesis project to help the reader better understand the scope of applied knowledge gained through the research project, as well as the creative impetus behind it. Alongside the contemporary examples and influences is an historical account of the Spottiswoode Brothers and the pivotal Telecinema festival. The historical account demonstrates how this thesis project and current stereo practitioners are still working to create a stereo language for dimensional films.