Introduction: Stereoscopic Illusions

Abstract

Maurice Merleau Ponty has said that ‘to see is to have at a distance’ (1964: 166). Vivian Sobchack quotes this in order to make the point that to hear, by contrast, is to be enveloped and surrounded (2012: 30). Although Sobchack frequently discusses audio-visual media that conflate this distinction between the senses (1992, 2004), longstanding artistic practices and theories posit sight as the colder, yet more intellectually engaged, disembodied receiver of phenomena. Consequently, artistic works, particularly those created in the Western world over the last few hundred years, are often constructed to maintain this division (Crary, 1992; Marks, 2000). What, then, of optical illusions that rely on a sense of proximity in order to function? In particular, I am interested in stereoscopy as a mode of visioning that has an almost 200-year history based upon deceiving the eyes’ understanding of distance, depth and solidity.¹ While stereoscopic images, be they from the stereoscope, cinema screen, television set or computer monitor, do not fully envelop or surround their viewer, by no means are they at a distance in the same way that flat (2D) images are. I do not use the term ‘flat’ to suggest that these latter images are without significant depth cues (perspective, shading, motion parallax), but they do perceptively operate on a planar surface.