‘There never really is a stereoscopic image’: a closer look at 3-D media

Expanded stereoscopy: Alternative aesthetics for artistic expression in 3D films

“…Film scholars have pointed out that S3D film provides a ‘substantially different experience’ (Hall, 2004: 245–246, in Jones, 2015: 171) from 2D planar media, including 2D cinema, photography and painting. As such, S3D media should be differentiated from 2D planar media because they require different types of cinematic practice and grammar, and S3D does not perform in real-life or monocular pictorial perception as the latter do.…”

“…In the case of enhanced realism, S3D can closely portray or reproduce the spatial characteristics of an object or environment, providing a more accurate, realistic representation compared to 2D media. On the other hand, S3D can also be utilised to create novel percepts and visual effects beyond the recreation of space and realistic representation (Jones, 2015: 178–180). According to Jonathan Crary, ‘there never really is a stereoscopic image’ (Crary, 1990: 122) in the sense that stereoscopy should be perceived as something embodied and illusionistic other than an image, which has significant consequences for how we think about 3D cinema.…”

“…Stereoscopic 3D presents a unique mode of spatial representation that can be both captivating and intriguing. Nick Jones argues that stereoscopic media exert ‘a strange kind of fascination’ (Jones, 2015: 186), which presents a different mode of distorted representation of space that can change the meaning and content of individual film texts and the landscape of cinema more generally (184). 2 He describes this strangeness of 3D cinema as ‘ephemeral yet strangely material-seeming optical illusions quite different from cinema images or real-life experiences’ (Jones, 2015: 180).…”

“…Therefore, stereoscopic material should aim at a different set of demonstrable properties which, according to Nick Jones, include (1) sense of subjectivity, (2) perceptually unusual distortions in the visual space and (3) tangible immateriality (Jones, 2015: 184). These attributes should be closely linked to two critical aspects of exhibiting S3D media: (1) the control of depth relationships in content and perception and (2) the positioning or placement of the audience.…”

Incredible but Very Real: 3D Cinema and Trauma in the Wake of WWII and 9/11

“…The 3D film is composed of two largely similar images presented in tandem, and it is our brain's task, with the aid of the stereoscopic glasses, to fuse the two images into one coherent image which exhibits stereoscopic depth. In other words, as Crary and Jones argue, the stereoscopic image exists only in the mind of the viewer (see Jones 2015;Crary 1992:120-122). In turn, the viewer is affected by the 3D film through an entanglement of the stereoscopic film body and the human body, which are co-dependent in the creation of the stereoscopic world.…”