International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media
The International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media is a new open access and peer-reviewed journal that aims to reflect on the emergence of our progressively immersive media culture.
The Panorama of Congo: Decolonising Heritage Through Artistic Research
This article delves into the complexities surrounding the Panorama of Congo, a challenging object of inquiry due to its exceptional size and contentious historical context. Commissioned by the Belgian Ministry of Colonies in 1913 to promote the Belgian Congo, the painting raises critical questions about colonial legacies amidst contemporary debates on decolonisation. Utilising artistic research as a central methodological tool, the FilmEU RIT Congo VR project explores the broader cultural issues hidden within this heritage object. Through a transdisciplinary approach, integrating artistic, media archaeological, and postcolonial perspectives, the research investigates the imperialist implications of immersive media, particularly panoramas, and the role of Virtual Reality in reinterpreting their embedded historical narratives. Highlighting the Congo VR project, the article showcases artistic creations and installations presented in exhibitions, emphasising the convergence of artistic research and decolonial approaches within museum contexts. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of colonial heritage and its implications for contemporary discourse on cultural representation and memory.
Direitos de Autor (c) 2025 International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media
Experiencing Landscape as a Visual Event: Dynamic Hyperstereoscopy and the Emergence of Perceptual Space
Dynamic hyperstereoscopy is an experimental stereoscopic technique that continuously adjusts interaxial disparity to generate a shifting perception of spatial depth. Instead of imitating visual stability, it presents space as a temporal and embodied phenomenon shaped by the viewer’s adaptive engagement. The research investigates mountainous environments whose complex spatial structures surpass the integrative limits of natural stereopsis. The footage was captured using two drones. The analysis of the qualitative responses indicated a recurring sequence: initial disorientation, followed by perceptual adaptation and improved spatial attunement. The approach is grounded in enactive and embodied perception theory, and is characterised by its aesthetic and investigative nature. The film resonates with the aesthetic principles of slow cinema, a genre that prioritises duration and sensory immersion over narrative clarity. A forthcoming film is set to extend the project into an immersive context, treating spatial ambiguity as an experiential medium and inviting viewers to perceive depth as a dynamic, cognitive process rather than a fixed visual illusion.
Sobre as Câmaras Escuras Primitivas, ou Paleo-Câmaras: Contributos para uma História dos Dispositivos Óticos
Terá a câmara escura uma história mais antiga do que se imagina? Estudos recentes em arqueologia sugerem que certos monumentos megalíticos terão sido utilizados como câmaras escuras. Indiciando a existência de paleo-câmaras, estes estudos mostram como, desde tempos ancestrais, o fenómeno óptico da câmara escura poderá ter sido empregue para fins simbólicos, revelando uma história mais antiga do que aquela que se supunha. Como terá decorrido o processo de apreensão deste fenómeno? Terá alguma contingência possibilitado o seu surgimento? Este ensaio propõe trazer uma proto-história da câmara escura para os estudos dos media. Analisado à luz da arqueologia dos media, o objetivo será perceber e considerar de que forma o fenómeno óptico que funda a câmara escura mediou desde tempos arcaicos uma experiência com a natureza. Palavras chave: câmara escura; arqueologia dos media; pré-história; técnica; imagem.
New Approaches to Stereoscopic 3D Film Production: Enhancements to a Unique Medium
This article presents a research project exploring the unique potential of Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) cinema through experimental techniques that challenge traditional 2D filmmaking conventions. The research identifies two key areas for experimentation— frame shape and haptic vision—to demonstrate how S3D can offer immersive experiences that are not possible or are greatly diminished in 2D formats. This study investigates non rectangular screen shapes, such as ovals, and their effects on depth perception and emotional engagement. Additionally, it explores haptic vision, aiming to evoke tactile-like sensations through the manipulation of convergence, focus, and colour. The research culminates in the S3D film No Race, which incorporates Indigenous Australian-inspired contemporary dance to illustrate the narrative possibilities of these experimental methods. This article highlights S3D’s transformative potential for multi-sensory storytelling and challenges traditional 2D biases in cinematic production.
Spectres of Phantasmagoria: Recreation and Analysis of the Soundscape of Robertson's Spectacle
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a specific entertainment show was conquering Europe: the Phantasmagoria. One of its most prominent authors was Étienne-Gaspard Robertson. This paper examines Robertson’s highly frequented rendition at the Convent des Capucines in Paris, maps his inventions and novelties in the show, and, by focusing on the sound elements, creatively reimagines the soundscape of this precinematic experience. Methodologically, the study combines a close reading of period accounts with a creative digital reinterpretation of the Phantasmagoria’s sound environment, employing historically informed sound design and spatial modelling to replicate its auditory effects. The resulting analysis suggests that sound functioned not simply as atmospheric accompaniment but as a central mechanism through which the spectacle shaped spectators’ perceptions, emotions, and beliefs.
Peeping Into Abstract Worlds: Tracing the Kaleidoscope from Optical Instrument to Immersive and Therapeutic Media
Bridging interdisciplinary perspectives, this article presents the kaleidoscope as a significant case study of self-directed perceptual technology in the history of immersive media. Using a media-archaeological approach, the study traces the device’s journey from Sir David Brewster’s 19th-century optical invention to its roles in contemporary therapy and immersive art. The article argues that the kaleidoscope endures because it mediates a recursive relationship between agency and perception—specifically through the interplay of tactile control, visual symmetry, and temporal fluidity. By contrasting the device with representational peep media, the analysis shows how it generates endless, abstract, non-narrative images that foster an embodied experience and cognitive regulation. This mechanism is explored across diverse contexts from its controversial beginnings as a ‘philosophical instrument’ to its clinical validation as a tool for reducing anxiety, to its transformation in large-scale installations by artists like Olafur Eliasson and teamLab. In these modern works, the principle of self-directed seeing evolves from tactile manipulation to viewer mobility. Ultimately, this study posits the kaleidoscope as a foundational ancestor of contemporary immersive technologies.
Panoramas as Memory of the World: An Immersive Media Art Form as Documentary Heritage
Coined in the 1790s, the term “panorama” originally described a purpose-built rotunda containing a circular painting that immersed viewers in a depicted place or event. Though presently understood as fixed in their locations, panoramas were typically designed to be circulated. This was accomplished either by transporting the canvas between rotundas, or by moving the entire structure, either way subjecting them to wear and tear. Surviving heritage examples endured in part because they became stationary exhibits; but whether mobile or fixed, the geographic location of display was—and, importantly, remains—intrinsic to their meaning. Panoramas are geographic documents that combine painting, architecture, lighting, and visitor movement to create an illusion of scale, aligning—or productively misaligning—subject and site in space and time. Recognition in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Program would bring attention to an archive that is geographically distributed rather than institutionally centralized. The International Panorama Council is uniquely qualified to define and interpret a dispersed archive that invites critical engagement with place-based histories of visitation, visualization, political formation, and the built environment.
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Exploring Empathy through the Design of an Embodied Installation Game
This article discusses the design of the embodied installation game Sisyphus: Endless Dilemma, designed to help examine and resolve the inequalities faced by patients with mood disorders. By employing a critical design framework and the form of an interactive art installation, Sisyphus: Endless Dilemma creates a dystopian physical interactive environment to immerse players in an inescapable predicament to evoke empathy for mood disorder groups. This embodied installation game takes artistic research as an overarching method. Through the iterative creation of, and reflection upon, an experimental game within a performative context we aim to generate new knowledge on spatial and experimental game design. The resulting gameplay is not only shaped by a set of interaction mechanisms but also composed of elements such as various sensory experiences, bodily movements, and the physical environment. The article illustrates the potential of the embodied installation game based on artistic research in contributing to the discourse on contemporary game design as well as serving as a catalyst for addressing social issues, moral dilemmas and cultural challenges.
Practice-based creative research, also known as research-creation, exists in a tenuous position between art and academia. There has been significant, ongoing research into the role of curatorial processes, research, and public-facing events as forms of knowledge production which draw from both traditional informational methodologies and creative or artistic approaches. However, much extant work on this subject is centered on gallery and museum spaces. This paper describes a creative research project carried out by a team of graduate students at Concordia University, which aims to bring research-creation into direct, engaged conversation with more traditional forms of academic research through the research collective’s development of interdisciplinary symposia. We discuss the importance of taking a design approach, including documentation and iterative practices, in order to create an environment in which creative research and scholastic research are treated as equally important forms of knowledge production. Specifically, we detail how the idea of meaningful methods influenced our approach, and how designing for connection and embodied experience are essential to creating event spaces which facilitate interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.
The following piece focuses on how the inclusion of fictional elements into documentaries allows for a different relationship with the film, allowing creators to explore different narrative avenues, characters to relate in a different way to the events and for the audience to actively engage with the film. I rely on two of my previous short documentary films and my current research as examples where I have used fiction inside the documentary form, and I examine how the insertion of fiction into the narrative, allows for a different perspective of the events depicted on each film. My research centers on the relationship between roots, identity and belonging, explored through documentary film. I use the notions of affect, embodied memory, and relationality together with Bergson’s understanding of time and memory to explore my own family’s story and its voids through a documentary film.
Maintaining Creativity and Ensuring Research
Current article is a reflection of a personal journey of transitioning from an artistic research track PhD student to a supervisor and lecturer helping the others in navigating the confusing and promising seas of artistic research. In 2020, I was the first PhD student to defend my thesis on the artistic research track of the /Anonymised/ School and as soon as I had defended, I was asked to serve in the position of the head of artistic research the track. As such, I experienced the trials and tribulations of the beginnings first hand and am now in a unique position to reflect upon the challenges we faced. As I write this, the two separate tracks of research in /Anonymised/ School have been merged into one, but as the period I experienced it, they were still separate, my reflection builds upon the previous structure.
This artistic research article explores the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the process of screenwriting, focusing on the Four Stage Story Generation method in collaborative screenwriting scenarios. The primary objective of this study is to explore and analyze the dynamics between human creativity and AI capabilities in crafting screenplays. By integrating AI into the traditional screenwriting process—which involves stages of writing, feedback, and rewriting—we investigate the transformative impacts on both the process and the outcomes of screenplay development. Our research employs GPT-4 to co-create a screenplay for a short film. This collaborative approach highlights the potential of AI to act as a creative partner, contributing to the ideation and development phases of the script. The study is structured around a four-stage model: thematic conception, story world conception, character conception, and dramaturgical conception. Each stage is designed to leverage the strengths of AI in generating content that adheres to established screenwriting paradigms while also pushing the boundaries of traditional creative processes. The findings from this study reveal that while AI can significantly enhance the screenwriting process by generating innovative ideas and content, it also presents challenges such as maintaining narrative coherence and depth in character development. The interaction between human screenwriters and AI showcases a complex interplay of creativity where AI’s contributions are curated and refined by human oversight. This research contributes to the understanding of AI’s role in creative industries and sets the stage for further explorations into the capabilities and limitations of AI in artistic collaborations. Keywords: Collaborative Screenwriting, Human-Machine-Interaction, GPT-4, prompting, Artistic Research
Editorials typically start with discussions on emerging debates that may later establish new fields, often including future predictions and outlining potential roadmaps. Qua Vadis is a genre in its own right, as a result. This does not appear to be necessary or appropriate any longer when discussing artistic or practice-based research (from hereafter “artistic research”). Firstly, several opinions have already mapped out the potential future trajectories of artistic research. More importantly, a decade or more has usually passed since their original publication. Fifteen years have passed since an important issue of Art and Research: A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods (Birell, ed. 2009: 1–2), which explored the emergent field from a myriad of angles, and just short of fifteen years ago, a seminal collection – The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts (Biggs and Karlsson, eds. 2010: xiii–xvi) – was published that aimed to start the discussion from first principles.
Artistic Experiments in Expanded Animation
This paper explores the integration of Virtual Reality, 3D printing, and anamorphic shadow techniques in the field of Expanded Animation. Using a collaborative and experimental Artistic Research method, the study contributes to extending the boundaries of animation, and to attributing a stronger sense of agency to the spectator or ‘eccentric observer’. The paper discusses different iterations in the development of the ‘Anamorphotrope’, an original installation work that has been exhibited in two modalities: as a VR installation and as a 3D-printed zoetrope. Both on a technical and conceptual level the novel approach taken in this project has a number of implications for future practices in animation and related artistic fields.
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Direitos de Autor (c) 2022 International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media
Media Archaeology Experiences: Method, Meaning and Amusement
In 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 epistemological 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.”
Jornalismo Imersivo: Dez anos de pesquisa e produções
This article aims to review the first ten years of research on immersive journalism, making a connection with journalistic practice. It starts with the initial formulation of the concept presented by De la Peña et al. (2010). A qualitative approach methodology, combined with a quantitative approach, is explored both with bibliographic research and a bibliometric analysis of academic publications on the concept. In this way, a mapping of investigations on immersive journalism in Portuguese, English and Spanish is made, and it is proposed to categorize these works considering the respective approaches. There are also professional immersive products explored as an empirical corpus in publications. Among the results, it is concluded that there is a scarcity of applied research and a demand for a deeper treatment of immersive journalism, instead of purely descriptive approaches. There is still a gap, not yet addressed academically, between the context from which the concept of immersive journalism was developed and the practice reported in scientific publications. Resumo: Este artigo tem como objetivo fazer uma revisão dos primeiros dez anos de pesquisa do jornalismo imersivo, fazendo uma relação com a prática jornalística. Parte-se da formulação inicial do conceito apresentado no trabalho de De la Peña et al. (2010). Explora-se com uma pesquisa bibliográfica uma metodologia de abordagem qualitativa, combinada com uma abordagem quantitativa através de uma análise bibliométrica das publicações acadêmicas sobre o conceito. Desta forma, elabora-se um mapeamento das investigações sobre o jornalismo imersivo em português, inglês e espanhol, e propõe-se uma categorização destes trabalhos considerando as respectivas abordagens. Observam-se também produtos imersivos profissionais explorados como corpus empírico nas publicações. Entre os resultados conclui-se que há uma escassez de pesquisas aplicadas e uma demanda por um tratamento mais aprofundado do jornalismo imersivo, para além de abordagens meramente descritivas. Regista-se ainda um desfasamento, ainda não abordado academicamente, entre o contexto a partir do qual o conceito de jornalismo imersivo foi desenvolvido e a prática relatada em publicações científicas.
Direitos de Autor (c) 2019 International Journal on Stereo & Immersive Media
Minstrelsy, Blackface, and Racialized Performance in Narrative Stereoviews, 1860-1902
This 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 unstable, 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.
3x3d – A Sobreposição de Imagens Volumétricas como Investigação Estética do Potencial da Montagem
The superposition of images is an editing feature used since the beginning of cinema, often little recognized as a verisimilitude effect. In the 3x3D film (France / Portugal, 2013), various types of superposition that show this edition style are used and, even more atypically, added to the 3D effect. The purpose of this article is to investigate the possible originality of this procedure, both its form and concept, drawing on a survey of the fictional 3D film production - excluding, therefore, animations - the pre-cinema and the experimental and expanded cinemas. The analysis should indicate how the editing of the film adds complexity both to the perceptible construction of superimposed images and to the three-dimensional film image. Thus, one can observe the relationship of 3D in contemporary audiovisual images and estimate its possible evolution. Resumo: A sobreposição de imagens é um recurso de montagem utilizado desde os primórdios do cinema, quase sempre pouco reconhecido como efeito de verossimilhança. No filme 3x3D (França/Portugal, 2013), vários tipos de sobreposição que evidenciam esse estilo de montagem são empregues e, mais atipicamente ainda, somados ao efeito 3D. O intuito deste artigo é investigar a eventual originalidade deste procedimento, tanto a sua forma como o conceito, a partir de um levantamento da produção cinematográfica em 3D ficcional filmado – excluindo-se, portanto, as animações –, o pré-cinema e os cinemas experimental e expandido. A análise deve indicar como a montagem do filme acrescenta complexidade tanto à construção perceptível de imagens sobrepostas, quanto à imagem fílmica tridimensional. Assim, pode-se observar a relação do 3D nas imagens audiovisuais contemporâneas e estimar a sua possível evolução.
Nineteenth-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.
The Gravitational Pull of Cuarón's Gravity
Film 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.
Aplicações da Fotografia a Cores (Processo Lumière) e da Fotografia Estereoscópica na Medicina
What does stereoscopic photography have in common with color photography as developed by the Lumière brothers? Both processes are illusions, leading human perception to reconstruct the appearance of depth and natural color. Both types of photography required devices to enable observation, contributing to a visual immersion with the subject matter. The combination of both processes gave rise to coloured stereoscopic images ( stereo autochromes) which were popular in the period. When seen through special equipment, they could produce three-dimensional images which fascinated early 20th-century observers. Stereoscopic photography and autochromes were, rather than a simple means of entertainment and art, of paramount relevance to the development of medicine, as well as to its dissemination and medical education. Through an historical approach, this essay seeks to examine the role of these two immersive photographic techniques in medicine, thus allowing us to highlight the similarities between both processes, as well as to acknowledge their limitations. Resumo: O que podem ter em comum as fotografias estereoscópicas e as fotografias a cores desenvolvidas pelos irmãos Lumière? Ambos os processos são ilusões, levando a perceção humana a reconstruir a impressão de profundidade ou da cor natural. Os dois tipos de fotografia necessitavam de aparelhos que permitissem a sua visualização, contribuindo para uma imersão do observador no objeto observado. A junção dos dois processos originou as imagens estereoscópicas a cores (autocromos estereoscópicos) que foram populares na época. Vistas com equipamento especial, elas produziam imagens em 3D que seduziam o observador do início do século XX. As fotografias estereoscópicas e os autocromos, longe de serem unicamente um instrumento de diversão ou artístico, desde cedo ocuparam um lugar primordial no desenvolvimento da medicina, bem como no seu ensino e divulgação. Através de uma abordagem histórica, pretende-se neste artigo analisar o papel destas duas técnicas fotográficas imersivas na medicina, de modo a sublinhar as semelhanças entre os dois processos, assim como conhecer as suas limitações.
The Photographic Ateliers of Carlos Relvas
Photography 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 littleknown 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.
Adventures of A Photographer from Madeira in the Imperial Court of Brazil
Based on the discovery of four portraits in the collection of the Brazilian National Archives, we researched the trajectory of Diogo Luis Cipriano (1820-1870), born on Madeira Island, one of the first daguerreotypists to settle in Rio de Janeiro. We try to describe the tensions and conflicts between painters, miniaturists and photographers in search for their prestige and commercial success in the capital of the Empire of Brazil, between 1850 and 1870. On the other hand, we analyze how in the public arena of the newspaper pages and the busy corners of the Court, techniques are confronted, talents are measured and, mainly, the signs of modernity and the monopoly of saudade (nostalgia) are disputed. Resumo: A partir da descoberta de quatro retratos na coleção do Arquivo Nacional brasileiro, investigamos a trajetória de Diogo Luis Cipriano (1820-1870), nascido na Ilha da Madeira, um dos primeiros daguerreotipistas a se estabelecer no Rio de Janeiro. Procuramos descrever as tensões e os conflitos entre pintores, miniaturistas e fotógrafos por prestígio e sucesso comercial na capital do Império do Brasil, entre 1850 e 1870. Por outro lado, observamos como na arena pública das páginas dos jornais e das movimentadas esquinas da Corte confrontam-se técnicas, medem-se talentos e, principalmente, disputam-se os signos de modernidade e o monopólio da saudade.
‘Startling’, ‘Extraordinarily beautiful’, and ‘Obtrusive’: Reactions and Responses to the Stereo-Autochrome
The 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.
Artificial Horizon. Blind Flight in the History of Virtual Reality
Histories 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 sensory 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 relationship 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.
Charles Thurston Thompson and his Portuguese Project: The Real World Understood as Material for Exhibition
Charles Thurston Thompson’s work in Santiago de Compostela has occupied stagefront 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.
Science, Art and Heritage. The Isolated Discovery of Photography in Brazil
Produced by different techniques and processes, photographs have become means of visual knowledge, historic sources for the study and transdisciplinary research of multiple aspects of the history, culture, memory and identity of societies. The cultural heritage of a people finds, in the photographic image and in its artefacts, visual memory preserved. My topic addresses precisely the moment prior to the dissemination of photography throughout the world. A moment when photography, or the idea of it, was still something that some researchers, very few, some distant from others, thought about and experimented with a similar aim: that of making permanent the images of the camera obscura. I am referring to the first decades of the 19th century and, more specifically, to the 1830s. Historic approaches, when they seek to analyse the possible causes that determine discoveries, usually repeat “that the idea was in the air”. Actually, this statement explains very little of the phenomenon, at least in the instance we will address here. Resumo: Produzidas por diferentes técnicas e processos, as fotografias se prestam como meios de conhecimento visual, fontes históricas para o estudo e a pesquisa transdisciplinar de múltiplos aspectos da história, cultura, memória e identidade das sociedades. O patrimônio cultural de um povo tem na imagem fotográfica e nos seus artefatos, a memória visual preservada. Meu tema se refere justamente ao momento anterior à expansão da fotografia pelo mundo. A um momento em que a fotografia, ou a ideia dela, era ainda algo que alguns pesquisadores, muito poucos, uns afastados dos outros, pensavam e experimentavam com um propósito semelhante: o de tornar permanentes as imagens da camera obscura. Me refiro às primeiras décadas do século XIX e, mais precisamente, à década de 1830. As abordagens históricas quando buscam analisar as possíveis causas determinantes das descobertas costumam repetir “que a ideia estava no ar”. Na realidade essa frase explica muito pouco sobre o fenômeno, pelo menos no caso que abordaremos aqui.